Alternatives to Google Products | Part 1

Alternatives to the Google search engine:

• StartPage - StartPage gives you Google search results, but without tracking (user tracking / search recording). StartPage is based in the Netherlands.
• Searx - A privacy-friendly and versatile metasearch engine that is also open source.
• MetaGer - An open source metasearch engine with good features, based in Germany.
• SwissCows - A zero-tracking private search engine based in Switzerland, hosted on a secure Swiss infrastructure.
• Qwant - A private search engine based in France.
• DuckDuckGo - A private search engine based in the US.
• Mojeek - The only real search engine (and not a metasearch engine) that has its own crawler and index (based in the UK).
• YaCy - A decentralized, open source, peer-to-peer search engine.
• Givero - Givero, based in Denmark, offers more privacy than Google and combines search with charitable donations.
• Ecosia - Ecosia is based in Germany and donates part of the revenue for planting trees.

Note: Except for Mojeek In fact, all of the above private search engines are technically meta search engines as they relate their results to other search engines like Bing and Google.

Alternatives to Gmail

Gmail may be convenient and popular, but there are three major issues:

• Your Inbox will be used as a data collection tool. (Did you know that Google tracks your purchase history against the receipts in your inbox?)
• Instead of just seeing your emails, your email inbox will also be used for advertising attachments and marketing.
• The contents of your Inbox will be sent to Google and any other third party.

As long as you stay logged in to your Gmail account, Google can easily track your activity online while, for example, visiting various websites that may be hosted by Google Analytics or Google ads (Adsense) (connected to Google services).

Here are ten alternatives to Gmailwho do well in terms of privacy:

• Tutanota - based in Germany; very safe and private; Free accounts up to 1 GB
• Mailfence - based in Belgium; many functions; Free accounts up to 500 MB
• posteo - based in Germany; € 1 / month with 14 days return window
• start mail - based in the Netherlands; $ 5.00 / month with 7 days free trial
• runbox - based in Norway; a lot of memory and functions; $ 1.66 / month with 30 days free trial
• Mailbox.org - based in Germany; € 1 / month with 30 days free trial
• CounterMail - based in Sweden; $ 4.00 / month with 7 days free trial
• Kolab Now - based in Switzerland; € 4.41 / month with 30 days money back guarantee
• Protonmail - based in Switzerland; Free accounts up to 500 MB
• Thexyz - based in Canada; $ 1.95 / month with 30 days return window

More information about these providers can be found in this guide for secure and private e-mail services.

Alternatives to Google Chrome

Chrome is a popular internet browser, but it's also a data-gathering tool - and many people are taking it. Only a few days ago reported the The Washington Postthat "Google's web browser has become a spyware", with 11.000 Tracker cookies being watched in a single week.

Here are seven alternatives for more privacy:

• Firefox - The Firefox browser is a highly customizable, open source browser popular with data privacy communities. There are also many different ones Modifications and optimizations Firefox, which gives you more privacy and security. (Also check out Firefox Focus, a privacy-oriented version for mobile users.)
• iridium - Based on open source Chromium Iridium offers numerous Privacy and security improvements opposite Chrome; source here.
• GNU IceCat - A branch of Firefox from the Free Software Foundation.
• Tor Browser - A robust and secure version of Firefox, standard on the Tor network running. (He also does good work Browser ,Fingerabdrücke ')
• Ungoogled Chromium As the name implies, this is an open source version of Chromium that has been "de-goggled" and modified for more privacy.
• Brave - Brave is another chrome based browser that is very popular. It blocks trackers and ads by default (except for "approved" ads that are part of the network "Brave Ads" are).
• Waterfox - This is another branch of Firefox that is configured by default for more privacy, with the Mozilla telemetry removed from the code.

Of course, there are other alternatives to Chrome, such as Safari (Apple), Microsoft Internet Explorer / Edge, Opera and Vivaldi - but these also have some disadvantages in privacy.

Alternatives to Google Drive 

If you're looking for a secure cloud storage option, try these alternatives to Google Drive:

• Troubled - A user-friendly cloud storage solution based in Switzerland.
• ownCloud - An open source and self-hosted cloud platform developed in Germany.
• Nextcloud - Nextcloud is also an open source, self-hosted file-sharing and collaboration platform based in Germany.
• Sync - Based in Canada, Sync provides a secure, encrypted cloud storage solution for businesses and individuals.
• syncthing - This is a decentralized, open-source and peer-to-peer cloud storage platform.

Of course, Dropbox is another popular Google drive alternative, but it's not the best in terms of privacy.

Alternatives to Google Calendar 

Here are some alternatives to the Google Calendar:

• Lightning Calendar is a Mozilla-developed open source calendar option compatible with Thunderbird and Seamonkey.
• Etar is a simple open source calendar option.
• fruux is an open source calendar with good features and support for many operating systems.

Those who want a combined e-mail and calendaring solution might consider these providers:

• Mailfence
• Kolab Now
• Posteo.de
• Mailbox.org [Article, Part 1, by Sven Taylor TechSpot][Photo: Marina Ivkić]