There’s a popular saying, “If you are not paying for a service then you are the product”. If there’s one place where this statement holds, it’s in respect to Google. All of use are using free Google products everyday in our lives. From using Google Search for searching online to using Google Maps for navigation to using Gmail for managing our emails, Google is entrenched in our everyday life. We can use all these products for free because Google uses our data to target ads. Most people forget that Google, first and foremost, is an advertising company. And nothing is more valuable to Google then our data.
We are being stalked and tracked all over the web and most of us are not even thinking twice about it. Well, if you are someone who is starting to feel insecure about Google tracking you and want to remove Google from your life, there’s a new Chrome extension that’s here to help you out.
‘NOMOOGLE’ is a Google Chrome and Firefox extension that aims to help you replace Google from your life. It achieves this aim by helping users in three ways. First is its easy to use Google alternative finder which helps you find alternatives to all the Google products. For example, if you are looking for Gmail alternatives, you will see that NOMOOGLE suggests FastMail, Zoho Email, and others as alternative services to replace Gmail.
Secondly, it gives you a pop-up reminder every time you are using a Google product. This is to gently remind you that you are using a Google product and you should probably be using its alternative. The third is the “Enable Redirects” and “Strict Mode” option. If you enable the former, the extensions will automatically redirect you to an alternative service to Google’s offering. For example, if you are opening Google Search homepage, it will automatically redirect you to DuckDuckGo which is a more private search engine. The latter when enabled, complete blocks you out from using any Google service.
While it’s not a perfect solution, NOMOOGLE is certainly a fun extension that can help you wean off Google addiction. So check it out from the link below. But before you go, there are few fun things that I want to mention. First, is the fun splash screen which you get if you try to install its Chrome extension (as Chrome is a Google product). And second is that it doesn’t consider “YouTube” as a Google product. It’s probably because there’s no better option out there. Well, that’s all from me so just go and check it out.
