Google free. I hear those words a lot now. Ever since Google decided to close down the Google Reader service there's been a question I keep asking myself. What's next in the Google product list to be closed? And I don't think I'm alone. There's been a lot of discussion about how long term other Google services will be? One thing's for sure. Nothing lasts forever.

Rather than sitting waiting though, I've decided to look for alternatives to the products and services that I can. I'm not aiming to go completely Google free, but I am looking to reduce my dependency on the services and software that Google provides.

The Browser

It was a tough choice to make, but I decided to stop using Google Chrome. Yes it's fast and probably the alpha browser for many web developers, but given that I want to stop relying on Google services and products, I had to look elsewhere. Well not too far, after all Mozilla Firefox is a great alternative to Google Chrome. I was up and running within a few minutes with Firefox thanks to the ability to import all my bookmarks and browsing history from Chrome.

Analytics

Site tracking services such as Google Analytics have a bit more of a wide range of options than browsers do. In the end though I decided to use Github's Gauges service. It's simple and cheap. I don't need all the metrics that Google Analytics provides, just a general overview of traffic to my site. A couple of code changes to my own site and the Journalong site was all that was needed to start using Gauges.

Feedburner

Lastly there's Feedburner. Given that Google are no longer interested in providing a service that allows you to read RSS feeds, then I think that a service that publishes RSS feeds is going to be closed down in time as well. Already I have read of a couple of people on ADN who have stopped using their Feedburner accounts and are using the built-in RSS feed that their sites provide.

I haven't found an alternative service to Feedburner but I'm not sure that I actually want one. Subscription stats for my blog isn't something that I am interested in that much, but one thing I will miss about Google Reader is it's trends page. I just want to see how active a blog has been in the last 3 months so that I can decide if I want to unsubscribe from it. I'll be switching away from Feedburner soon.

These are the services that I have decided stop using with Google. What difference does it make? Not much, but I am happier not relying on one provider for all the products and services I use online.