Operation: De-Google-Fy!
So it’s come to this; the state of enshittification has become so entrenched that even Google can’t just do the job it was made to do without turning to an AI summary-bot to break a search into tiny nuggets of almost-info that feels designed to discourage deep dives or inspire curiosity. And worse, the last update made it so Chrome has eaten up all the space in my storage and is making my computer run very slowly.
I’m tired, y’all.
There’s AI in my search, my email, my cloud storage, my calendar… all places that I don’t want or need it to be, while using up massive amounts of water and electricity. So what’s your intrepid writer pal to do? Burn it all down!
…well, not exactly. But I can and will remove all traces of the Google platform from my computer and my life, even if it takes me a little while to research options and de-entrench myself.
Here’s the funny thing: I have been using Google for my email and storage and calendar for a loooong time. I’d thought about weaning myself from them for a while, but put it off because I thought it would be a pain to do.
Y’all. I was SO wrong.
After some research I decided on trying Zen Browser, which is a free and open source app which runs on Mozilla account but you can choose the search engine it uses, and I went with Duck Duck Go. You can easily import all your bookmarks, passwords, and other info saved in your Chrome browser, and there are multiple workspace options where you can break your most used tabs into separate folders. I imported both of my Google accounts and split up the various tabs I usu regularly with each of them into separate folders, easy peasy. The learning curve was tiny and my only complaint so far is that certain media websites are not usable with Zen, because of DRM restrictions. That’s not a deal-breaker, because with the ENORMOUS amount of room I have on my laptop now that I’ve removed Chrome, I can download the apps and run them directly.
Did I mention that now my laptop has PLENTY of storage and is running smoothly and faster than ever? Yeah, fuck Chrome.
Next step? New email!
I already have an “official” email that all my newsletters come from, but my day-to-day stuff comes from two different gmail accounts. Surely switching from those would be a pain?
Hahaha NO. It was SUPER easy, thanks to ProtonMail. Again, it was a one-click import that brought over all my contacts, emails, and labels with no issues at all, and now I’ve been using it for a day and love it already. Calendar, the same. Next up is switching my storage and exploring the other Proton offerings. You can use the free tier or if you want more perks you can pay, but there’s plenty of usability on the free tier. I am thrilled by this.
No AI in my tools!
So that’s it, that’s the story of purging my computer of AI bullshit and the giant energy/space suck that is Chrome. I can’t completely eliminate it just yet because of some shared folders/etc with groups I work with, but soon enough I’ll be free.
[ironically, WordPress just added AI tools, but so far I’ve been able to avoid them being any kind of issue. I don’t want to go back to hand-coding my website again, but if I have to, I will. AI might not be totally avoidable in the programs we use, but there are options and we can avoid using AI in programs we need to keep working with. I’m not interested in GenAI anything and I hope the bubble bursts soon so that we can get into actual advancements in our programs.
If you’ve switched to something new to avoid GenAI, feel free to comment! As for AI fans/people in a rush to cape for AI… don’t bother. I’ll remove anything that gets through my filters. Go sell your thneeds to someone else.
