Google’s business is in advertising. Being the largest advertising agency in the world, its free products are a resource to collect user data to whom they then sell hyper-segmented advertising. Faced with this situation, more and more users are deciding to move away from its various services and are looking for alternatives that respect our privacy.
When our privacy matters to us, there are alternatives
Certainly, with the amount of money that Google raises annually, its services perform remarkably well, but it is also true that we pay a price in the form of information. The famous phrase “When a service is free, you are the product”let’s review 14 apps and services to escape Google.
- Google > DuckDuckGo: Defining itself as the search engine that respects our privacy, DuckDuckGo extracts search results from Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, but without following us in the least. Yes, it uses advertising, but it only serves it based on the search term, which means you don’t have to know anything about us to monetize the service. We can set it as a browser in Safari on all our devices.
- Google Maps > Apple Maps: Apple Maps are a great alternative to Google Maps. In some areas, they are significantly better in terms of the amount of information. In addition, the integration in our devices is much higher, so we will enjoy a better user experience.
- Gmail > iCloud: instead of using an @gmail.com email, we can use an @iCloud.com one. This will prevent Google from analyzing all emails we receive and send. In addition, we can take advantage of features such as Hide my email. By using the Mail app on all of our devices, we can avoid tracking the emails themselves with the Privacy option in Mail. Remember, finally, that we can use iCloud Mail through iCloud.com
- Google Chrome > Safari: if we want maximum speed when browsing and maximum battery life, Safari is the browser for us. A browser designed for privacy with functions such as iCloud Private Relay, with which even Apple does not know what we are visiting, or tracking protection against, among others, Google.
- Google Authenticator > iCloud Llavero: keeping all of our passwords, two-factor codes, and notes about our credentials is the easiest thing in the keychain. We will find it in the Settings application on all our devices, quickly synchronized and protected by E2E encryption. In addition, perfectly integrated with Safari to fill our credentials with the utmost ease.
- Google Drive > iCloud Drive: Apple’s document storage service integrates so well with our devices that we don’t even notice its presence. Any file we save to our Desktop or Documents folder on the Mac automatically stays in the cloud and on all of our devices. We can share it, share folders and whatever else we need.
- Google Docs > iWork: Pages, Numbers and Keynote allow us to work both locally and in the cloud, personally or collaboratively. You don’t even need an Apple account, we can send our documents as a link to anyone, you just need a browser to view and edit the documents at your convenience.
- Google Calendar > Calendar: Google Calendar has its counterpart in iCloud Calendars, which we access with the Calendar app on all our devices. We can share calendars, subscribe to the ones we want, etc.
- Google Photos > Photos in iCloud: If we don’t want all our photos to be scanned in the cloud for cataloging, we can opt for iCloud Photos. Yes, we will also have our photos ready to recognize people, places and objects, but all the recognition is done directly on our devices, because when photos and videos go to the cloud, they do so completely encrypted. We can also use LiveText functions to localize any content.
- Google Translate > Translate: the Translate application on our iPhone or iPad takes care of translating any text. In iOS 16 also from the one we show you through the camera. Meanwhile, Safari takes care of translating any website into Spanish with just one touch and respecting our privacy.
- Google Meet > FaceTime: Apple’s video call tool, with which we can schedule meetings with a single link, add them to the calendar, send invitations, make calls to anyone, also on Windows or Android, and do it end-to-end encrypted is a great alternative to Google Meet.
Beyond everything that is offered, we find the Notes application, always with the iCloud account, the Reminders account, also with the iCloud account or the Apple Music service, so that you do not have to search for songs on YouTube. And that we presented Apple alternatives, because if we If we went into those of third parties, the list would be really long..
In the end, escaping Google services is really simple. And here’s a consideration: it’s not always about stopping using them completely, permanently and categorically. Maybe we can, for example, use DuckDuckGo as a search engine, but go to Google Images for that photo that we can’t find. At the end, occasional use is not the same in terms of privacy as our default service. There are alternatives, and many very good ones.
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