Bypassing Google

[TheTamingOfTheresa]

How do we cut Google out of our lives? ( just read that they’ve donated £3000K to Penis News)

Ecosia.org

I was advised to use duckduckgo, not google. Hopefully that is a start.

I second Ecosia. They plant trees!

I've just swapped my safari search engine to DuckDuckGo - one took a few seconds.

I think I'm stuck with gmail though.

Duck Duck Go.

That was meant to say it only took a few seconds to swap my settings.

I'm not tech savvy at all. How do I get Google off my phone please?

I think I'm stuck with gmail though

It can be quite painless to change email. Open a new account with a different provider, then set gmail to forward all mail to this new address. This way anyone using your old address will still get to you.
Always reply from your new address/provider. Eventually people will start replying to this new address. There will always be a couple of emails going to your gmail address, but fewer as time goes on, and you don't even need to be signed in for your mail to be forwarded.

If you're looking for a new provider I have a few suggestions:
Outlook is as good as gmail - better in some ways.
protonmail.com are very good if you want security. You don't get much storage unless you pay an annual fee
www.gmx.com is good if you're looking for a smaller provider. They're German, and if you have an English sounding name you can often get a really good address - [email protected], without all the '123' stuff added.

I used to be all Google, but now I never use any of their services, except when news sites annoyingly use them for internal searches. Really, dump them now - they're not going to get any better.

There are lots more suggestions here: ethical.net/ethical/google-alternatives/

Well this is apt - who knew there was so much wrong with google (hint, not me!!!) but now I’ve opened Pandora’s box and there is no turning back. I’ve changed my browser and will get a new email tomorrow once I decide between the three I prefer.

I know how to do mail forwarding etc, that's not the problem but thanks anyway

It's the calendars that we share as a family that would be tricky to migrate. And the chrome cast... Damn, going to do some research.