[u-u] Adam's progress: boycotting Google products

[Adam Holland]

I am resending this, as I mixed up the outgoing email address and it was 
not relayed to anyone. (My email is uu@ but the mailing is is u-u, so I 
mixed and matched)

Hi,

Sorry I was not able to make it to the meeting today.  I didn't manage
my time well at all.

I have stopped logging in to my primary gmail account and I've set a
"vacation reminder" to reply to anyone who forgets to use my new email
address.  I still have a bunch of spam-trap gmail accounts to check.  I
was hoping to delete the accounts by Sept 1st, but I've used the primary
for 10 years, so another month or two won't hurt in case I get in touch
with somebody who I might otherwise lose contact with.

Since I am already renting my own servers, I don't see the point in
paying for individual replacement, such as a paid email provider, a paid
website account or a paid video sharing site. But I am still gathering
lists of good ones so I can share those with people who would find
running their own server OS extremely impractical.

I will be moving my little blog from blogspot to a free shell account
provider in the UK.  They have wordpress installed system-wide so I'll
get automatic updates from somebody who I know will apply them rapidly.
I just have to figure out all the details of getting the Let's Encrypt
certificate to verify itself correctly.

I am going to look into a federated video clip sharing software called
peertube, it looks neglected but that is because I didn't realize it
only got started in April of this year.  It is nice timing as I was only
really ready to flee the Google regime this spring when a friend from
the Ubuntu developer community encouraged me to take the leap.

I will announce when I'm done.  Wish me smooth sailing!

I am also curious to find a web browser plugin that blocks all Google
servers, in the same way Mozilla's facebook blocker blocks all those
"Like button" tracking beacons.  One problem there would be the
reCaptcha service which would need to be enabled for sites that won't
authenticate without it.

-Adam