PDA

View Full Version : Alternatives to Google et al, for personal use?



Greenbarry
27th March 2017, 21:28
trying to break free from ll social bs.. google, yahoo, youtube.. since google owns it all i totally think it is now at the worst stage of its inception. these three sites should not have been melded into one.

so, can anyone point me to a decent email provider?

any help?
:scrhd:

TargeT
27th March 2017, 21:57
Gmail replacement: https://www.startmail.com/

Google replacement: https://www.startpage.com/

you'll probably really like the philosophy behind them ;)

modwiz
27th March 2017, 22:15
Gmail replacement: https://www.startmail.com/

Google replacement: https://www.startpage.com/

you'll probably really like the philosophy behind them ;)

I have used startpage for years now. Will take a look at their email.

Aragorn
27th March 2017, 22:28
I use the e-mail accounts that I get with my internet bundle, and I'd be surprised if other internet service providers didn't offer at least one POP3 or IMAP4 mail account to their paying customers. I even have a free mail account with my mobile telephony provider.

That said, I also have a GMail account, but I'm only using that for mobile e-mail — in addition to the one I get with my mobile telephony bundle — and only sparingly so. As I've stated elsewhere earlier, I mainly use my smartphones as regular mobile phones, and I don't normally make any use of the "smart" features. I also generally don't like web mail — I prefer reading and sending my e-mails in a dedicated e-mail client running on my own computer.

Having gotten all of that out of the way, StartPage (https://www.startpage.com) uses Google's search engine in the background, but it does not record (or forward) your IP address, and it basically acts as a proxy server. I have no experience with their StartMail feature yet. The company is hosted in the Netherlands, by the way.

In addition to that, there is also DuckDuckGo (https://www.duckduckgo.com), which is another search engine that does not store your IP address, and which is also quite popular. The Pale Moon browser supports DuckDuckGo as a search engine in its search bar. So does Mozilla Firefox, but last time I checked, Chrome/Chromium did not — which seems logical, given that Google are the ones who develop that browser.

You may also want to add some privacy-related plugins to your browser, such as NoScript or Ghostery, and perhaps also AdBlock Plus or AdBlock Latitude. ;)

Oh, and there is of course also unseen.is (https://www.unseen.is), which is hosted in Iceland and does not work with any spook agencies. I believe Edward Snowden made use of that one. ;)