My name is Dion Moult (Student). I do graphic design, some 3D work, and currently in the middle of a "soon" to be released 3D animated movie. I like programming too and fluent in XHTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. Web development is my main area of computer expertise …

Given that introduction I lumped a while back at the bottom of this page I’d be lying to say I honestly cared about the majority of things I throw online. Only an idiot wouldn’t appreciate the lack of anonymity of the internet. Perhaps I’m a little paranoid but I don’t like third-party solutions – especially those by Big Brother Google. I like the flexibility and control of my own setups, which is why I run a very lovely cloud-setup with a laughable synchronisation schedule and don’t use Google.

When I say I don’t use Google, I mean it. More or less. I don’t use GMail but instead use my own mailserver with a choice of Horde, Roundcube or Squirrelmail as a webmail client and almost exclusively use mutt and KMail as a main client. I find I get less spam, more compatibility, and of course, flexibility. You don’t need Google Blogspot when you can run your own WordPress setup on your server. Picasa? Calendar? That’s what your cloud is for. It’s really dead easy. Reader? Use a proper client, not a website. It’s rather easy to boycott their underdeveloped services but the biggie is changing Google search.

With Google’s latest change with their image search it seems as though they completely overlooked third-world countries because I’m not alone in finding it to be the most terrible interface in the world. Nothing loads right, searchings are noticably slower, and it’s a pain to navigate. Anyways at that point I began a discussion with a few friends on how easy it would be to switch away from Google.

A quick peek at the alternatives shows that Google’s web search trumps the competition. Lucky we have Scroogle (SSL). Which provides all the results and none of the videocameras. With SSL, of course. Firefox users may use the Firefox plugin, which adds it to your search bar on the top right of the browser – a few clicks later and it’s your default. A bit more poking reveals another firefox plugin called OptimizeGoogle, which although enhancing Google also allows you to remove some of the identified Google tracking systems and other nonsense like ads.

I’m still poking around for more boycott goodness and would appreciate a solution to their retarded image search interface. It’s also quite refreshing to see the good ol’ alternative search engines that I used in primary before Google really existed. Remember Dogpile?

So, what did you do to stop Google?

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