I know you can’t fully de-Google… at least without losing access to parts of the internet, your work life, or the people you care about. But this checklist isn’t about purity, it’s about giving regular people a way to push back without needing a tech background or an off-grid cabin.
It’s a week-by-week guide to easing out of the Google ecosystem:
- Replacing Gmail, Maps, Drive, YouTube, etc.
- Backing up data safely
- Making privacy decisions that work for you
- Optional “fallback” steps for folks who can’t go all-in
This was built as a shareable tool for anyone who’s feeling digitally exhausted or sick of feeding surveillance capitalism. It’s free and printable—no signup, no tracking. It’s a gift from an angry little dog/semi-retired journalist who cares.
PNGs are below, and the PDF automatic download with links is here. I’ll build a post around it one of these days but wanted to get it out to the world asap!
I’d love thoughts on turning this into a free course/challenge, maybe with a Signal group.
I get it! Mailfence has a free starter plan.
I used a spreadsheet to track all the logins I changed, privacy settings I did on each, etc. I did a little at a time. Now, ProtonPass stores all my passwords so I don’t have to worry about remembering the masked email I created for each one.
There’s a lot of up-front effort, but then things smooth out as the new platforms and habits become your new normal.