I’m Google Free – finally!

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Yesterday, I moved my last video from YouTube to SmugMug!

ImGoogleFree

SmugMug is photos storing place but it supports video clips too:

  • Full HD
  • Up to 3GB in size
  • 20 minutes in length

This is enough for me. Honestly, I’ve been there for more than one month by now and my experience is still totally positive. Feel free to check my gallery page

Google Photos and Instagram weren’t the preferred ones to me. Flickr and OneDrive were better but not that perfect. Apple Photos was the best for storing photos. But it has two big issues:

  1. A lot of apps requires access to photos (privacy concern).
  2. Sharing is bad (this alone needs another article)…

Besides, all have limitations when it comes to videos. So, you still need another service for storing your videos such as YouTube, Dailymotion, or Vimeo.

On the other hand, there are people who don’t store their media online at all; rather they keep them offline and use Facebook or Whatsapp / Telegram for sharing if needed!

P.S., I might be able to say the same for Microsoft’s and Apple’s, but unfortunately, I still use their hardware and/or operating systems! 😉

In summary, all I’m trying to say is simply:

If you store your pictures and videos online, consider SmugMug or similar alternatives. Try to avoid the big companies; i.e., Google Photos & YouTube, MS OneDrive, Apple iPhotos, and Facebook Instagram.

27 thoughts on “I’m Google Free – finally!”

  1. You may have to write a post about my Luddite tendencies; I only understood about 5% of what you were talking about. If that! I remember laughing when I discovered my father refused to get a fax machine for his law office—though, in his defense, his was probably a matter of frugality rather than fear of the unknown. I just feel too overwhelmed by the speed with which technologies come and go. For example, I’m still mourning the loss of the photoshopping program I had. (Can’t remember it’s name anymore, so not that huge a grief, but i haven’t replaced it despite loathing the one that comes with my Dell.)

    I think I’ve confessed enough to fully expose my technological faults. Thanks for listening.

    Reply

      • Oh Kirizar, I’m very sorry. It seems that I forgot myself and wrote technical terms only.
        Hmm, what I was trying to say simply: “If you store your pictures and videos online, consider SmugMug.com or similar alternatives. Try to avoid the big companies; i.e., Google Photos & YouTube, MS OneDrive, Apple iPhotos, and Facebook Instagram”.

        I’m glad to hear your confession 🙂
        I’m trying my best to bring technical topics in simple way. Especially when we know that the coming era is going to be an online one with more tech involvement and privacy invasion.

        I’m always glad and honored to read your comments and your posts. Thank you dear

      • And you are a most gentlemanly reader. However, I fear you are setting yourself a Herculean task if you attempt to bring me up to speed on current terminology and tech stuff. My speed is slow—think glacially slow and you’ll be close! I appreciate your efforts though.

      • This also reminds me of a Professor of mine that used to mention the fax in its beginning as a machine where you put a paper on one side (location) and it’s transferred to another side (location)! I was dying to see the fax machine then!!! 😀

  2. Congrats on being Google Free. Wish I could. I need to have a Google profile to comment on a lot of the blogs I follow and I need to have a blog on Google to belong to a Cat group I’m in.
    Will you still keep this site Address?

    Reply

    • Thanks a lot my dear Crystal. Honestly, the word “Google Free” isn’t totally correct. I still search for video clips on YouTube. I still use Google Analytics for my websites. Some colleagues share with me some Google docs to collaborate… So, yes, I won’t delete my Google address/profile in the near future. By the way, I used to love Blogger from Google: https://mohamadkarbi.com/blogger-vs-wordpress/

      Reply

  4. Lucky you and well done!
    I’ve heard of Smugmug but really don’t want to move anything right now. We have saying it IT: “if it ain’t broke, don’t touch!” Only wish more platforms would follow this principle as I see so often that they’re created without usability testing – it’s so annoying. I hope that my 2 sites are easy to use for people. 😉

    Reply

    • That’s very correct and valid point, Nilla. I wanted to try this company since the time they bought Flickr. Because, I was searching for a company other than the big ones (Google, MS, Apple) to store my photos/videos. To be honest, Flickr has more visitors…
      Your sites are amazing and I never find any difficulty.. not to mention that I’m big fan of you, your stories, and photos…

      Reply

      • I store my original photo files on external drives then share what’s on both of my sites. I’m sorry to say, I’m of the old school when it comes to the Cloud and other platforms.
        Thank you Mohamad for your kind feedback.
        My back ground is in Usability but also Technical Writing so try and develop my sites so they’re easily navigable…but there’s always room for improvement. 😉

      • External Drives (offline) is the most private way of course. For me, i like to keep all my photos and videos online (unlisted) and share with all (my house, mom, bros and sists, and friends…). You sites as I mentioned are great and always fun to spend one’s time there. Still wish my humble blog be honored by a guest post from you someday 🙂

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