Try switching to ddg and append !g every time the results seem to suck. That's how I did it and after about a month it was just fine. In fact over time I felt like I did the !g thing less and less, because you somehow get a feel for when ddg actually sucks or not. Or maybe I unconsciously started formulating queries differently.

But if you really think it would be right to switch away from Google, give yourself a month of pain and then decide if you can live this new life. ;-)

IE was superseeded by Firefox in the early 00's at scale, and there's no reason to assume Chrome can't equally be replaced by FF or another browser today. FF got a little help from the EU by requiring MS not to bundle IE with Windows back then and list browser choices for download on install; I think the same would work well on Android today (and in general with Google services such as maps/navigation, email, and search).

startpage.com gives me better results than Google itself, because of the missing personalization bubble.

I switched my default search engine in FF to Qwant a few months back. You have to re-learn to formulate clear search queries (no magic pixie dust^H years of browsing history to help it read your mind) but I find that it mostly works.

> Easier said than done

It's real easy to do. It is not the case that you are dependent on Google search. You're imposing artificial limits on yourself. Break free of this limiting mindset.

What do you mean? It's very easy to install an FTP client and even in heyday, noone sane ever used a browser for FTP access anyway.

These kind of comments are so strange... why do you want Google to own your FTP client instead of having an independent one?