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Don’t Mess with The Google

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Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#491

Post by Spoom »

efreak wrote: post #444
simonh wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've convinced me. Ordinary consumers should be expected to know how to use command line tools and have memorized service addresses, without having browser access to look any of it up. That's clearly the answer to improve usability and expand consumer access in this situation. How could I not have seen it sooner.

Windows explorer supports ftp. Type ftp://ftp.mozilla.org into your run menu or explorer address bar and you'll get a folder view pop-up. From there it should be rather trivial to find Firefox from inside their ftp directory (not as simple as clicking a download button, but still). I'm not sure if getfirefox.com runs an ftp server. I'm not aware of any popular OS that doesn't have ftp support on the main UI (except A…

True story: Back when I was doing desktop tech support, downloading Ad Aware via command line FTP was a favored method of mine when the user's browser was so fucked by spyware that it was inoperative.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#492

Post by jrnichols »

croon wrote: post #349
setq wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is usually a difficult problem. Then I divided everything I have data-wise into two buckets: stuff I can't afford to lose, stuff I can. It's now simple. Also I mandate that 'everything is a file'. Turns out the former is only around 22Gb of mainly code, documents, videos and photos. The latter is 250Gb of music, films etc. The latter goes on a NAS with a mirror on the laptop. The important stuff lives on the lap…

> It's now simple. ~> A handful of manual steps you need to remember to do. The only offsite you have is at your parents, and is only "uploaded" every 6 months. Isn't it just better and easier (at least long term) to just use duplicity (or equivalent) and sync your NAS to any backend (Drive/Onedrive/Dropbox/Hubic/etc)? And then just use your NAS as your "true" storage? Then it'll just run until your configuration cha…

This is why I went with CrashPlan. Backing stuff up to a friend's computer? Free and only limited by their storage.

or.. put a box at your friends house with as much storage as you want. Back when I had FIOS (and it was fast & reliable) this is what I did. Put a NUC with a friend, had an external drive, we were each others offsite backup location. Quite handy.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#493

Post by 72deluxe »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #350
72deluxe wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been taking a Thunderbird local dump of all my Google mail for years as a backup (Thunderbird's mbox format is readable everywhere) so I can clear my Google account regularly, yet have a backup. No idea what I'll do when Thunderbird eventually goes away - what is the replacement with identical functionality on macOS? I only want to grab mail and append to my existing mbox files.

Hopefully it won't go away. It's transitioning to an independent support setup. You can donate to the project, I just did so today in fact: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Donate

Thanks for the info.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#494

Post by 72deluxe »

ChristianGeek wrote: post #474
72deluxe wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been taking a Thunderbird local dump of all my Google mail for years as a backup (Thunderbird's mbox format is readable everywhere) so I can clear my Google account regularly, yet have a backup. No idea what I'll do when Thunderbird eventually goes away - what is the replacement with identical functionality on macOS? I only want to grab mail and append to my existing mbox files.

Not sure if Postbox on the Mac will meet your needs or not but it's based on Thunderbird and done by a company founded by Thunderbird's lead engineer. It's a paid product, but well worth it...I use it as my main email app. https://www.postbox-inc.com

Thanks for the link, I will take a look. Do you happen to know what its mailbox format is underneath? That's the main crux issue for me. It would have to be a format I could migrate easily like mbox.

eg. my Outlook PSTs and OSTs are useless to me as I have nothing that will open them.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#495

Post by hobarrera »

setq wrote: post #170

First post, might as well be a cautionary tale. My father, a pretty old programmer by anyone's standards, regularly warns me of this sort of thing. He was pretty much shafted by CompuServe many years ago on a miniscule scale compared to what is possible now. He lives his life in what I previously described as a paranoid bubble of data control. Until I inevitably burned myself with Google. I have no idea what happened…

The lesson you should have learnt here is to keep backups. I'm amazed at how people store all their stuff on a single company's servers, and keep no backup at all (either locally, or at some other company).

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#496

Post by hobarrera »

72deluxe wrote: post #308
Loic wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Email with IMAP, you have the wonderful offlineimap tool[0], I have been using it for years, you can easily perform a maildir format[1] backups of all your email accounts. [0]: http://www.offlineimap.org/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maildir

I have been taking a Thunderbird local dump of all my Google mail for years as a backup (Thunderbird's mbox format is readable everywhere) so I can clear my Google account regularly, yet have a backup. No idea what I'll do when Thunderbird eventually goes away - what is the replacement with identical functionality on macOS? I only want to grab mail and append to my existing mbox files.

offlineimap is pretty good. You can use the (very!) standard Maildir format, and eventually re-upload your emails elsewhere if you move.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#497

Post by tripzilch »

joshstrange wrote: post #439
jasim wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/gaubert/gmvault - backs up your gmail account to a local db, and lets you restore it to another account.

I'm a huge fan of GmVault. I backup all my email accounts with it to a home server that syncs my mailboxes over to Dropbox as well. Pretty painless to setup and very reassuring to know my mail is safe.

I have used GmVault before, but since now there's Google Takeout, doesn't that do everything GmVault does and more?

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#498

Post by joshstrange »

tripzilch wrote: post #497
joshstrange wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a huge fan of GmVault. I backup all my email accounts with it to a home server that syncs my mailboxes over to Dropbox as well. Pretty painless to setup and very reassuring to know my mail is safe.

I have used GmVault before, but since now there's Google Takeout, doesn't that do everything GmVault does and more?

I can't speak to that. I've not looked at the output of Google Takeout. Also GmVault (for me at least) is 100% automated so I will at very worst lose 6hrs of email. Google Takeout is a manual process AFAIK.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#499

Post by setq »

hobarrera wrote: post #495
setq wrote: post #170

First post, might as well be a cautionary tale. My father, a pretty old programmer by anyone's standards, regularly warns me of this sort of thing. He was pretty much shafted by CompuServe many years ago on a miniscule scale compared to what is possible now. He lives his life in what I previously described as a paranoid bubble of data control. Until I inevitably burned myself with Google. I have no idea what happened…

The lesson you should have learnt here is to keep backups. I'm amazed at how people store all their stuff on a single company's servers, and keep no backup at all (either locally, or at some other company).

That was the lesson learned. Also that you should store everything in easy to access formats.

Re: Don’t Mess with The Google

#500

Post by hobarrera »

TheArcane wrote: post #232
perlpimp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going on a tangent, there should probably be a set of universal backup formats that can be advertised as being somewhat portable. So that, if you need to can take your mail and other online business stuff elsewhere if need be. Beyond this article a user might start working for some place that does not allow external app use, but they can bring their data with, to be loaded onto the service. I guess like github and gi…

Emain inbox portability would be amazing!

There's really nothing preventing you from jumping providers.

It's just that you have to be prepared before shit like this goes down.

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