That Google sucks is not up for debate here. Google is evil. They are mean and mean people suck. Period.
At this point — if you value the Internet and don’t think it should be owned by a mega corporation that has incentive to control the content you see — you should cancel your Verizon phone contract and stop using all Google services. Even the Google search engine.
Instead, use any other search engine of your choice, but I recommend Ecosia. It’s free, fast, and backed by Yahoo, Bing and the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). It basically works like any other search engine but, unlike others, Ecosia gives at least 80% of its advertising revenue to a rainforest protection program run by the WWF. (Now, if we can only get Ecosia to create banners in a format other than proprietary Adobe Flash …)
Replace Google in your Firefox Search Bar. While at Ecosia.org, you can find an “Add Ecosia” option in your Search Bar drop down. Like this:
Then you can set it as your default search engine.
Some alternatives for other Google services
As soon as the Google-Verizon deal was announced, I stopped using all Google services. For the ads on this blog, I switched to AdBrite. (I know it’s not exactly a freedom-respecting, do-gooder service, and the ads can be a little obnoxious, but I haven’t seen AdBrite scheming to take over the Internet lately …) For web statistics, I turned to Piwik and Awstats — and now I actually own my own web site usage data instead of Google. Here’s a little snippet from the Google Analytics Terms of Use:
4. NONEXCLUSIVE LICENSE . [...] You will not [...] copy, modify, adapt, translate or otherwise create derivative works of the Software or the Documentation; (ii) reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software.
[...]
6. INFORMATION RIGHTS AND PUBLICITY . Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, [...] information collected in Your use of the Service.
Ahh, freedom. Piss off, Google.
Oh, snap Ricky! Aren’t you up Caleb’s Creek using Bing, aka Micro$oft? What’s more evil in The Creek, threats to Internet Freedom or the Software Patent Gestapo? Lets rankify the importance:
1) Save the Internet
2) Save the Software
3) Save the Spotted Owl
4) What’s a Yahoo?
Cheers!
Good catch, oh ye using Chrome on a Mac. I actually said to my wife this morning, “I can’t believe that I currently view Microsoft as less evil than Google.”
It’s the 80% of ad revenue to the rainforest thing, I guess. I think the Golden Potto is almost as cute as Steve Ballmer
without google, we’d be stuck with bing, yahoo, AOL and alta vista search.
you need to check into a mental institution before it’s too late. google > god ~~~~!!! :D
[...] advertising to a rainforest protection programme. A fellow supporter of this ISP is the author of “Google sucks. Use Ecosia.”, even though he can’t be considered an expert, [...]