My divorce from Google - One year later (opens in new tab)

Well it's all just a mater of personal taste but tbh ... when someone says "GPS. I don't use it, even in a car. I'm old-school as I like printed maps." I don't find it that surprising he has no trouble letting stuff like gmail, google maps and google search go.

It can be done, but for some it's easier as for others.

The strange thing is that despite this, the author uses Facebook and Amazon and stuff. Weird selective exclusion based on whatever. Each to their own I guess.

To me this smell like paranoia for paranoia's sake. No real valid reason for it. So Google track you. Everybody tracks you. Its the nature of the web. If you don't get tracked you will still see ads. They'll just be random. At least you have a chance of seeing something you might actually be interested in. And really the bottom line is that all of this internet-scale costs money. And since we are a bit touchy about paying for stuff we take for granted these days, like 'search' and 'social' or 'maps', we might as well accept the ads and get on with it. Why would I want to use an OK service for maps or translation when I can use a Great one from another provider even if they track me. (by the way, should we tell him that Facebook, Yahoo and in future most likely DuckDuckGo too, tracks him in the same way or let him figure it out by himself over time?)

>Some friends followed my example onto other social media sites. Not many. Perhaps they weren't really friends.

Wow, OP really feels his friends chose Google over the friendship?

This was dusscissed here a few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5476812

HN ought to weed duplicates better.