[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] cyberstoic:
No, now more that ever. The revelations over the past year since this thread began continue to amaze and amuse me. Google has given information to the NSA and gets paid for it. No less than Eric Schmidt himself set up software people, including google people for the Obama Campaign. Some of them returned to Google follwing the election and some went to the NSA. There is evidence that has come out that searches are manipulated to present results that google either makes money from and downranks/ punishes unpopular points of view that google does not hold. For years, the ultimate conspiracy theory group was the "Bildurburg Group"; which has been completely subsumed into Google and Eric Schmidt is it's head.

I used to volunteer at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen and I have known real people in this life who were paranoid schizophrenics and did put foil in their hats because they believed that "they" (usually the FBI, CIA or KGB) were monitoring their thoughts, injecting thoughts into their heads or stealing their thoughts. More often than not they believed that "waves" were being sent to do this and there fore they put tinfoil in their hat to stop the waves. A completely logical solution to a completely insane premise. In any case, that is where the tinfoil had meme comes from. While I have never felt a particular need to put foil in my hat, I am unsure about what I should make of the information in the preceding paragraph. Knowledge is power, and these people have built a profile of you..... where you go, what you do, who your friends and family are, what you buy, where you buy it, what you like (everything from movies to politcal parties and points of view), what you hate, what you find alluring, what you eat, and what you fear. It is dizzying to think that any one group has so much information on you and the details of your life. And you pay for those "free" services with the intimate details of your life.

The arguement that you are being monitored anyway so why worry about google seems sensible. And yet, if the NSA wants to monitor me, in theory, they have to at least make a token attempt to get some warrant from the rubber stamp kangaroo court that authorizes such things. With Google, I pay for the use of their apps with the details of my life -- I give it away freely.

I know the arguement that it is all bots that review information. And I know, that there is little incentive for google to look at my information individually, for now. But I am not naive enough to discount that with access to that much information and the flow of information, that they could not be directing and controlling what trends and what searches come up to direct public opinion. And they use your info, and everyone elses to do so. It is not inceivable that at some point information you freely share with them might become an inconvenient truth.

I apologize up front about the philosophical meanderings above; just attempting to clarify a slightly different point of view. And as for the OP's original post about running Google free, I have been doing so for about a year. It took a little getting used to but very easy after the first week. It is definitely possible. Whether desirable for you or not is another question.