221–230 of 263 posts
A Gooxit would be in order. From time to time I wonder why the EU accepts foreign companies stealing so much personal data. China did the right thing. We should learn from them. India, afaik, also has better protection.
I don't think China did the right thing. Their citizens were almost certainly better off with Google holding their meta-data and private email communications.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So pointing out hypocrisy and tainted credibility is not allowed on HN. I see. Neckbeard logical fallacy # 82
We're all hypocrites, so getting personally nasty about it is self-refuting. There's nothing that matters here that requires personal disrespect to point out.
Just go on activity controls and disable "device information": https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols?hl=en&pli=1&ot...
I disabled every control on this page months ago. Unfortunately, the Google Maps app won't remember searches unless you're logged in and share your entire location history. There's just no way to keep a local history of places in Maps. I'll get rid of Google Maps as soon as Maps.me let me stream OSM maps instead of downloading packages one-by-one.
I am open to argument, but it seems to me that most experience of terrible problems on the internet come from malware, browser hijacks, spam, basically the actions of criminals.
IMO, the only hope for a "civilian" in maintaining a semblance of online security is to rely upon the large providers of mass computing services.
I do not know of anyone who has had a negative experience as the result of not having a high level of online privacy.
From actions undertaken by the government or business.
The closest I know of is cases where individuals have been arrested on possessing or accessing child porn. There are also numerous examples in the media of people involved in the drug trade, or sex industries.
I don't think your average citizen is going to be swayed by such accounts that they should undertake costly efforts to protect themselves from such activities. On the contrary, I would hazard a guess that they would see the surrender of such "liberties" to be a net benefit to society.
I'm not saying this is a correct view, I could be persuaded that it's not, but I have yet been so persuaded. I'm befuddled by apparent disconnect here.
Are people really surprised about this anymore? I can't say that I am. Google is a company which makes a lot of money off of their platforms. I expect them to be collecting data wherever and whenever they can. I see stories like this every day but I've become accustomed to it because it's such a normal practice nowadays, especially from a company like google which provides so many advertising services. I'm not saying…
Are people really surprised about this anymore? I can't say that I am. Google is a company which makes a lot of money off of their platforms. I expect them to be collecting data wherever and whenever they can. I see stories like this every day but I've become accustomed to it because it's such a normal practice nowadays, especially from a company like google which provides so many advertising services. I'm not saying…
Being a platform company doesn't necessarily mean you need to do surveillance on everyone who's on your platform! Apple's big move to differential privacy is one example of that.
Apple's push for "privacy" has only one purpose - to cash in on government from the information. Now government gets it for free, so when there will be "privacy" they will need to pay money to Apple to read it. If there wouldn't be profit, Apple wouldn't push for any "privacy".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the right reaction to this is moving to Android without the mothership. That is an Android stripped from any Google services. I was quite sceptical about Android, partly because it has a foreign userspace and partly because there were no nice vanilla Android forks without Google code and with a focus on privacy. I'm now tired of waiting for any Maemo successor to catch up and I reckon F-droid has become a pre…
I've gone the Google-free route a little while ago, and it's really been not nearly as bad as even I thought myself. The only thing that I'm still sort of missing, is the automatic calendar and contact backup. You could do that with something like OwnCloud/NextCloud or a CalDAV-service, but yeah, it is a non-trivial effort. Otherwise, in case you do try it, here's some things that I found useful: If the apps on F-Dro…
OpenGApps (even if you were going to be selective) is no-go, because it requires side loading.
The one big thing I miss is the Google keyboard. Apart from that... Not so much.