--- title: "Leaving Google has actively improved my life" url: https://daily.dev/posts/leaving-google-has-actively-improved-my-life-lgqteffah source_url: https://pseudosingleton.com/leaving-google-improved-my-life/ type: article source: "Hacker News" published: 2026-02-27T21:16:39.827Z updated: 2026-02-27T21:17:03.938Z tags: ["tech-news", "google", "privacy", "big-tech"] reading_time: 7 upvotes: 36 comments: 6 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Leaving Google has actively improved my life **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 7 min read · 36 upvotes · 6 comments ## Summary A personal account of leaving Google's ecosystem after years of declining search quality and the introduction of AI features in Gmail. The author switched to Proton for email and Brave/DuckDuckGo for search, finding both to be superior alternatives. Key arguments include: Gmail's algorithmic sorting is unwanted, Google Search keeps users on Google rather than the open web, Google's dominance is maintained through dark patterns and a $20B deal with Apple rather than genuine user preference, and the 'free services' model is a trade-off for privacy and data. YouTube remains the one unavoidable Google product due to network effects. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@fabianletsch** · 8 upvotes > I had the same Problem with youtube, i have built myself this using n8n, supadata api, youtubes RSS feed for channels and telegram: > > > ![1000107765.png](https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--0dE2ZNyn--/f_auto/v1772706975/ugc/content_e43bee16-06e4-4c5e-a0dd-b08588a0eb81?_a=BAMAMiiu0) > > ![1000107766.png](https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--35UbmknY--/f_auto/v1772706983/ugc/content_4d60b456-5b42-4442-bc2f-250df451920b?_a=BAMAMiiu0) **@daviddennison** · 2 upvotes > The people who write this stuff suck lol there is no way proton is better than Gmail. Can't wait until these people go away when data becomes currency. **@digeomel** · 2 upvotes > There are no objective arguments in the article. The main theme is "big tech is bad", "you are the product", "there is no privacy", etc. At this point, anyone and especially those of us on this site, should be aware of all such issues related to using Google products. Those of us who stay with Google stay because it's "free" (and yes, we know we sell our data to advertisers). And I tried many alternative search engines including DuckDuckGo and they suck. And no, I don't find any joy in digging up through articles on various websites to find an answer to my question, in fact these days I'm... **@telli** · 0 upvotes > Same for me. Changed to proton. Migrating all the accounts and stuff is pain though. ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [I replaced Google's apps with these 7 open-source alternatives, and I'm never going back](https://daily.dev/posts/i-replaced-google-s-apps-with-these-7-open-source-alternatives-and-i-m-never-going-back-hjqel437c) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Six search engines worth trying now that Google isn’t really Google anymore](https://daily.dev/posts/six-search-engines-worth-trying-now-that-google-isn-t-really-google-anymore-u7mm2kq2m) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Bye Bye Big Tech: How I Migrated to an almost All-EU Stack \(and saved 500€ per year\)](https://daily.dev/posts/bye-bye-big-tech-how-i-migrated-to-an-almost-all-eu-stack-and-saved-500-per-year--m1udjssex) · Hacker News · 69 upvotes · 6 comments --- Tags: [#tech-news](https://daily.dev/tags/tech-news), [#google](https://daily.dev/tags/google), [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#big-tech](https://daily.dev/tags/big-tech) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/leaving-google-has-actively-improved-my-life-lgqteffah)