So, I have been going strong about this 'no Google' experiment for about a month now and I could have never been this happier. I mean, besides being happy having a cat and sitting at home all day to snuggle with him. But why would I start something like this? After my research, I started to think "Wait, who owns the internet?" We are living in 2018 and social media has become the most important thing for most people, but we actually still don’t own our own internet. I hoped to illuminate how much Alphabet’s giant dominates online existence with the experiment.

Weeks before, actually the minutes before I decided to quit using Google, I was bored at home and opened a short video of The Office on YouTube. I didn’t even think for a second when I clicked the red play button. In the middle of the video, you know when Jim gets on his knee to tie his shoe, I realized I was watching YouTube—Google’s YouTube.

Google is literally the head office of the internet with a very annoying boss, it’s pretty much impossible to avoid. It’s where billions of users find, create and store important information, where they work and distract themselves from work.

But even more than other companies offering free services, Google collects an astonishing amount of data about you and uses it to sell ads. I’m happy with Google because to date there haven’t been reports of catastrophic breaches or data-sharing scandals on the level of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica nightmare. However, if Google springs a leak, it could be disastrous.

That’s why I set out to leave Google’s planet of intertwined products and services. And when I did, I was surprised to find how many strong alternatives had survived its gravitational pull.

I highly recommend trying more non-Google software and services. It isn’t like Facebook, where you have to get all your friends to leave with you. Release yourself from the pain of slow Chrome and download Firefox. You can switch to DuckDuckGo, which I fell in love with how fast and efficient it was and also you can erase all your data with just one click.

I am not telling you to stop using Google products altogether because even though I tried and loved to find other excellent alternatives, it was very hard to replace Maps and Gmail. What I am suggesting here is that you should be able to use the products you want, not the ones that Google is suggesting to you with every tab, and have control of your data and your privacy.