How I Broke Big Tech’s Grip on My Life in Four Steps

Map your footprint, change your browser, switch search, and move your email.

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Have you ever searched for something and then seen an ad for that exact thing minutes later? Every time it happens to me, I get so creeped out! The reality is that Big Tech is watching every move we make and trying its best to monetize it.

The good news?

You don’t have to quit the internet or move to a cabin in the woods to regain control. You can reclaim your privacy and autonomy, one small, intentional step at a time.

Here’s the four-step plan that shrank Google’s grip on my digital life from 63% to 45%. Later, by making a few more changes, I brought it all the way down to 18%.

Step 1: Map Your Digital Footprint

Why

Before you can build stronger digital boundaries, you need to understand where your information lives and who has access to it. It’s hard to protect your privacy if you don’t know where your data is going.

We need to build a clear picture of which companies control your devices, apps, and data.

How

To start, make a list of:

• Personal Devices: your phone, laptop, tablet, and fitness tracker.

• Core apps: email, calendar, notes, cloud storage, shopping, maps, browser, chat, digital wallet, and AI tools.

• Smart Devices: Assitants, Locks, Thermostats, and Video Surveillance.

Then note the parent company that provides each tool.

Tips

Use a simple spreadsheet to spot patterns quickly.

My digital inventory, taken in January of 2025 in an Excel sheet. For this inventory, I left out social media. Not because it is unimportant, but because it brings unique challenges around identity and community that deserve a separate discussion.

For quick analysis, paste the following prompt into your favourite AI tool with the spreadsheet.

Prompt: Given this spreadsheet what percentage does each company own of my digital footprint. 

The results of my ChatGPT prompt

Results

When I created my inventory, the result was shocking. I knew I used a lot of Google products, but I didn’t realize quite how pervasive it was. From the data, we can see that Google had a whopping 63% of my digital footprint.

When I first started using their products, the company’s motto was “Do No Evil.” That feels long gone. Google has entered what Cory Doctorow calls the enshittification of the internet, when platforms shift from serving users to serving advertisers to serving shareholders until they become bloated and exploitative.

Today, Google’s profits come primarily from surveillance of its free services and targeted ads. Free apps and services are never really free. You pay with your data, your attention, and your behaviour.

Apple, by contrast, makes its money from devices and services, not ads. It is hardly perfect, but its business model is more aligned with protecting user privacy.

The Goal: Spread Out Your Data

You can’t erase your data from the internet, but you can stop any one company from seeing it all. The goal is simple: spread out your data. Use different providers for your most important tools so no single company holds the complete picture of your life.

Step 2: Change Your Browser

Once you’ve mapped your footprint, pick one place to start. Don’t try to change everything at once. The easiest first step is your browser.

Why

Your browser is the window into everything you do online. Chrome, Safari, and Edge all feed data into their parent companies’ larger profiles of you. That is part of how ads for something you searched for on Google show up later on Facebook or Instagram. This happens because many websites include hidden ad pixels that report back what you looked at and help advertisers target you across platforms.

What are ad pixels, and why do they matter?

Ad pixels are invisible bits of code that websites load to report back what you looked at. They let companies like Google or Facebook track you across sites and target you with ads. A privacy-focused browser helps block these pixels before they can send that data.

How

I switched to Brave, a browser built with privacy in mind. It blocks trackers and ads by default. You might wonder why it is okay to use Brave when it is free. This is a smart question. Brave makes money through its optional privacy-respecting ad program and partnerships, not by selling your data.

Other good browser options include:

• Firefox, run by Mozilla, a non-profit organization that funds its work through search partnerships and donations, not by tracking you.

• DuckDuckGo earns money via its search engine by showing search ads that are based only on your search terms, not your personal profile.

All three of these browsers also have mobile apps, so you can stop browsing using Google on all your devices at once.

Tips

Before switching, export your bookmarks so your setup moves with you. Then set your new browser as the default on every device you have, including your computer, phone, and tablet. This will help make the change stick.

Results

This single change cut down the number of trackers chasing me around the web. Since installing it in March, it has blocked more than 144,000 trackers and ads on my computer and 8,000 on my phone.

Step 3: Change Your Search Engine

Why

Your browser is only part of the story. If you still use Google to search, then Google is still collecting vast amounts of data about you. Search terms reveal your interests, habits, and even intentions, which is why search data is one of the most valuable inputs for Big Tech’s advertising machine.

Apple even takes between 18 and 20 billion dollars a year from Google to make Google Search the default on Safari across iPhones, iPads, and Macs. So even with Apple’s privacy branding, Google still gets in front of most users by default.

