What I use instead of Google services

It would be great if you could stop being tracked with little to no sacrifice, or even with an improved experience (above and beyond no tracking). That's the vision of DuckDuckGo for search: great results and great privacy at the same time.

To be clear, these are the alternatives that I personally use as this is my personal blog and I am relating in that context. I am obsessed with productivity and will quickly ditch anything that isn't being productive for me, which I've done repeatedly. Like everyone I also have some nuanced constraints (e.g. family, professional, app integrations, etc.) that impact these decisions. In other words, your mileage may vary. I'm completely open to suggestions though and I will update this page as things change.

Finally, there are of course many other alternative services you could choose in these and other categories, many of which are listed at prism-break.org. Some do a better job of not tracking you, but may involve more sacrifice.

• Search: DuckDuckGo
  
  
• Email: Fastmail
  
  
• Browser: Firefox (desktop) / Safari (mobile) (On top of the browser I use these add-ons to reduce tracking further; also, note that private browsing mode and the do not track setting will not stop you from being tracked.)
  
  
• Maps: OSM for places (via DuckDuckGo) / Apple for directions on mobile
  
  
• Phone OS: iOS
  
  
• Storage: BTSync
  
  
• Video hosting: Vimeo
  
  
• Video chat: Zoom
  
  
• Calendar: iCloud
  
  
• Docs: Draft / Office
  
  
• Analytics: Clicky
  
  
• News: DuckDuckGo Search & Stories, Twitter
  

Update: it should be noted (and I may expand in a future post) that Google is fundamentally different than other companies (including other big companies) in terms of how they are embedded in the Internet outside of their consumer services. In other words, even if you opt-out of all Google consumer services, you are likely still being heavily tracked by them through Google Analytics embedded on tens of millions of sites and their external ad networks (AdMob, DoubleClick and AdSense) embedded in millions of apps and sites. (Browser add-ons can help reduce this passive tracking.) The point is though that given how deeply Google is embedded on non-Google sites, switching all your consumer services to another ecosystem is a privacy win. I am significantly more diversified than that, however.