How to live without Google

Google service to replace: Google Search

Let's start with the easiest one. Google search is widely used because in the past it was the only one giving reliable results quickly. However, privacy-friendly search engines have caught up over the past few years, and there is no reason at all not to favor those.

Also worth mentioning: Startpage, Searx, Qwant, Ecosia, Brave Search & Mojeek.

Google service to replace: Google Chrome

Today there are several browsers that give you much more privacy-protection than Google Chrome. Firefox is a well-established browser known for respecting user's privacy, and recently, with the Quantum update, it even became faster than Chrome. And if you need extra anonymity when browsing online, you can use the Tor Browser.

Also worth mentioning: Brave, LibreWolf, qutebrowser, ungoogled-chromium & Bromite.

Google service to replace: Chrome OS

Fedora Workstation is a really good distribution for people new to Linux. Fedora generally adopts newer technologies before other distributions e.g., Wayland, PipeWire, and soon, FS-Verity. These new technologies often come with improvements in security, privacy, and usability in general.

Also worth mentioning: Arch Linux, Linux Mint, Manjaro Linux, Zorin OS, openSUSE, Pop!_OS, Solus & Qubes OS.

Google service to replace: Gmail

Gmail is by far the most used email service in the world. But even if it's a very handy service with lots of third-party integration, you have to know that Google can read all your email for marketing purposes and that you have strictly zero privacy while using such a service. ProtonMail, on the other side, offers end-to-end encryption so that it is fully protected from snooping eyes and even the developers cannot read your emails.

Also worth mentioning: Tuta Mail, Posteo, Mailfence, mailbox & StartMail.

Google service to replace: Inbox by Gmail

Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail, news and instant messaging client. The project strategy is modelled after Mozilla Firefox. It supports POP (storing mail locally on your hard drive so that it can be accessed without an internet connection), and IMAP. It features excellent mail filter capabilities and management. Thunderbird has strong support for using multiple accounts and identities, including automated signature features. Thunderbird can also function as an RSS/Atom feed reader, and has a large selection of add-ons that extend it with calendar support (https://alternativeto.net/software/lightning/), PGP support (https://alternativeto.net/software/enigmail/), integration with online services and much more.

Also worth mentioning: Canary Mail, K-9 Mail, Claws Mail & Mailspring.

PS : One of the reasons I didn't use Thunderbird before was because of its UI which is pretty old and ugly. But thanks to that slick Thunderbird theme, you can now use it with a clean and nice interface.

Google service to replace: Google Calendar

fruux is a free service that takes care of your contacts, calendars and tasks so you don't have to. With fruux, you'll never have to manually copy your contacts and calendars between your devices again.

Also worth mentioning: Nextcloud & DAVx5.

Google service to replace: Google Drive

When using Google Drive, one must know that all files are stored unencrypted on Google servers. Everyone gaining access to these servers can easily copy and read those files. Netxcloud allows you to access, share and protect your files, calendars, contacts, communication & more at home and in your enterprise. It's a self-hosted service so your data are on a server you control. But if you want a hosted solution with end-to-end encryption, you can also try Spideroak One Backup or Tresorit.

Also worth mentioning: Syncthing, Seafile, kDrive & Pydio.

Google service to replace: Google Photos

Piwigo is a web application to manage your collection of photos, and other medias. Embedding powerful features, it powers photo galleries all around the world. Piwigo includes many features such as albums, tags, geolocation, multiple levels of customization, sending photos by visitors, photo privacy, calendar and statistics. Piwigo also handles themes and plugins for an integration as close as possible to the style of your site.

Also worth mentioning: Recall Photos, Lychee, Zyl, Cluster, Stingle Photos & Slidebox.

Google service to replace: Android

The most popular alternative to Android is, of course, iOS, which offers easy device encryption and encrypted messaging via iMessage by default. But iOS is detained by Apple and some people might want to use an open-source operating system based on Android. And since Cyanogen, Inc. officially ended support for CyanogenMod some times ago, the new kid in town is LineageOS and it's really good. You'd have to install it with microG or Open GApps in order to entirelly replace Google Services.

Also worth mentioning: GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, DivestOS, Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS & /e/.

Google service to replace: Gboard

OpenBoard is a 100% FOSS keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy.

Also worth mentioning: FlorisBoard, AnySoftKeyboard, Hacker's Keyboard, kboard & Simple Keyboard.

