Leaving Google behind

[Stosskraft]

Hello since most of us are kubuntu people I wanted to get advice on leavning GOOGLE behind, I know this means leaving gmail and the other services but gmail is the only one I really use anyway. Is there any good alternatives I can switch to for email? though I will have to keep my gmail active for a while as it has been my main email for years.

I am really tired of the way google operates and I do not want my life all over cyber space, and ideas how to go out this?

What is everyone else going\?

Another issue I have is my android phone, everything is google on there? Anyone using other emails that are good on a sphone? I dont care about social media and would like to get away from these dicks at all cost.

[Detonate]

I still prefer Google as my search engine, but I do it through Startpage, which removes all of the tracking data.
https://www.startpage.com/
I still use Gmail, but I have other email addresses and I am slowly weaning myself from Google. One email provider that seems to work well for me is
http://www.gmx.com

[SteveRiley]

Get a domain name (I use Dyn) and then run your own server. That's what I've done. Couldn't be happier. Mine includes:

* Postfix for sending/receiving email (SMTP)
* Dovecot for mail client access (IMAP)
* Roundcube for web mail
* Davical for calendar (CalDAV) and address book (CardDAV)
* Apache and PHP (web server required for Roundcube and Davical)
* PostgreSQL (database required for Davical)

The standard (non-Gmail) mail client on Android works perfectly with IMAP servers. To integrate the calendar and address book with CalDAV and CardDAV, you can download a couple inexpensive apps from the Play Store -- CalDAV Sync and CardDAV Sync.

If you don't want to run the server in-house, consider running a Micro instance on Amazon Web Services. Your first year will be free; after that, pay up front for a reserved instance to get the lowest overall cost.

[Stosskraft]

I have been looking at GMX... it seems like a viable alternative to gmail, to be honest I am a simple user, do use the calendar to organize myself but I am not into sharing documents of that stuff. The starting the my own server stuff is way over my head...as you can see from my postings

I did figure out how to get out of google+ even though I never asked for it, but I am seeing my name automatically everytime I go to youtube.... makes me vivid.

I also use startpage a tip I picked up on this forum before.

How do you guys feel about google seeming to 'force' you into things? I know they are not forcing me per say, but I have no idea how I had a google + account broadcasting everything I am going and why I am being logged into youtube even though I do not want to be?

In my opinion Chromium and gmail are way ahead of anything else out their in the respective fields I just hate having google force me into all the other stuff and now my adroid phone forces me to have google play store, google + and a ton of **** I cant even remove.. I cant wait for the ubuntu touch.

On a side note I have added: DoNotTrackMe, IBA Opt-out (by Google) and Keep My Opt-Outsto chromuim in the hope of keeping my date semi-private.

What is your thoughts?

[Stosskraft]

I want to ask, can someone suggest a program I can copy all my gmail emails onto my PC (for Kubuntu )? I will have to keep gmail open for a while but I am going to start using the GMX as I like the unlimited space and it seems easy to use. I do like the conversation view in gmail but I am fed up with them.

Also GMX is showing an android app also? can I even remove gmail from android without rooting the phone?

[SteveRiley]

I want to ask, can someone suggest a program I can copy all my gmail emails onto my PC (for Kubuntu )? I will have to keep gmail open for a while but I am going to start using the GMX as I like the unlimited space and it seems easy to use.

Configure an IMAP account in KMail that points to your Gmail. Configure a second IMAP account in KMail that points to your GMX account. Then just drag-and-drop messages from your GMail account folders into your GMX account folders.

[Stosskraft]

I understand what you mean by running it through the different emails. Have you tried fastmail? I am really happy with gmails interface, the conversation view... I really didnt like the GMX interface.

I guess I cannot really dump google if I have an android phone? though I am minimizing the amount of products I am suing with them. Startpage on my PC and goduck on my phone, I am not sure but I read that the less services I can use, the less information they have.

Is it true they have a copy of my voice if I use the voice thing to speak on my android phone?

[dmeyer]

Configure an IMAP account in KMail that points to your Gmail. Configure a second IMAP account in KMail that points to your GMX account. Then just drag-and-drop messages from your GMail account folders into your GMX account folders.

