I thought a status update is in order, mostly to force myself to jot this down and get organized in my thoughts:
Google. No longer paying google 3 dollars a month to spy on me and steal my data. That is I got my data off of Gdrive and below 15G so I can use the google account for free for a few more weeks, months? YEARS? as an email graveyard where old digital newsletters are sent to be buried. (I moved my data to a new Proton account. I think it is costing me more, but this isn’t a quest to pay less, its a quest to get what I want (privacy).
Browser. I’m using Vivaldi instead of Chrome in any circumstance I can which seems to be just about all. So far so good, although still evaluting.
Social Media: Uninstalled YouTube, Facebook app (but not messenger yet) from my phone. I have IG on my phone only because I need to use it for business. (This quest I’m on is for personal things only and I’m unable to explore possibilities of moving business stuff off Google etc..maybe some day down the line after I’ve concluded this quest has been a success.
Ditching FB messenger brings up an interesting consideration. Is it ‘ok’ to require friends and acquaintances to correspond with you on your own terms? Meaning, as I’ll be ditching FB messenger, this will sever my current mode of communication with several people I don’t want to lose touch with. I could say that if I want to ditch FB messenger and friends are not willing to move over to something more secure and private that it is indeed they who are requiring me to use their platform. The logical thing might be to use the one that is most ‘popular.’ I’m not going to overthink this … I’m moving forward with my plan to get off of FB 100% in the future.
OS. I installed Linux a few days ago but still have Windows (Microsoft) installed on my laptop. The plan is to use Linux in all circumstances and swap over to Microsoft when I can’t get something done on Linux. If I ever get to a point where I never need to jump to windows, it will go to graveyard.
My phone: I didn’t have an apple phone anyway, so that’s not an issue. Looking to evaluate ‘dumb phones.’ and I’m already enjoying leaving my phone at home more and more. Got to admit that I have no idea how I’d ever do without Google Maps. An incredibly useful tool . . . which is literally tracking where we are…which is the point..and sometimes the value of it . Is there a good alternative to Google Maps? I have not even looked into it.