Google service to replace: Google Play Store

F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device just like Google Play. F-Droid only allows you to install open-source apps, so, if you want to install non-FOSS apps but don't want to use the Play Store, you could also be interested in Aptoide, Yalp Store & Aurora Store.

Also worth mentioning: G-Droid, Aurora Droid, Neo-Store & Droid-ify.

Google service to replace: YouTube

This one is a hard one — maybe even the hardest one on this list. Nowadays, everyone uploads and watches videos on YouTube. If you're creating and hosting videos yourself, Odysee provides a free, open source and decentralized platform running on the LBRY protocol to allow users to upload and share videos to people around the world. For videos that are only on YouTube (unfortunately, a lot), you can search for and watch them using Invidious, FreeTube or NewPipe for better privacy protection.

Also worth mentioning: SkyTube, Piped & LibreTube that are some good open-source YouTube clients. You can also take a look at PeerTube, which is not some other YouTube client, but a true decentralized YouTube alternative (like Odysee).

Google service to replace: Google Maps & Waze

For iOS users, Apple gives you an alternative built-in via Apple Maps, so no installation is necessary if you're okay with using Apple services. If you want to use an open-source service with wider device support, check out OpenStreetMap and its mobile application OsmAnd, though it may not have the same ease-of-use or coverage quality as Google Maps.

Also worth mentioning: Magic Earth, Organic Maps & Qwant Maps.

Google service to replace: Google Smart Lock

A password manager is a mandatory tool if you use lots of passwords for online protection and don't want to use the built-in Chrome/Firefox one. One of the best on the market is Bitwarden. It's open-source, easy to use and works on all the desktop and mobile platforms.

Also worth mentioning: LessPass, KeePass with its derivates (https://alternativeto.net/software/keepassxc/, KeePassDroid, KeeWeb, Keepass2Android & MacPass), Spectre, Passbolt & pass.

Google service to replace: Google Allo

There are several services offering private messaging but Signal (or Silence IM) gets our recommendation. It offers free, end-to-end encryption for both messages and private calls. It's also recommended by Edward Snowden and renowned security expert Bruce Schneier, among others. Wire is also a good solution. The app allows users to exchange end-to-end encrypted instant messages, as well as make voice and video calls.

Also worth mentioning: Wire, Conversations, Element, Session, Threema & Briar.

Google service to replace: Hangouts

Jitsi is a robust video chat alternative we use internally that works well even for large numbers of participants, though requires software to be installed. A web-only alternative is Jitsi Meet which doesn't require an account — just go to the website to open a chat room and you're ready.

Also worth mentioning: Mumble, Jami & Nextcloud Talk.

Google service to replace: Blogger

Ghost is both a hosted (paid) and self-installable blogging platform, tracker-free by default and run by a non-profit foundation. It's an open source publishing platform which is beautifully designed, easy to use, and free for everyone.

Also worth mentioning: WordPress, Grav, Jekyll & Hugo.

Google service to replace: Google Analytics

Matomo is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics that you can self-host on your own server or web hosting. It's better than GA in many ways:

• You have the full ownership of the analytics data
• You get unsampled data (understanding data sampling in Google Analytics)
• The cost is very low
• No data storage and collection limit
• Endless customization of the platform
• You can configure privacy settings like "Do not track" and the anonymization of IP addresses of visitors

And even if you don't want to setup, configure and maintain your infrastructure for Matomo and/or if you want to customize Matomo to meet your specific tracking/reporting requirements, then you can use Piwik PRO Analytics Suite which is a paid service.

Also worth mentioning: GoAccess, Fathom Analytics, Simple Analytics, Open Web Analytics, Plausible Analytics, Counter, umami, Shynet & Offen Fair Web Analytics.

Google service to replace: Google Keep

Standard Notes is a safe place for your notes, thoughts, and life's work. All your notes are encrypted and secured so only you can decrypt them. No one but you can read your notes (not even the company behind the app). Standard Notes is free to use and is cross-platform and there's also a premium version at $3,99/month for those who need extended functionalities.

Also worth mentioning: Simplenote, Paperwork Note-Taking, OpenNote, Turtl, Joplin & Boost Note.

Google service to replace: Google Docs

OnlyOffice is an open-source office suite that combines text, spreadsheet and presentation editors. You can download and use them for home, government, educational and commercial purposes without restrictions and use these office tools online.

