So you’re fed adult with Google, and you’ve got a litany of reasons. More now than ever. You don’t even have to explain—we’re only here to assistance we yield out from underneath a shade of a large G, step by step.

The preference to tighten your Google comment has to be delicately considered—after all, this is a place that stores your email, your documents, your contacts, your photos, your news, and even your health records. But this turn of investment to one use is as good a reason to leave as it is to stay: If looking during your Google Dashboard, that lists all a services we use, and a volume and form of information we store on them, doesn’t make we feel a small uneasy, afterwards hell, what would?

Anyway, we’re not here to make a box for we to dump Google altogether—it’s not something I’m prepared to do, for a start—I’m only here to tell we how to do it. Here’s all we need to know about life after Google.

Search

It’s easy to forget that there are other hunt engines in a world, given Google has been so seemingly widespread over a final few years. But they’re there, and they’re indeed flattering good.

The best choice to Google, by a prolonged shot, is Microsoft’s Bing. It’s an expansion of a Live hunt engine, and it’s offers a clearly opposite knowledge than Google: it’s distant from minimalist, with a colorful interface, content-tailored formula pages, and and importance on shortening clicks, rather than shortening clutter. Coming from Google it can be visually jarring, and a fact that a formula for common searches are different—if not improved or worse—means that during first, you’ll get a feeling that it isn’t operative right.

Give it some time and some patience, and you’ll comprehend that it’s flattering damn good. Some pieces are indeed better, like picture search. And even if hunt isn’t viewed as a biggest hazard to your privacy, it’s critical to make a switch anyway—after all, it was Google hunt that was a gateway to all a other Google services, that you’re now perplexing interpretation yourself from.

Honorable Mentions:

• Yahoo
• Wolfram Alpha
• Collecta
• Mahalo

Email

Back when it launched in 2005, Gmail lured users with violent amounts of giveaway storage space: One gigabyte. Impossible. This held a widespread services of a day totally off guard, and finished their giveaway webmail seem definitely ancient.

Today, that one gigabyte has grown to scarcely seven, and on a aspect not many has altered about ol’ Gmail. Meanwhile, a companies that were blindsided behind in 2005 have had copiousness of time to locate adult to, and in some cases, surpass Google’s offering. Here’s how to make a full switch:

Backing adult your Gmail: There are a series of ways to do this, yet one stands out as a easiest: The email customer method.

1.) Download Thunderbird, a giveaway email customer from a same people who make Firefox (Download for Windows, OS X)
2.) Enable IMAP entrance on your Gmail account, by clicking a Setting couple in a tip right of your inbox, navigating to a Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab, and selecting a “Enable IMAP” radio button

3.) File New Mail Account
4.) Enter your name and Gmail address, after that Thunderbird should find your mail settings automatically, and set itself adult as an IMAP client: (If this doesn’t happen, deliberate Google’s guide for a primer setup.
5.) Once a comment is set up, open Thunderbird’s Account Settings panel, and navigate to a Synchronization and Storage tab. Make certain “Keep messages for this comment on this computer” and “Synchronize all messages regardless of age” are both selected.
6.) Wait for your messages to sync to your computer—this could take hours, generally if you’re nearby your Gmail storage limit.

What you’ve finished here is alien all of your Gmail messages into a internal client—Thunderbird—which lets we crop them, hunt them, or behind them adult to an outmost tough expostulate for posterity. And if we switch to another IMAP-based service, we can import these aged messages into your new comment simply by boring them from your Gmail inbox folder in Thunderbird to your new account’s inbox folder.

Contacts are a trickier question, yet during a unequivocally slightest we can use Gmail’s hit exporting apparatus (under your Gmail inbox folder list) to emanate a CSV record or or VCard, for importing into a customer like Thunderbird.

The best choice service: As prolonged as it’s been given Gmail showed adult on a scene, a webmail stage hasn’t seen many sparkling new players—Google has a knack of preempting new foe when it moves into a product category. So, for a best remaining choice is a undoubted oldie: Yahoo mail. Consider a facts:

• It’s still free
• It offers unlimited storage
• POP entrance is accessible in a giveaway version, and with a small fiddling, so is IMAP access
• Free calm messages in certain countries
• The interface doesn’t demeanour like it was designed in 1999, like certain other webmail clients.

Calendar

Exporting your Google calendars: This one’s easy. Just:

1.) Navigate to your GCal settings page, and click on a Calendars tag.
2.) Export calendars to an ICS file, like so:
3.) That’s it!

The best alternative: Yahoo calendar is fine, yet in a suggestion of swelling your critical info around, let’s go with Windows Live Calendar. One you’ve combined a Live ID—you flattering many need one of these nowadays—you’re automatically given a Live Calendar account. To import your Google Calendars, only do a following:

1.) Open Live Calendar
2.) Click “Subscribe”
3.) Import a ICS record we exported from Gmail, like this:

Photos

Not that many people use Picasa, so this one should be easy. Plus, there are some apparently higher alternatives.

