Breaking Free from Big Tech
Breaking Free from Big Tech
After years on standard Android with Google services running the show, I took the plunge: GrapheneOS on a Pixel 9a as my daily driver. Here’s what I learned in the first week. The Setup: Jolla Devices Delivered I ordered my Pixel 9a with GrapheneOS pre-installed from Jolla Devices. I can’t recommend them enough. Fast service, […]
I didn’t want to leave ChatGPT. That wasn’t the plan. I’ve been using ChatGPT Plus for over a year. I had custom GPTs built for specific tasks, a year’s worth of conversation history I could reference, and workflows I’d refined over months of daily use. It was genuinely useful—not just a novelty, but a tool […]
The phone has always been the elephant in the room. I can migrate email, switch to Linux, replace every Google service on my desktop—but all of that feels hollow when I’m carrying a Google device in my pocket 16 hours a day, feeding the surveillance engine with every tap, swipe, and location ping. So the […]
Not every part of this de-Googling and Linux migration involves sacrifice, difficult decisions, or frustrating compromises. Some things just… work. LibreCAD is one of those things. What LibreCAD Is (And Why I Use It) LibreCAD is open-source 2D CAD software. It’s designed for technical drawing, drafting, and engineering work—creating floor plans, mechanical parts, schematics, and […]
Your password manager is the keystone of your digital security. It’s the one piece of infrastructure that touches everything else—every account, every service, every login. If you’re going to de-Google and leave big tech, securing this foundation is critical. I’d been using NordPass for a while, and it worked fine. The interface was clean, the […]
If there’s one Google service that truly deserves its dominance, it’s search. Google didn’t become a verb by accident—they genuinely built the best search engine on the planet. And that makes leaving it one of the hardest parts of this entire project. Google Is (Was) Search For most of us, “searching the internet” means “Googling […]
Not everything in this project is within my control. I can choose my personal email provider, my desktop operating system, and my cloud storage solution. But I can’t choose what my employer mandates for work communication. That means Microsoft stays. Outlook for email. Teams for communication. OneDrive and SharePoint for document storage. Office 365 for […]
When I posted about this de-Googling project to a friend, the response was immediate and ironic: “Sent in Meta on a Google device.” He wasn’t wrong. I can migrate my email to Proton, switch my desktop to Linux, isolate my Microsoft services in a dedicated browser, and replace every Google service on my computer—but all […]
After spending considerable time with Brave Browser on Windows, I’ve made the decision to switch to LibreWolf as my primary browser. Here’s why, and how I’m managing the transition. The Decision to Switch I’ve been a Brave user for a while now, and I won’t deny that the Chromium engine has its advantages—it’s fast, widely […]
Email is the hardest service to replace. It’s not just communication—it’s identity, recovery, authentication, receipts, documentation, and a decade of searchable history. Switching email providers isn’t like changing browsers or password managers. It’s major surgery on your digital life. But if privacy is the reason I’m leaving Google, starting anywhere other than email would be […]