After a week or so, I’m finding the AP and Reuters home pages to be, if anything, better than visiting Google News daily - far less likely to serve up AI nonsense or clickbait. So that’s one less Google distraction in my life. (What’s left: some legacy emails that get forwarded elsewhere, and occasional Maps use when I want a street view).
Wish I could find an affordable phone that wasn’t Apple or Google, but that market pretty much doesn’t exist.