There are unfortunately going to be aspects of your life where you have to use Google. School, and later your job being major ones. If your teacher/boss says you have to use Google, you are going to use Google. With much love for the teachers, many are not good with technology and the convenience of Google makes their job easier.

Like many of us do at our jobs, just use Google to the minimum extent possible and try to minimize the personal information you give to Google. Then you can live the De-Google life in your free time.

This is probably not the answer you wanted, but it’s the practical one. Sometimes being the one person going against the grain can put a target on your back and you don’t want to get on the teacher’s bad side.

Of course, if your teacher is open to allowing you to use other tools, that’s great. I just wouldn’t get your hopes up.

Have you tried using the Sessions feature in Kate? It allows you to pick up where you left off, even between multiple projects.

Freetube is great. It accesses Youtube privately.