Everyone that knows me knows I’m a hardcore Google fan and enthusiast despite having been stung by them once, but with their recent launch of Google+ and all the news I keep hearing about how the faceless company keeps closing accounts without warning or a trial, I’ve decided to migrate away from Google, slowly.
The first service to go is Google Reader. For those of you that don’t know of it, it’s a very neat online RSS Reader that allows you to share and read RSS/Atom feeds from blogs and planets. Being online means I could access it from my phone and tablet (Which is something Liferea couldn’t do) and it got very convenient.
But now I’m switching over to RSSLounge. Of course, I set this up on my server by following their simple Instructions. I exported the OPML file from GReader and imported it into RSSLounge. A few moments later, and I was done.
RSSLounge lets you set feed priorities, which I think is super awesome, supports image rss feeds (And displays them beautifully), and only requires a server with PHP and MySQL and the source code available in GPLv3.
The User Interface is also beautiful, I can’t say right now if it’s better than GReader’s, but you can judge it yourself: They’ve got a demo set up.
I’m not going cold turkey on the Google Detox, but I’m slowly starting to migrate away from them, with Thunderbird replacing their WebUI already, and Duck Duck Go + Wolphram Alpha handling some searches but not all of them, and they get to keep my email just a little bit longer.
Like a mighty Jaffa once said. Shal’kek nem’rom.
Update: I wrote this before reading this Slashdot Post on how getting your account suspended means kiss your calendars and emails good-bye. Looks like I started my Detox just in time.
Update 2: I’ve left Google+ already and removed all the +1 buttons from my site. SEO be damned.
I am DEFINITELY giving this a try, thanks so much for pointing it out!
You’re welcome Mo! I’m also writing on a replacement for Flickr/Picasa, GCalendar, etc.
I’d consider moving to RSSLounge now, but there is no Android App or mobile browser profile. Anyone want to get on this?
Actually, TinyTinyRSS is similar to RSSLounge and does have a mobile UI. I’m working on a comparison writeup but I got distracted last night by a game of Small World =D
DDG already calls Wolfram Alpha for some queries, so you might not need to use it directly.
Also the very neat thing about DDG is that it knows it can’t be perfect. So at the bottom of every result page, it offers you to run the same query in Google, Bing or others, with just one click. That’s really handy when for some reason DG didn’t find the site you were looking for, and that helps using Google only at the very last moment.
I stopped using Google services a while ago already:
- I moved from GMail to Lavabit a year ago
- I started using DDG a few months ago
- I never used Calendar/docs/+
- two weeks ago, I decided I had completed my detox and deleted my Google accounts.
Yay!
Yeah, I started using more specialized search engines. Wikipedia/StackOverflow instead of generic queries, for instance.
Didn’t know DDG called WOlfram already, I hadn’t noticed.
I don’t use Docs, but do use Calendar. I need to set up my own WebDav later to migrate from it.
I also need a way to sync contacts out of Gmail. I’ll probably end up doing a specialized Android App for that.
Congratulations! My strategy is to use Google for some specific things – I couldn’t live without Google Maps and I don’t really have a problem with search as long as I don’t do it while logged in to an account – but I almost never actually sign into a Google account for anything, and I don’t push anything to any Google service that I wouldn’t consider information that is a) trivial enough for me not to worry about ownership rights, b) disposable enough for me not to care if it disappears, and c) non-sensitive enough that I’d be happy for anyone in the world to see it.
For news reading I use tt-rss – http://tt-rss.org/redmine/ – which is a similar thing to rsslounge; I’ve never tried rsslounge so I wouldn’t know which is better, but if you run into any problems with rsslounge, tt-rss is another option. I run my own mail servers (IMAP and SMTP) and have an MX record set up so my own servers process happyassassin.net mail, which is something of a hassle to set up but works great once you get it all done. For a web front end, take a look at Roundcube – http://www.roundcube.net/ . It’s a very very snazzy and fast F/OSS webmail thing, and I believe it’s packaged for Fedora. For me it could probably replace Evolution entirely, if I chose to go that way, and it’s great to know you have easy access to your mail even if you wind up on a network where all the ports are blocked or you’re on someone else’s computer and you don’t want to set up a mail client or whatever.
oh, for calendaring there’s various F/OSS groupware + web front end systems. I find eGroupware to be reasonably easy to set up (I package it for Mandriva, I don’t know if there’s a working package for Fedora) and a fairly ‘sane’ system – lots of groupware suites are hideous Java messes or something like that. eGroupware is a bit open core-y, but the F/OSS version is fully functional and properly maintained. Other options are Citadel, Horde, Zarafa…there’s a few. For syncing with desktop clients and mobile devices, there’s SyncML and/or WebDAV. Most mobile OSes have clients for some sync system or other, you can usually hack together some combination of server and client app that works.
Thanks Adam!
My next goal is to setup a picture gallery to replace Picasso, I’ve already got sone in sight (gallery3, plogger).
Email will probably be the last service I migrate because its tied to an awful lot of Internet accounts.
yeah, I changed over almost all my accounts from my ISP mail to my personal domain mail when I finally set up an MX record a few weeks back. It was a pain in the ass, took several hours!
Maybe waiting for Mediagoblin is an option, too.
I’m with you on this.
moor udates pleez, im trying too
Try Cheetah-News, it’s GPLv3, and the best open-source online feed reader out there if you ask me (and I’ve looked at a lot of them).