Individual alternatives:

• Google Docs: Etherpad, CryptPad, Notion, Cryptee, Zoho Writer & HackMD.

• Google Sheets: EtherCalc & Zoho Sheet.

• Google Forms: Forms.id, TellForm, LimeSurvey, Zoho Survey, SurveyJS & Typeform.

• Google Slides: Slides, Marp, Prezi & PowToon.

• Google Drawings: draw.io, Lucidchart, Diagramo & Cacoo.

Google service to replace: Google Tasks

Wekan is an open-source Trello-like kanban board built with Meteor. Whether you’re maintaining a personal todo list, planning your holidays with some friends, or working in a team on your next revolutionary idea, Kanban boards are an unbeatable tool to keep your things organized. They give you a visual overview of the current state of your project and make you productive by allowing you to focus on the few items that matter the most.

Also worth mentioning: Habitica, Taiga.io & Kanboard.

Google service to replace: Google Code Hosting

Even if Google Cloud is discontinued since 2015, I wanted to present you a good open-source alternative named GitLab. It's a web-based Git repository manager with wiki and issue tracking features, using an open source license. Nowadays, it's the best alternative to GitHub that's free and open-source.

Also worth mentioning: GitHub, Bitbucket, SourceForge, Gogs & Gitea.

Google service to replace: Google Plus

Diaspora is a federated social networking service, designed to be a more privacy-aware alternative to Facebook and other social media. Diaspora lets you sort your connections into groups called aspects. Unique to Diaspora, aspects ensure that your photos, stories and jokes are shared only with the people you intend.

Also worth mentioning: Hubzilla, Minds, Mastodon & Friendica.

Google service to replace: Google Translate

Apertium is a free and open-source machine translation platform, initially aimed at related-language pairs but expanded to deal with more divergent language pairs (such as English-Catalan). The platform provides a language-independent machine translation engine, tools to manage the linguistic data necessary to build a machine translation system for a given language pair and linguistic data for a growing number of language pairs.

Also worth mentioning: Mate Translate & DeepL Translator (and its unofficial Android client OpenL).

Google service to replace: Google Fonts

Font Squirrel is the best resource for free, hand-picked, high-quality, commercial-use fonts. Font Squirrel also has a great @font-face font generator. It means that if you own a @font-face license for your fonts, you can use the generator to create web-kits or to tweak your existing kits to improve rendering and file sizes.

Also worth mentioning: Font Library

Google service to replace: Google URL Shortener

Lstu – for Let's Shorten That Url – is a simple and open-source URL shortener that's easy to use and that you can customize as you wish. You can use it as service or install it on your own server.

Also worth mentioning: Polr, Zero Width Shortener, Kutt & MagLit.

Google service to replace: Google Domains

Namecheap is a domain registrar and hosting company. When you register a domain name, it comes with free WhoisGuard protection for life, which protects your contact information from third parties. Namecheap also accepts Bitcoin and offers domain registration, hosting, email, SSL certificates, and a variety of other products.

Also worth mentioning: Njalla & OrangeWebsite.

Google service to replace: Google Cloud Platform

Exoscale is a safe European cloud hosting for Saas companies, developers, sysadmins and everyone seeking deployment agility. Protected by Swiss privacy laws, your data will stay safe from technical or legal harm.

Also worth mentioning: OrangeWebsite, FlokiNET, Greenhost & PlanetHoster.

Google service to replace: Google Authenticator

FreeOTP is a two-factor authentication application for systems utilizing one-time password protocols. Tokens can be added easily by scanning a QR code. FreeOTP implements open standards: HOTP and TOTP. This means that no proprietary server-side component is necessary: use any server-side component that implements these standards. We recommend FreeIPA.

Also worth mentioning: WinAuth, andOTP, Authenticator, OTP Auth & Aegis Authenticator.

Google service to replace: Google Public DNS

DNSCrypt is a protocol that authenticates communications between a DNS client and a DNS resolver. It prevents DNS spoofing. It uses cryptographic signatures to verify that responses originate from the chosen DNS resolver and haven't been tampered with. It is an open specification, with free and open source reference implementations, and it is not affiliated with any company nor organization, unlike Google Public DNS.

Also worth mentioning: OpenNIC, Quad9 & NextDNS.