Summary: We've spent this weekend ungoogling the Web site; Google (or "Gulag"/"Goolag" as we mockingly call it) is not a friend of civil society and its "news" services are increasingly just a filter (censorship) full of misinformation, outright spam (due to neglect or loss of commercial incentive to tackle the issue) with little or no value to us; they're designed for spying and optimised for "engagement" by provocation, just like social control media

THINGS are about to change a little. Today I dumped Google from my life entirely (Google News over RSS was the last remaining thing) and we as a site aren't going to use it anymore. We've made contingencies and have bypassed some perceived dependencies. The main downside is, we won't be able to carry on with our weekly rebuttals to UPC misinformation/disinformation; that's OK in a sense because we've made a point for a number of months. Prior to it we made several ~3-hour-long video demonstrating how appalling Google News became in the signal-to-noise ratio sense.

The trade-off (dumping Google) or the compromise (no more highly extensive search) is worth making. Google gradually imperiled its own dis-services, including YouTube. Just ask so-called 'creators' in YouTube how they feel about recent changes.

"Just like that, without prior planning, today (12/6/22) is the day I deleted everything Google-connected from my life. Everything."Throughout the day today we've tested the safety nets, so to speak, just to ensure we can still see updates from sites that are important (and not via Google's sieve/filter). Not a monumental task as Google News over RSS was the last of it all... it was a gradual departure.

It's kind of funny, isn't it? Just like that, without prior planning, today (12/6/22) is the day I deleted everything Google-connected from my life. Everything.

"Not a monumental task as Google News over RSS was the last of it all... it was a gradual departure."Some people typically ask, "so what to use for search?"

Well, searx.be is a currently-functioning instance. Don't use DuckDuckGo or Startpage. They're the opposite of what they claim to be.

How's life without anything "Google"?

So far, so good.

First impression, with Google News entirely eliminated: less FUD, fewer false positives, more time to actually research and find on-topic stuff that's not secretly funded by Microsoft (or by advertising contracts for proprietary junk).

Google will have no editorial impact, either directly or indirectly. We have nearly 1,000 RSS feeds to follow now.

When Google says "don't be evil" think of Kim Jong-un speaking of a Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It's a proactive defence mechanism -- calling yourself the opposite of what you really are. Google does not just help autocracies. It is itself an autocracy. ⬆