Comments on: A Week Without Google – Day 1

By: James

James — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:08:43 +0000

While Google makes life easier and is very helpful with a lot of things, I have a serious problem with the monopoly they have over the internet. Before we know it, we will be fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger and SkyNet

By: Beryn Hammil

Beryn Hammil — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:07:23 +0000

This is exactly why I don’t have a Droid phone; I’m not willing to give Google all that information so easily. It’s enough that they have almost everything else I do on-line. I have to draw the line somewhere.

By: ukfella

ukfella — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 16:38:02 +0000

Google derive around 1.25billion in revinue in the UK and yet pay less than £600,000 in tax!!

By: Benjamin Ellis

Benjamin Ellis — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:02:28 +0000

Ordinarily I wouldn't follow up on my own post byt I'm a bit blow way by this on CNET news - Tom Krazit has even copied the error about iPhone search that I have in the post here!

By: Episode 139 – Fubar | Dogear Nation » Podcast

Episode 139 – Fubar | Dogear Nation » Podcast — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:06:38 +0000

[...] A Day without Google – andypiper [...]

By: Home Camp news round up « Home Camp

Home Camp news round up « Home Camp — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 13:02:08 +0000

[...] The latest step on the path to Google world domination was taken with the announcement of Google Energy. Good Google says this is to help meet their corporate carbon reduction goals. But over on the other shoulder, Scary Google may be hatching evil plans to move into utilities, despite denials to the contrary. Anyone feeling complacent about Google’s increasingly godlike powers over our digital lives should read @benjaminellis’s blog about a week without Google. [...]

By: Benjamin Ellis

Benjamin Ellis — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:07:00 +0000

@Subbu – you are right – yet another front to consider :)

By: Subbu

Subbu — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:04:26 +0000

oops the syntex got cut off
syntex is
site:benjaminellis.org

By: Subbu

Subbu — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:03:17 +0000

Hi Benjamin,
Your site is still indexed by Google Search Engin :)
It is a very simple test.
Just have to type this sysntex in the search filed:
“site:” (without quotes) and you your site appears, that means your site is indexed.
You can remove it from Google index by adding robot.txt file on ur site. More details as to how is done is on the Google Help page :)

Best regards,
Subbu.

By: Day one in a life without Google | Technoinspire Blog

Day one in a life without Google | Technoinspire Blog — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:06:22 +0000

[...] did not trust Google and had to block it out of their lives, Benjamin reports from his blog Day 1 of living without Google. You can follow his activities from there.Amongst other things, what he finds is that Google is [...]

By: Benjamin Ellis

Benjamin Ellis — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:30:40 +0000

Indeed I was (gone now) – I don’t see the Google java script via WordPress’s admin interface (which I post form)

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:12:26 +0000

Wow, excellent challenge

For search you could try the Scroogle.org scraper (although maybe doesnt count for your test since it scrapes results from Google)

otherwise StartPage.com

By: Pensiune Venus

Pensiune Venus — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:36:48 +0000

is the most funny idea I heard recently….

:)) I’ve come across this article by accident while browsing away thru my Google Reader feeds

let me know how you can avoid Google Trends, Webmaster Tools, Toolbar and so on.

By: Day one in a life without Google | Media News: Internet Marketing & Online Advertisng

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:28:28 +0000

[...] did not trust Google and had to block it out of their lives, Benjamin reports from his blog Day 1 of living without Google. You can follow his activities from [...]

By: Day one in a life without Google @ IronMonk – Web 2.0 Solutions

Day one in a life without Google @ IronMonk – Web 2.0 Solutions — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:20:31 +0000

[...] did not trust Google and had to block it out of their lives, Benjamin reports from his blog Day 1 of living without Google. You can follow his activities from [...]

By: Big Dave's Gusset

Big Dave's Gusset — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:07:51 +0000

Andy has the right idea – fill up your hosts file with references to all the google and google-owned domains, and you can carry on surfing the internet as normal – you will just find that loads of sites will randomly be missing bits :-) Would be very demonstrative, I expect :-)

Love from BDG

P.S. I’m using SRWare Iron (http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php) as my browser. How does that sit?

By: Brian Hancock

Brian Hancock — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:01:32 +0000

It’s nice to see others that have gotten a wake up call regarding Google recently. I work in Internet Marketing and therefore am intimately aware of how much data Google tracks and stores, but the recent interview with their CEO was eye opening and showed a total lack of concern regarding privacy issues.

I haven’t gone as extreme as you have, but I have stopped using Google search (except when I need to for work) and stopped using Chrome entirely.

I look forward to following your progress and really enjoyed this article.

By: John Stout

John Stout — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:46:35 +0000

This site has Google Analytics!?

By: Dan Chamberlain

Dan Chamberlain — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 19:33:44 +0000

When will Google buy Microsoft? Or, should they just crush them and pick up the gems?

By: SEOux Indianer

SEOux Indianer — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:57:10 +0000

Hi Benjamin, you are still using Google Analytics in this blog…………

By: andy broomfield

andy broomfield — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:22:08 +0000

Perhaps if you could find the information on Googles ip’s or all the addresses they use, you could block them in the hosts file.
eg.
127.0.0.1 *.google.com

By: Sam Michel

Sam Michel — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:31:49 +0000

Are you going to avoid any site using Google Analytics? Or block them?

I’m guessing that the task will test your ingenuity and understanding of manuals to keep Google out.

Good luck!

By: Benjamin Ellis

Benjamin Ellis — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:31:28 +0000

Indeed – I’m less worried about the Ads – it seems fair that content providers can make a business – would be nice to see a bit more competition in the market though!

The more eye opening thing has been quite how many products there are and how commonly they are used – much more than I had realised.

By: Steve Lamb

Steve Lamb — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:25:33 +0000

On the face of it I’d have thought it easy for me to avoid Google though their Ads are all over the place.