Yeah but is there like a fast and easy version... (no)

[cimorene]

I really want to do all that leaving-Google stuff but this admirably detailed article is so long that my executive function just gave up in despair before I even finished reading the first step.

Comments

[hebethen]

Hey, doing some of a thing you want is usually better than doing none of a thing you want, right?

[tozka]

Realizing just how much of my online life is tied into Google one way or another is so exhausting.

[yvannairie]

I think the easy version is "new computer, new identity" x'D

[cimorene]

Yes, but then I'd still need Google Calendar to sync my calendar with my wife's... or have to switch to Apple or Microsoft which is even more No Way.

[yvannairie]

IIRC the Mozilla team has a calendar client that you can use a private e-mail on. I use my work e-mail through Thunderbird, too

[vass]

Hmm. I have a suggestion.

It's not something I would suggest to most people, but you and Wax are not Most People. It's kind of overkill.

So, the easiest solution would be something paid like Kolab Now in the link you posted (I know nothing about them, but it sounds ok.) Or, pay to use someone else's instance of the thing I'm about to suggest.

Which is: Nextcloud. It's a cloud storage/collaboration/kitchen sink thing. It used to be the open source, self-hosted replacement for Dropbox (back when it was called ownCloud, which still exists but Nextcloud is the not-proprietary fork) but it kind of... ballooned.

Okay, it's a LOT of overkill. But it'd give you your own private calendars, contacts, GoogleDocs-but-with-Libre-Office, and file syncing and filesharing and all sorts of other features. (It has Android and iOS apps and Mac/Windows/Linux desktop clients as well as the web interface, of course.) Also it has theming options if you like shopping for curtains on all your technology.

Here's the howto I used to install it the first time. At the start there's stuff about the technical requirements, if you want to check there if it looks doable or not. (It's better on a server, but you could do it on your home network.) (And also, warning that it has all the usual frustrations of maintaining your own web server, and I am currently in Upgrade Hell myself.)

And like I said, you could always find a provider who hosts it instead of diy. Or there are definitely lighter weight self-hosted calendar options too, like Radicale.

But yeah, just a thought.

[alexseanchai]

I'd kind of like to leave Google, but interoperability with people who haven't, and also what's my other mobile device options? Are there any at all that are neither Android (which means not leaving Google) nor iThing (which means joining Apple)?

[cimorene]

Right, the idea of ditching android is also exhausting! So much stuff to export! I mean, unless you went to Apple I guess, which I find equally corporate evil but less large and damaging on a global scale I guess? And also more privacy-friendly, arguably? But more likely to censor shit and delete your own music and books off your devices.

[alexseanchai]

seen recently on Tumblr, someone who replaced their Mac laptop keyboard using instructions from a dedicated how-to-repair-Apple-devices YouTuber, because Apple wanted to charge them $1200 for what ended up costing them like $25 in parts plus their own labor hours. and who reports that every single screw in that thing is a different size, hard to visually distinguish which screw is right for each hole but impossible to use a screw in the wrong hole. it would have been easier to design it using two screw sizes max.

I am super unwilling to give my money to people who are that determined to fuck over anyone who wants to personally repair the device they bought and paid for.

[cimorene]

That is legit terrible and completely shameless...

...but I'm not actually sure it's worse than (perhaps just equivalent to) the way Apple Music went rifling through the associated filesystems and actually deleted music from the hds besides fucking up the pre-existing metadata (which is something many music nerds take very seriously indeed, duh)? It's a whole step beyond the thing where Apple and Amazon delete digital goods that were purchased from them from the purchaser's device, right? People were losing files they had ripped themselves and had for years.

[vass]

I remember reading about a composer who lost her unpublished music.

It was unspeakable.