I've been meaning to take a hard look at everything I have under Google. It has come to my attention that Gmail has become worse over time. They occasionally put a relatively large ad right above your inbox. And to add on to that it wouldn't surprise me a bit that I'm now receiving maybe 1 or 2 additional spam emails (that go under the label "Social" or "Promotion" says Google) because of this company. I do have to agree with the author of this blog. There is not a single better alternative in terms of a search engine. In fact I've trumped a lot of my friends in the ability of finding what they are looking for on the internet through my trusty ally Google. That being said though I might try to find time to switch my email, but this will involve me sifting through all my different accounts that have a direct link to my Gmail and just thinking about it gives me a headache...
One thing that surprised me was realizing how much of my life was in Google's hands. When all my accounts got deleted, I realized just how much was gone, but I also realized I could live without Google easily enough. Cutting loose is a very liberating feeling, although it does take a bit of effort to migrate everything over to a new email or set up your bookmarks and saved data in a new browser.