TheDeGoogle movement (also called the de-Google movement) is agrassroots campaign that has spawned as privacy advocates urge users to stop usingGoogle products entirely due togrowing privacy concerns regarding the company.[1][2]
As the growingmarket share of theinternet giant createsmonopolistic power for the company indigital spaces, increasing numbers of journalists and individuals have noted the difficulty to find alternatives to the company's products.
Some projects, such asungoogled-chromium,/e/ andMicroG primarily distinguish themselves from Google-maintained products by their lessened dependence on the company's infrastructure.[3]
It can be seen as part of a broader opposition tobig tech companies, sometimes referred to as "techlash."[4]
In 2008, Lee Hinman began making the move away from Google tools, 'in the interests of privacy', and blogged about his experience in a post entitled 'De-googling'.[5]
In 2010, publisherJack Yan used the term as he removed himself from Google's services, citing privacy concerns.[6] Five days later, Kirk McElhearn wrote a piece about "dropping Google" inMacworld, citing privacy, deletions of Blogger blogs, and censorship.[7]
In 2013, John Koetsier of Venturebeat saidAmazon's Kindle Fire Android-based tablet was "a de-Google-ized version of Android."[8]
In 2014, John Simpson of US News wrote about the “right to be forgotten” by Google and other search engines.[9]
In 2015, Derek Scally of Irish Times wrote an article on how to "De-Google your life."[10]
In 2016 Kris Carlon of Android Authority suggested that users of CyanogenMod 14 could “de-Google” their phones, because CyanogenMod works fine without Google apps too.[11]
In 2018, Nick Lucchesi of Inverse wrote about howProtonMail was promoting how to "be able to completely de-Google-fy your life.”[12]
Lifehacker's Brendan Hesse wrote a detailed tutorial on "quitting Google."[13]
Gizmodo journalistKashmir Hill claims that she missed meetings and had difficulties organizing meet ups without the use ofGoogle Calendar.[14] In 2020, she wrote another article on avoiding large tech companies in which she discussed how disabling Google prevented her from usingDropbox,Uber,Lyft, andYelp, and described Amazon and Google as "so embedded in the architecture of the digital world that even their competitors had to rely on their services."[15]
In 2022, comic artist and activist Leah Elliott published aCreative Commons web comic criticizingGoogle Chrome's privacy practices, entitled "Contra Chrome."[16][17]
In 2019,Huawei gave a refund to phone owners in thePhilippines who were inhibited from using services provided byGoogle because so few alternatives exist that the absence of the company's products made normal internet use unfeasible.[18]
In 2020,Huawei launchedPetal as an alternative to Google Search.[19]
