There are two reasons to change from google. The first and most important is that it is now being run by social activists, who have no qualms about closing down your accounts. The war we are in is fourth generation, real, and primarily for the hearts and minds of people.

I have used Google products for years. I was an early adopter of Android. My worry is that the company is now moving beyond utility. I have seen the same thing happen with Microsoft, Apple… and Canonical and Debian. (there is a reason my linux boxes run Fedora or Arch based distros).

The simplest thing to do for mail is run your own server. I do, but you need a backup, because webhosts get attacked. In fact, I think you need two.

You need an account for your friends. I suggest you use ProtonMail. It is secure, not in the USA, an app is available for your phone, encrypted and they have good help.

ProtonMail goes to great lengths to ensure the security of your email, and we have many methods of protecting your privacy that work behind the scenes. However, if you are one of the users using ProtonMail for highly sensitive communications, we recommend taking additional steps to increase the security of your account.

First, ProtonMail will never send you emails or other communication asking you for your ProtonMail credentials. If you ever receive such an email, please disregard it as it is a phishing scam. We may occasionally ask you for login details and information if you are experiencing a login problem and are already in communication with our tech support team. However, we will never send you an unsolicited communication asking for your credentials.

Secondly, if you receive email from an unknown or unverified source that contains a link or attachments (particularly if the attachment is a zip file), do NOT click the link and do NOT open the attachments. You can mark the message as spam to send future messages from that sender directly to your spam folder.

Third, ProtonMail has a feature that allows you to log access attempts for your account. The default Basic setting does not track IP addresses but we recommend you change it to Advanced to also save IP addresses in Settings –> Security. More information and step-by-step instructions can be found here.

Fourth, do not re-use passwords. We recommend using passwords for ProtonMail that you do not use anywhere else. This ensures that if another service is hacked, your ProtonMail account remains secure. We recommend using longer passwords which are random and contain a mix of letters of both cases, numbers, and special characters.

Finally, we recommend enabling two-factor authentication in Settings –> Security to make it even harder for attackers to gain access to your account. More information and step-by-step instructions can be found here.

For the latest security information and news, you can follow our Verified account on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProtonMail

So before going to ProtonMail, go somewhere like tutanota and set up a backup account for rescue. Don’t use your backup account much.

Start using your new email for friends. Leave gmail alone to collect trash. Don’t kill it: just do not rely on it. In particular, don’t open links from it.

At the same time:

• Switch the default search engine to Duck Duck Go
• Set up a gab account
• Tighten your facebook profile to friends only
• Use vimeo or vid.me for viewing music: use gab TV for creating such
• Talk to the IT people at work and use their recommended products for work email and no other. Then you are not liable for sharing confidential documents.

Finally, never use work email for anything personal. Work emails can and will be asked for under official information acts in NZ, and discovery in lawsuits in all countries.

Google is getting fragile. It is time to make the move away from them before they hit the proverbial iceberg.