skip to content
blog.metters.dev

Looking back on 2+ years after ditching (most of) Google

/ 4 min read

tracking, privacy, gmail, google, protonmail, email, 🇬🇧

Nearly two and a half years ago I wrote a blog post about leaving Googlemail as a free user product “provider of private data”. It is about time to reflect on how it went with a few short comments.

Email

The first and most important Google product I wanted to ditch was their email application. The choice I made was the right one. My user experience with receiving emails even has improved significantly—especially due to the integration of SimpleLogin as a proxy.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I have never looked back

What about the other products by Proton?

With the decision for Proton, I subscribed to email, but also other services, e.g. cloud storage and a vpn service.

Cloud Storage

Before that, I mainly used Dropbox and Onedrive. Being a free user or not: all their users face the same privacy issues as Google’s users do.

Proton’s cloud storage product is called Proton Drive. It did not take long for me to copy all my files and upload them to Proton Drive. I access my files daily in my browser (and the app on my phone), and I love the sharing files with other users feature.

Within Proton Drive there is a feature called Proton Docs, which I like, and I hope they add more features in the future.

Proton Drive has some problems, too: It is not a great experience if you need a live synchronisation, especially on Linux! Live-sync on macOS has not convinced me (yet).

Luckily for me, this is only a minor issue of convenience.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⚝⚝ Not good, not terrible. Good enough for me (for now)

Calendar

I was an avid user of Google Calendar. The move to Proton Calendar did not come without a minor pain here and there.

Google offers a superior configurability of recurring appointments, including a seamless integration to Google Maps , as well as invitations of other participants via email. By now, Proton also offers the feature to invite participants.

Full feature parity has not been reached yet, but it works for close to 100 % of my use cases without me missing any feature. Now that I think about it: proper tasks are missing. Currently, I create appointments that take “all day” to illustrate tasks.

Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like Proton Calendar is being treated like a stepchild in comparison to its sibling products at Proton.

Configurability of recurring events and tasks would be a nice addition to an already pretty well implemented product.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⚝ Could be better, but at its core it is well implemented

Navigation / Maps

Google Maps is very difficult to replace, especially regarding traffic information. Sometimes used Apple Maps, which are also not bad (and it is not blocked in China, yay!). Another alternative I sometimes try to use is HERE WeGo. Navigation works, but the information on specific locations like restaurants is outdated at times.

I still use Google Maps most of the time, but I will try to do better.

At the current time, Google Maps is champion for live navigation by car. But there are alternatives, it is just tough to change your habits.

Rating: ⭐⭐⚝⚝⚝ Sometimes I must force myself to use alternatives

Password Manager

Proton Pass was released after I already started using Proton Mail. My password manager at the time was Bitwarden, which I was happy with.

Nevertheless, switching was a good decision. This application was a privacy-focused application I never knew I needed. Awesome!

Sometimes autofill feels not on par with the competition, and I still would like to have a shortcut to fill in input fields.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fully recommended!

VPN

It is never wrong to use a VPN, and it comes with my subscription at/with Proton. Never faced major performance issues. Good enough to stream, watch YouTube etc.

Noteworthy: Proton supports democracy and internet freedom against authoritarian governments by making its vpn service free in countries with authoritarian governments like Venezuela.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ It works as intended

NOTE Most of my experience comes from using Proton products in Firefox on macOS and Ubuntu or as installed app on iOS. Android and iOS might have a feature, the respective other app does not have yet!

  • If you think about signing up to Proton, consider using this referral link. This lets you try out their premium subscription for a month for free and if decide to become a paying customer I will receive five bucks. This is documented here.
  • This site lists european alternatives to (mostly) U.S. American solutions