How

I switched to Brave Search on my computer and DuckDuckGo on my phone. Both block profiling and keep searches private. Another excellent option is Kagi, a paid service that offers a free trial. I tried their free trial, and it looked pretty good, but for now, I am happy with Brave and DuckDuckGo.

Tips

On both iPhone and Android, searches from the home screen search bar usually route back through Google, even if you have changed browsers.

On iPhone, you can prevent this by going into Settings, then Apps, then Safari, and changing both your Default Browser App and your Search Engine. That way, searches will follow your chosen settings.

On Android, the home screen search bar is tied directly to Google. Even if you change your default browser, searches from that bar still go through Google. To avoid this, open your preferred browser first and search from there. It is a small but significant change that helps protect your privacy.

Results

Moving away from Google Search gave me peace of mind that my daily queries were no longer fuelling targeted ads or building a personal profile. Combining a private browser with a private search engine meant Big Tech lost one of the most transparent windows into my life.

Step 4: Move Your Email to an Independent Service

Why

Email holds your most personal information. Messages often include family conversations, financial records, purchases, and login verifications. If you use Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud Mail, all of that data feeds into a company’s larger ecosystem, giving Big Tech another window into your life.

How

I switched to Proton Mail, a Swiss-based provider with strong encryption and privacy protections. Proton Mail uses end-to-end and zero-access encryption, which means not even Proton can read your inbox. Your data is protected under Swiss privacy laws, and because the code is open source, experts can verify its security. You can also create aliases to hide your real address and cut down on spam.

Tips

Proton makes the transition easy with its “Easy Switch” tool. It forwards mail from your old account into your new Proton inbox, giving you time to gradually update your email address with family, friends, and the services you use.

Easy Switch doesn’t move your contacts over, so don’t forget to export them from your previous provider and import them into your new Proton account.

Results

Moving to Proton reduced Google’s hold on my digital life and gave me confidence that my most sensitive data is now encrypted and protected. It also allowed me to start using Proton Drive instead of Google Drive, dropping another product from Google’s ecosystem.

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Mapping my digital footprint completely changed how I see my online life. What’s the one change from this guide you’ll try first?

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What Changed for Me

By changing my browser, search engine, email, and document cloud storage, I reduced Google’s hold on my digital footprint from 63% to 45%. That was a meaningful start. Still too high, but much better than when I started.

What Could These Changes Mean for You?

Changing just a few key services, such as your browser, search engine, and email, can make a surprisingly significant impact on your digital footprint. These tools touch almost everything you do online. Your browser and search engine are your gateway to the web. Your email and cloud storage hold your most personal and sensitive information.

If one company controls all of these, they have the power to build an incredibly detailed profile of your habits, interests, purchases, location, and connections. Shifting even a few of these services to privacy-focused alternatives helps break that profile apart. This means no single company gets the whole picture anymore.

Spread out your data so that no one provider can see it all.

That makes it much harder for Big Tech to track, target, or profit from you at the same scale.

What Comes Next?

If you have tackled those areas already and want to go further, think about the other ways Big Tech connects to your life.

What devices are you using?
Where are you shopping?
What’s installed in your home?

Is one company responsible for them all?

What I Did Next

I kept going. I migrated from an Android to an iPhone, letting me move a few more services over to Apple, where I felt more confident about privacy.

When our Nest lock broke, we took it as an opportunity to switch to Yale Lock, and we chose not to link it to Google Home or Apple HomeKit. Google no longer knows who is unlocking/locking our door and when.

We also moved away from Amazon. Instead of defaulting to Prime, we started shopping with Canadian retailers. We ditched our Kindles for Kobos, which let us buy digital books through Rakuten or borrow them directly from the library. And instead of Goodreads, we now track what we read with StoryGraph, an independent Black female–owned company. Making these shifts meant Amazon can no longer see what we buy or read.

Today, Google controls about 18 percent of my footprint. Apple has about 31 percent. While Apple is not perfect, it generally has stronger privacy protections and takes fewer liberties with user data.

ChatGPT generated a chart of the changes in my digital footprint over time.

The Big Picture

Taking back control of your digital life does not happen overnight. But every step you take, whether it is switching your browser, changing your email, or moving to a different search engine, chips away at Big Tech’s power to profile and profit from you.

My journey brought Google’s footprint in my life down from 63 percent to 18 percent. Yours will look different, and that is okay. The key is to start somewhere and keep going. Every choice adds up.

The key is to spread out your data so no single company can build the complete picture of your life. Look at where Big Tech connects to your world and decide where you want to draw the line next.

Start with one step today. Reply and tell me which change you made. Your story could inspire someone else to take back their privacy.

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If this story resonated with you and you want to go deeper, I’ve written more about how platforms slide into enshittification and what it took for me to finally divorce Google.