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DeGoogle Part 2 8/2026
Introduction
In Degoogle Part 1, we talked about the whys of degoogling and the first basic steps. If you are happy with just doing those, that's great! You are still far above
most of the population. Degoogling is a dial, not a switch. You can go as far or as little as you want and still have an impact. If you want to learn about some more difficult things to do, read on.
I'm going to cover email, VPNs, drive, and maps a little bit. Keep in mind, some of these things are more difficult to switch. It's okay to skip some of them.
Maps
I'm going to be blunt, I have yet to find something that is a perfect replacement for maps. A couple of low tech options first, then I'll go into the options that might be more of a direct swap.
First, see if you can use paper maps. I know, I know, they don't get updated until replaced, nobody seems to be able to fold them, they take up space, and they really require someone sitting next
to you to read them unless you pull over every time you need to check it. But, they are inexpensive, reliable (it doesn't matter if you have no signal or battery), and completely private.
Another more low tech option is to get a standalone GPS unit. Some of them still don't link to the cell network and are therefore more private than google maps. Not a perfect solution, but a
good compromise. They do still make them. Just make sure to do some research and get one that does not require an account and allows updates.
And now, two options for more direct replacements. The first is an app called OSMAnd. It is the opensource alternative to google maps. There are some other projects,
but this is the most full fledged one I've found. Just make sure to install it from the FDroid store, not google play or aurora store. The Fdroid version does not charge for extra maps. The play
store version does. I'll get into alternative stores further down the page. OSMAnd is based on open street maps data, unlike google maps you can download maps for each state and use it completely
offline with no data connection. I find that it works well for general travel, such as traveling between cities. But, when I try to use it for an exact address, it often takes me to a location a
couple blocks away but gets me into the vicinity okay. The other option is GMaps WV. This is a web wrapper for google maps. It is
an app that accesses google maps privately. It works pretty well, but I don't feel that it's a perfect solution as it still needs google maps to work. What I have been doing is using OSMAnd as
my primary map app and the wrapper only when OSMAnd doesn't work. This covers me for the vast majority of my map needs.
Email
This is going to be one of the most time consuming parts of this process. Gmail is not secure at all. Google scans your emails, trains AI with them, doesn't encrypt storage, and shares information
with the government. Every login and communication you can remove from gmail, you will further your own privacy. So, step one is to gather all your logins that use your email. The list is probably
huge. Banks, social media, retirement accounts, work accounts, online shopping, utility accounts, and anything else you use your email to login with or to communicate with a company. Also, all
your contacts. Most people don't really use email for general chatting and communication anymore, but if you do, you'll want to keep in touch with those people. Get this list all together, it might
help to make a spreadsheet. This way, you can check things off as you change emails.
Okay, now to talk about email providers. First, a word of caution. Do not delete your google account right away. I know it's tempting. Don't do it. It will make your life so much more difficult
if you do. There are several privacy respecting email providers. Two that come to mind are Proton Mail and Tuta Mail.
Both options offer a free plan with one email address. This is a good option to start with. Both also have calendars available to replace google calendar. Proton has a VPN included with the
email as well as a cloud drive. If you want those options included, Proton might be your best option. If you'd rather spread your providers out a bit more, not necessarily a bad idea, then Tuta
might be your better option. Personally, I went with Proton because I like having the VPN and drive included in one account. While there are risks with having multiple things through one
provider, I made the decision that I would prefer the little extra convenience in exchange for a little bit of risk. This is not a decision I can make for you, as everyone will have a different
risk tolerance and you need to go with what you are comfortable with. You will not go wrong with either provider, there are also other options out there, but these are the two main players. There is also
nothing wrong with using both providers. Although I pay for Proton, I also have a free Tuta address as a backup. If Proton were to ever go belly up (unlikely, but always possible with any company), it's good to have something to fall back on. Once
you have chosen a provider, there are a few more steps to do.
