Boycotting Google is easier to announce than to do. After the company’s Lake America move, this editor is going to find out what it takes.
Google abandoned any pretense of being good guys long before it finally got around to quietly removing the “Don’t do evil” motto from its website in 2018.
They’re in league with practically all of the other open-source-facing big tech gigolos and gigolettes, who spent the first decade of the 21st century wearing white hats and publicly identifying with their workers. Since the Trump regime took power, however, (and even a bit before) they’ve been helping maintain a boulevard of broken dreams by supporting the gangsters behind a US administration that is everything the free software/free tech movement is not.
There was a time when it could be argued that, even as it was beginning to act more and more monopolistic, its heart was in the right place. It did things like the Summer of Code, which helped open source and young developers trying to develop their chops. When employees complained that clients were using Google to develop weapons of war, its management listened and refused to renew the projects.
That Google is long gone, and most of us have always known that it was actually never as altruistic as it would’ve had us believe. These days it’s brazenly supporting an administration that commits atrocities that are counter to what this country stands for. For example, whether from cowardice or otherwise, it’s supporting the fight that Trump has picked with our neighbor to the north, which has historically been our best ally, along with his childish decision to issue a likely illegal executive order to change the “official” name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.
The best thing to do with such nonsense, of course, would be to ignore it. The podcast Pod Save America ridiculed the notion by titling a recent episode “Lake America Great Again.” Google’s reaction was to adopt it, and immediately changed the name of the Great Lake to Lake America — at least for US users. When Jack Wallen posted about it on Facebook this morning I was afraid to believe it, even though he posted a screenshot. I went to Duckduckgo and searched for “Google Maps Rochester NY.” The search results offered cartographic proof that Google puts Rochester on the south shore of Lake America.
From his home in Italy, Marco Fioretti posted a screenshot of his view of Lake Ontario on Google Maps, which gave the lake its correct, traditional name, but added a pop-up legend explaining that the name is Lake Ontario (Lake America).
That’s just a little thing, but for me it’s the breaking point. From now on, I’m boycotting Google as much as I can. I have an almost brand-new burner phone that I’ll probably keep Android on until May or so, when my prepaid unlimited minutes from Tracfone will run out. However, I’m going to remove everything Google that’s removable, and definitely find a non-Google replacement for Google Maps’ Navigation function. I remember trying something on Gael Duval’s /e/OS many years back for that which did a pretty good job.
Speaking of /e/OS: I have my previous phone, which worked almost fine when I quit using it. I replaced it because Android would no longer let me update it, which was making it slowly lose the ability to connect to certain websites. I’m going to charge it up, see if I can install /e/OS on it, and if I can, then buy a Tracfone SIM card, and see how it works. I definitely plan to keep you updated on that, so you’ll know how that works out, so stay tuned.
I don’t use Google search anymore anyway. I haven’t for years, and I haven’t missed it. I also haven’t used Chrome for many years. Currently I have Vivaldi set up to use Duckduckgo when I search from the address bar, and Startpage when I use the search bar.
Wanna join me? Whether yes or no, take the poll included in this article to let us know. Then post in the comments below the article to let us know how you’re planning on deGoogling your life. The poll is going to be active for a week. We’ll talk more after that.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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