I haven’t used Chrome years, Firefox and Brave browser suit me fine. Since Brave uses the same engine and extensions. What’s the downside of Brave besides ppl not liking the creator? If I stopped using every device and product with an evil genius behind it I’d live in a cave somewhere with no technology at all.

When tech companies say we’re doing this for security, it’s not about our security. It’s about securing more profits for their shareholders.

I de-Googled about 5 years ago. I think it was around that time they removed Kodi.

I use Firefox and LibreWolf trying to avoid Chrome based browsers, but doesn’t Mozilla get the majority of the funding for Firefox development from making Google default search? I’ve purchased a few of Firefox’s paid features, VPN, etc hoping that it would contribute to getting them a new business model.

Aye matey, I’m so old I was using the internet back when we just said “Search online”. Kids in the US are literally taught in school to say Google, talk about product placement. Sometimes I say DDG, but honestly I’ve been using Brave Search lately.

Try another search engine partner, Google’s SEO has become increasingly less likely to find open source projects as their referral commission algorithm grows more greedy. Google is also no friend of our community as they continually remove our programs like “Kodi” from search results and target projects like YT-dl with takedowns. We monetize them simply by searching on their platform, genius for shareholders, terrible for consumers.

Imagine when film companies pay Google for access to pirate’s gmail registrations. I’m glad I switched to Protonmail years ago. Any of these “free” services will sell your information for the right price.

Google’s search monopoly is hurting the Internet generally speaking by stifling innovation and pushing normal users into it’s ecosystem by paying companies like Apple billions to make it the default search.

https://www.makeuseof.com/why-google-pays-apple-billions-of-dollars/

My grandmother has been using Google everyday for a decade on her iPhone and didn’t even know until I changed the default settings. We need competitors in this space to make the internet a better place and using any search engine that relies completely on Google’s SEO is perpetuating their market dominance. Hopefully, Google pulls a Reddit like move and makes it ridiculously expensive to access their search services, the way they’re currently experimenting with YT ad blocking.

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/92181/youtube-to-disable-video-playback-for-accounts-caught-too-many-times-with-ad-blockers/index.html

Then competitors will have to move away from Google’s evil empire making life better for everyone.

I wouldn’t use Google for anything in 2023 partner. Not trying to troll your comment, but I think a lot of us just use it by habit. Given Google’s recent involvement with tracking ppl and DCMA takedowns, not to mention going after open source projects such as Invidious and YT-DL they’re no friend of our community. Just using their services let’s them monetize your data, hence supporting a company that stands against our values. I remember them removing applications from their autocomplete results like Kodi years ago, because the app “was used by pirates.” Give DDG or Brave Search a spin, once you’re used to it, it’s much better than staying on Google’s sinking ship, they’re killing themselves by selling the rankings of search results to the highest bidder versus yielding relevant information at this point.

Try to find a VPN that’s a nonprofit or community oriented. Usually the VPNs with the most marketing and advertising are the most profit driven and less concerned about your privacy. Use DDG, Brave search or anything but Google to research. A lot of people don’t understand that Google is just an advertising company that uses it’s search engine sell products, they also get commission through referral, so it’s in the company’s interest for you to pay more.

Use Mullvad DNS, they even offer a public address available to anyone. Last time I checked, Mullvad was a nonprofit, so hopefully less greedy than a corporate VPN imho. Public DNS is 194.242.2.2

https://mullvad.net/en/help/all-about-dns-servers-and-privacy/