Next, you will want to choose a plan with your provider. Both Proton and Tuta offer a free tier. I'd start with that to try out the service. If you are satisfied with it, I recommend upgrading
to a paid plan. On both, the paid plan offers many benefits. The main one is that they allow you to make multiple email addresses. For example, I have one for my banks, one for my utility bills,
one for my social media, one for online shopping, and so forth. I highly recommend you do this. That way, if, for example, your social media login gets compromised, you don't have to worry about
it spreading to your bank accounts (as long as you use different passwords for everything, you do that, don't you?). It also means that if you get a particularly dedicated spammer, you can simply
delete that email address without having to change everything over. I have a couple addresses I only use for newsletter/shopping/store sign ups. I find that the mid tier plan on both options is
good for most people. If you have a large family and you are trying to get everyone to switch, you might need to step up a plan, but my family of 3 is perfectly fine with the mid range plan
that includes 10 email addresses. I'm not including pricing on this website as it is subject to change, but as of the writing of this article (9/2026), I am paying $13 US per month with Proton, that includes 10
email addresses, 500gb cloud storage, password manager, calendar, and unlimited VPN. Something else to look for in a provider is if it supports using your own domain. This makes it much easier to
switch providers if needed. For example, your email address would be [email protected] instead of [email protected]. So if you needed to switch from Proton to Tuta, it would be very easy.
All you'd need would be to switch your domain name to the new provider and you won't have to change all your logins. I'm in the process of working on this at the moment as a long term project
in my degoogling system. Just waiting on the right domain name.
Once you have your provider chosen and ready to go, it's time for the hard part. Start switching all your logins, contacts, and other accounts to the new email addresses. This will take a long time,
there is no need to rush unless you want. Just work through everything you can at your own pace. I had a couple accounts that I actually had to call in to change my email. I also had one account
that the only way to switch emails was to delete and reopen the account. That is one of my only things still on gmail as I will lose a lot of stuff if I cancel the account. You probably have a
few stinkers like that in your list as well. Just do your best to get through them. Even if you go from having 50 things tied to your gmail to only having 3, you are doing great. Once your
accounts are all switch, you are set with your email. It's all downhill from here.
Drive and Photos
Google drive and photos are much easier to handle than email unless your documents and photos are a mess. As far as providers, Proton does offer drive with their email offerings. Tuta is also
in the process of offering a drive option in the next few months. There are also multiple other options. For photos, you could go with Ente. Ente is an
encrypted privacy respecting photo and video drive operating very much like Google photos. If you are a big picture and video taker, I would highly recommend going with Ente instead of any other
commercial drive option. It has an excellent Android app, looks good in the web browser, and is very secure. It is relatively affordable as well. If you aren't really a photobug, then an option
like Proton's drive might work better for you since Ente doesn't support files other than photos and videos. You could also use both, that's what I do. Ente handles my photos and videos, Proton
handles everything else as well as acting as a backup for my photos and videos.
I'm going to give you another option for drive. Just don't use it. I know, it sounds crazy, but if you keep up with transferring stuff off your phone and into backups, you really don't need
cloud storage for much. You can do offsite backups with external hard drives or even DVDs. You can use local storage on your phone for the camera. Now, I'm just giving an option here, there are
many reasons to go with a cloud provider. The main benefit it provides for me is offsite backup of my photos. Pictures when my child was born, pictures of passed family and friends, from my childhood, my parent's childhood,
insurance pictures, all kinds of very important things. I am willing to pay for multiple cloud as well as local backups for my pictures. Most of my other documents can be replaced, but I'm never getting
other pictures of my daughter at 1 minute old or of my grandfather before he passed. I don't have to worry about keeping up with burning DVDs or transferring external hard drives up to my parent's house
(my offsite backup location for hard drives). I can just transfer stuff and it's done. It's up to you to decide the direction you want to take. The only other reason I could think of for cloud
storage would be collaboration. If you are working on a document with multiple people, there isn't a great substitute for a cloud option. There are some self hosted options, but that is beyond
the scope of this document geared towards beginners. I would start with using Protong drive if you have decided to go with their email. Give it a try and see how it works. If it does everything
you need, then great. If it doesn't, then I'd add Ente for your photos and see if that helps. Another option that I have played around with is PCloud.
