Elegant Technology

Have you ever tried to sever all connections with Google? It is possible but not without some effort.

I have been reading a lot about minimalism lately. Not the art – more the lifestyle. I considered a reduction in my on-line presence. I had multiple email addresses and multiple web-sites.

My Google account was linked to email, Adsense, the RSS reader, YouTube, Calendar, and Docs.

As I did not use the email account and had had enough of Adsense I took the decision that I would delete all of my Google services. It was then I discovered how much of a grip on me Google had.

This ‘blog had Adsense links that had to be removed. My other websites had the same issue.

A regular habit of checking RSS feeds through Google Reader no longer worked because I could not login any more.

The Google App on my iPhone was removed as I could not use many of the features without an account. I had used the RSS reader that sync’d with the cloud.

I still use Google Search but I am also trying keyboardr.

At the moment I still feel a little bit lost. I am having to find alternatives for the tools and features I used. This proves to me how reliant I was becoming on Google.

Time will tell if I can cope without it permanantely.