Another fun way, and possibly even better if he just wants to back his files up, would be to use the imap KIO-slave. So essentially you could type imap://username@your.mail.server/ This way he could just copy and paste everything to a local destination and have a perfect back-up without ever even touching kmail. This is ideal if GMX is self hosted like roundcube and you can copy it into an accessible directory.

Though, if he just wants to move them across then your way is the easiest/best by a long margin.

P.S. There is a kio-slave for imap, imaps, pop3, pop3s, smtp, smtps and mbox.

[SteveRiley]

KIO slaves are one of those little KDE goodies that I keep forgetting about. Just tried this now -- very cool! In my case, I had to use imaps:// rather than imap:// because my server allows only SSL-protected connections. Dolphin prompted for my password, and my mail folders appeared. I could open individual emails with either KMail or Kate. Neat.

[SteveRiley]

I understand what you mean by running it through the different emails. Have you tried fastmail? I am really happy with gmails interface, the conversation view... I really didnt like the GMX interface.

I'm unfamiliar with GMX. I gave up Google (mostly) some time ago, starting with running my own mail server and domain to replace Gmail.

Startpage on my PC and goduck on my phone, I am not sure but I read that the less services I can use, the less information they have.

Startpage, when I was using it a lot about a year ago, sometimes showed fewer relevant results than Google directly. Maybe I should check it again.

I guess I cannot really dump google if I have an android phone? though I am minimizing the amount of products I am suing with them...

The only Google things remaining on my phone is the Play Store, and my Google account so that I can use the Store. I deleted the browser app and use a combination of Dolphin and Firefox. I deleted the Gmail app; I use Maildroid for personal email. I use the regular Android mail and calendar apps for work email and calendar (connected to an Exchange server), and I use the regular Android calendar app for personal calendar. Sticking with a single calendar app merges their contents together for display, which is handy. I deleted the Google search app and replaced it with DuckDuckGo. I use the Android Logging Test App to kill various loggers scattered about the operating system.

You could go completely Google-less on an Android phone if you root it, install a build without "GApps" (the collection of Google Android apps), and select an alternate app store.

Is it true they have a copy of my voice if I use the voice thing to speak on my android phone?

Uh, what "voice thing"?

[blackpaw]

Does GMX support integrated Calendar and Addressbook with an open API? couldn't see anything about that onsite.

[Stosskraft]

I am using Zoho calendar now,and they offer mail also. GMX seems alright but I still prefer gmails conversation interface.

I came across this yesterday https://startmail.com/ by the guys who do startpage (mt favorite now), looks interesting, but on FB they said is was not going to be free. I dont mind paying for the security, but I want a nicer interface that the standard outlook/GMX style .... some options would be nice.

[Simon]

Well guys the real "scary thought" here is with Google Analytics, you can't really leave it behind. Other web pages, not even owned by Google, run this to gather and report information. Google has their so called "opt out" plugin but I have my doubts. I use Yahoo email and for a clean search engine (more or less) use http://www.altavista.com it is a Yahoo search. But it gives you the Google clean look to it and I don't stall out waiting for analytics to upload my data.

When my Yahoo Email gets bogged down with spam, I switch to my alternate email, inform my friends, and I put up my vacation response but tell the sender they have reached an email no longer in service. After some time I return to my original email account and spam emails are very rare. Also I never add people to my contacts list, I keep their email in a draft. This assures me that Yahoo isn't using my contacts list to spam my friends.

[jlittle]

Well guys the real "scary thought" here is with Google Analytics, you can't really leave it behind...

I try to block it (and many other trackers) with NoScript, is that not effective?

Regards, John Little

[Simon]

Google has an "opt out" plugin for Chrome. Which according to the experts (I am not an expert) will not block but limits the amounts of data sent. Also they have a disclaimer that the plugin only works, if the webpage you visit allows it to work. Sounds to me like a waste of time put there to give user a false sense of privacy. Meanwhile some Windows users have added these two lines to the hosts file to detour the data;

127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com

The Linux host file is found in the /etc directory off the root. It doesn't have a file extension and you need root access to edit the file. If you disable Javascript then you might not get a page to function. Unless there is better opinion this was my opt out for analytics. With Google, Bing, and Yahoo grabbing all the internet real estate, it would be next to impossible to "dump" any of them. So now the question is; Are you browsing the internet, or is the internet browsing you?