PCloud is very similar to Proton drive. However, it doesn't have a bunch of other things with it. It is just cloud storage. If you are looking to separate your providers out, I'd recommend
trying PCloud for your drive option and then Proton or Tuta for email and calendar. The only thing to be aware of with it, is the encryption option is a paid add on. I know people don't tend to like that sort of thing, but it is a reasonable price and very easy
to do. They even offer a one time payment for encryption lifetime for a reasonable amount. Then you'd just have to pay monthly for the storage fees.
VPN
The last thing I'm going to mention is a VPN. A VPN allows you to make the websites you are visiting think you're visiting from another geographical location. You might have heard of VPNs being
used to access geo restricted content on streaming services such as Netflix. It also has the benefit of blocking your IP address from the internet. Personally, I use my VPN for all internet traffic
other than some very limited moments.
How does a VPN work? It is kind of like driving through a tunnel underneath another road. The traffic on the other road doesn't know you are there, but you are still going under them. Let's say you
want to access a website. Normally, you send a request to the website server from your computer, and the website server sends the page back to your computer. The website server sees your IP address.
Through your IP address, you're regular address can be tracked. They can also use it for targeted ads. With a VPN, you send an encrypted request to the VPN server, it then sends a request to the
website server, then the website server sends the webpage back through the VPN server, and the VPN server sends it back to you. The webpage sees the IP address of the VPN server, not of your house.
If you use a no logs VPN, the VPN provider has no clue what websites you visit either as it's all encrypted and not saved. For a no logs VPN, Proton VPN or
Mullvad VPN. Both are privacy respecting no logs and encrypted. Mullvad you can even pay with cash. The big difference is Proton has a lot of other things
included but also offers a free tier to try it out. Mullvad doesn't have a free tier and includes no other products. Mullvad is less expensive. Here is when I'd use either one. Proton if I want
the convenience of having email, calendar, password manager, drive, and VPN all in one. VPN is included with all their other offerings. Even the free plan. Mullvad if I want to split everything
up and use different providers for different products. It's your choice and both work quite well. Proton supports port forwarding and Mullvad does not. This will only apply if you
like to use torrenting and similar services. I will cover that in its own page. The only other thing to keep in mind is Proton has a lot more servers available if you need
to switch servers for some reason. This could make or break being able to access Netflix or a similar service. It is also okay to have both if you wish, for example use the free Proton tier and the
paid Mullvad tier. You can set things up so your VPN is always on, this is what I do. Both support split tunneling. This is nice if you want some programs and apps to work only through the VPN and
some not to. I use this for my banking. I have one web browser that is set up to not go through my VPN. This browser only gets used for banking and utility payments as I have found that many
of my local money services don't support VPNs well. Then everything else online is done through another browser that is sent through the VPN. This makes it easy to switch between VPN or not
without actually having to turn it on and off.
Notes
Proton includes the following on paid plans: VPN, email with a certain number of email addresses, use of your own domain name with your email, drive storage, calander, password manager, and 2 factor
authenticator. Their drive also includes a docs program much like Google docs. Their free offering includes only one email address and doesn't support custom domains. It also includes a limited VPN.
It is recommended to use different providers for all your different products. One for your VPN, one for email, one for drive, and so on. This prevents having all your eggs in one basket. There are
pluses and minuses to this. I made the decision to prioritize convenience to make this transition easier. I would also recommend that for beginners. If you want to go with all different providers
though, then go right ahead.
Conclusion
This will get you to a really good point in your journey, if you like, you can stop here and be doing really well. If you want to go the extra mile, the next degoogling post will cover alternative
phone systems as that is probably one of your last spots where Google has you cornered at this point.