Internet Rando
@mousey@mastodon.seattlematrix.org  路  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
@Tutanota

#nextcloud made it possible for me to (self-)host my (and my family's) phone calendars, contacts, and even when pictures are taken, they get uploaded to our Nextcloud instance, and NOT to google/apple.

10/10, would recommend for any household looking to #degoogle.

Others include #searxng, has literally replaced all monolithic search engines, works great, no ads or AI

#mastodon, for my #activitypub based social network

#matrix for chatting with my social network

and also #KDE.
Tuta
@Tutanota@mastodon.social  路  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago

It's amazing to see that #DeGoogling is possible. 馃槑馃檶

Share your favorite DeGoogle apps in the comments!
Internet Rando
@mousey@mastodon.seattlematrix.org replied  路  activity timestamp 3 weeks ago
@Tutanota

#nextcloud made it possible for me to (self-)host my (and my family's) phone calendars, contacts, and even when pictures are taken, they get uploaded to our Nextcloud instance, and NOT to google/apple.

10/10, would recommend for any household looking to #degoogle.

Others include #searxng, has literally replaced all monolithic search engines, works great, no ads or AI

#mastodon, for my #activitypub based social network

#matrix for chatting with my social network

and also #KDE.
Alyn
@alyn@wandering.shop  路  activity timestamp last month
@pluralistic
Got upset enough that I now run a small instance of #searxng which does a similar thing to #Kagi (searches across multiple services) but without its own index - a metasearch engine essentially.
Strips out ads and AI responses and was moderately useful a little while ago for ascertaining that one service had heavily de-prioritised a blog post - the interface indicates which services provided which results.
Cory Doctorow
@pluralistic@mamot.fr  路  activity timestamp 2 months ago

It's been more than a year since I gave up on Google Search (I switched to Kagi.com and never looked back). I don't miss it. It had gotten terrible. It's gotten worse since, thanks to AI (of course):

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/15/inhuman-gigapede/#coprophagic-ai

1/

A smoggy cityscape. In the foreground is a partially open can of Spam, whose label has been pixelated. The glistening spam atop the can has been overlaid with the original Google homepage. In the background looms the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- Radek Ko艂akowski (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warszawski_smog_(22798350941).jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
A smoggy cityscape. In the foreground is a partially open can of Spam, whose label has been pixelated. The glistening spam atop the can has been overlaid with the original Google homepage. In the background looms the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- Radek Ko艂akowski (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warszawski_smog_(22798350941).jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
A smoggy cityscape. In the foreground is a partially open can of Spam, whose label has been pixelated. The glistening spam atop the can has been overlaid with the original Google homepage. In the background looms the glaring red eye of HAL 9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en -- Radek Ko艂akowski (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Warszawski_smog_(22798350941).jpg CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Alyn
@alyn@wandering.shop replied  路  activity timestamp last month
@pluralistic
Got upset enough that I now run a small instance of #searxng which does a similar thing to #Kagi (searches across multiple services) but without its own index - a metasearch engine essentially.
Strips out ads and AI responses and was moderately useful a little while ago for ascertaining that one service had heavily de-prioritised a blog post - the interface indicates which services provided which results.