I was reading a post today by Chris Pirillo in which he asks if you could survive without Google. This reminded me of an experiment I did a few months back which I called the “Google Diet”.

Back in March, Google Germany crashed for 90 minutes rendering all Google services useless. That meant that my email (Gmail) was gone, my RSS feeds (Reader) was down, my calendar was gone….you get the picture. I was like a runner in a long distance marathon who suddenly discovers that his legs had been suddenly cut out from under him. I was flailing.

Of course this led to the inevitable lecture from people about putting all my eggs into the one basket and about the dangers of relying solely on one provider. But as many people will probably agree, Google is hands down the best provider for many of these services which is why I am with them in the first place. But in order to placate people - and also to satisfy a curiosity - I decided to go on a one week “Google Diet” and see if I could cope using other services.

I forwarded my Gmail to Yahoo Mail. My contacts were already backed up to Thunderbird. I used Yahoo Calendar, and Bloglines for my RSS feeds. For search, I used MSN. I even went as far as uninstalling the Google toolbar from Mozilla Firefox and changing the default search in the browser address bar from Google to MSN.

I basically wanted to see how much of a grip Google had over me. Whether people realise it or not, Google exerts a very powerful psychological grip over all of us online. Whenever we want to do a search, we “Google it”. Whenever we build a website, we wonder how Google will look upon it and we start focusing on getting to number one in the Google search rankings. We quite easily forget that there are other search engines out there too!

So could I survive for a week without Google? I decided to find out.

My conclusion, after the week was up, is that it was difficult but not the life-altering traumatic experience that I thought it would be (I didn’t need the therapist after all). The search part was not so bad. MSN Search is actually not that bad, truth be told. I used Yahoo search too and I took the opportunity to try out Ask as well. True, I still prefer Google but using another search engine is not as bad as I thought it would be.

The contacts in Thunderbird were also not a problem as I use that all the time anyway and the calendar was not such a big deal as I was using Yahoo Calendar long before Google Calendar came on the scene.

No, what made the week a bit of a nightmare was Yahoo Mail and Bloglines. I was missing my beloved Gmail and Google Reader. I use the two services in tandem with one another and it has got to the point where everything is smooth and seamless.

But Yahoo is rather on the clunky side with huge “in your face” adverts and Bloglines….well, let’s not go there! I’m still not over the trauma. Using Yahoo, I realised how much I value my Gmail labels, how much I hate folders and how much I disliked the Yahoo interface in general. I also kept getting bounced back to Times New Roman font, size 12 and if there’s one thing guaranteed to turn me into the Incredible Hulk, it’s Times New Roman, size 12. Give me Arial, size 10 any day of the week.

A week later, I cancelled the mail forwarding and rushed back to Gmail and Google Reader like a kid rushing back to his mother after being forced to stay with his estranged father on a court-ordered visit.

So I can probably say in all likelihood that Google has a stranglehold on me. Yes it’s not a good idea to have all my services with the one company but if they are the ones that do everything right, then I guess I stick with them.

Saying that though, if Playboy e-mail ever comes out though with labelling, archiving and conversation views, then it’s goodbye Gmail. Sorry but I’ve got to get my priorities straight.

Could YOU cope without Google for a week? Or has the big G got a grip over you too?