• Flickr doesn’t stop during being a good print pity site, it’s also an extraordinary apparatus for photographers, both consultant and amateur. Storage is singular with a monthly upload cap.
• Photobucket is a elementary gallery service, with an importance on pity over archiving. Storage is singular to 1GB.
• Shutterfly is another super-simple service, with total storage (Google doesn’t even offer that for free)
• Facebook shouldn’t be counted out—its print application competence be aggressive, yet it does concede we to upload and tab a substantially total series of photos.

Documents

A lot of people find themselves regulating Google Docs given it’s only so damn convenient—you accept a request in your Gmail account, and suddenly, hey, it’s in a Google Docs service! That’s how they get you. And interestingly enough, notwithstanding Google’s merger of Writely and successive improvements on in a Docs service, there’s still an objectively higher online request modifying use out there.

ZoHo Docs is a full online bureau fit (among other things) that does substantially all Google Docs can do, and mostly more. It offers low request editing, offline modifying (!), and collaborative editing. Document harmony on ZoHo is positively tops, and a formatting and modifying options distant surpass Google Docs. There’s a calm editor, a spreadsheet editor and a display editor, to name a few.

Social Network

Google+ was studious 0 in Google’s insane information grab, and while it competence not have gotten a foothold Google hoped for, a decent cube of folks have ditched Facebook given of a trashy lane record of remoteness foibles. That diversion looks a lot opposite now, generally given Facebook finished a understanding with a FTC in November that army it to obtain agree before pity your information or changing your remoteness settings. And hey, we indeed really adore Timeline.

Combined with Twitter’s recognition and some-more focused networks like Foursquare, abandoning Google’s spook boat shouldn’t disaster we over too badly.

VOIP

This one’s going to be a large stumbling retard for a lot of folks who have turn contingent on Google’s VOIP with Google Voice, yet there are other choices out there. Ooma, for one, is a good use with a good app, good devices, and a garland of facilities if we pointer adult for a subscription, including a second line, three-way calling, call forwarding, and extended voicemail features.

Or if you’re only perplexing to bound on a line for a discerning call, Skype is an aged and still awfully renouned standby. Bonus points here for replacing Google Hangouts, if that has somehow turn an constituent partial of your (apparently low expectation-having) life.

Web Video

There won’t be any removing around YouTube and a stranglehold on web video, yet that’s not a problem. You can perspective roughly all of a calm on YouTube yet signing into a Google account. The emanate is with storage, and YouTube is a biggest user-generated video horde on a planet—and free.

Vimeo is substantially subsequent in line as distant as carrying a place in a internet’s consciousness, and it’s a totally estimable alternative. For one, it’s where many of a critical video projects will be posted primarily. So if you’re uploading as a professional, you’re substantially regulating Vimeo already. Then cruise that a comments are especially positive, and not a terrible duct that YouTube’s are. Tech-wise, Vimeo’s only fine, too: It’s got a entirely embeddable HTML5 actor that’s ocular on flattering many all mobile devices.

Phones

It’s tough to get out of your agreement if you’re sealed in on an Android phone. But if you’re adult for an ascent some time soon, and we wish to avoid Google’s info-grab, we should take a prolonged tough demeanour during Windows Phone. Yes, there’s a iPhone. That’s unequivocally great. But Windows Phone is a totally uninformed take on phones, and if you’re going to be an Android expat, we should take a dump in a totally-new-and-different pool before trudging behind to informed waters like iOS.

Music

Does anyone indeed use Google Music? We’re skeptical, yet Amazon is a flattering good alternative to whatever you’re using. It’s generally a nick or dual cheaper than what you’ll find in other marketplaces, with visit and good deals to boot.

Pulling a Plug

So, you’ve migrated what we can, and staid into we new services nicely. Now, it’s time to tighten your Google comment out, once and for all? Are we ready? Are we sure? Ok.

For any grievances we competence have about Google’s remoteness practices, we have to give them credit for creation a routine stupidly easy.

1.) From any Google page, click a Settings couple in a tip right, afterwards Account Settings from a submenu.
2.) Next to “My Products”, click a “Edit” link
3.) From here, select to undo particular services, or tighten your Google Account altogether.

4.) Confirm that we wish all of your information deleted.
5.) DO IT.

Feels strange, doesn’t it? For anyone with adequate annoy and proclivity to follow this guide, though, we think “strange” could be transposed with any series of some-more friendly adjectives. So, ex-Googlers: Do we feel improved now?

We couldn’t cover each final Google use and square of software, so if we have some-more tips and alternatives to share, greatfully dump some links in a comments.

This post was creatively published Feb 20, 2010, and has been updated to be stream with a recommendations for removing off a Google mothership.

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