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De-Googleify Internet

degooglisons-internet.org

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Re: De-Googleify Internet

#71

Post by ZenoArrow »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #27

> These services track us everywhere, while claiming to give us a better “user experience”. That's kind of the problem though; they usually _do_ offer a better user experience. If we want users to start using open source software rather than walled garden solutions from large companies, we're going to have to start building open source solutions which offer a comparable user experience to proprietary ones from large…

I personally believe the approach proposed by Daplie is the way forward, not only because it allows users to take back control of their own data, but also because you don't have to give up on a friendly user experience to do so:

https://daplie.com/

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#72

Post by takeda »

StevePerkins wrote: post #66
myowncrapulence wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the post? This is about avoiding tracking. And yes, signing up for accounts can be grueling. Try making a google account without submitting a blood sample.

Wat? It's been years since I created my "real" Google account, so I just created "fakeasdlkvjasklfvjasdkljfgasdf@gmail.com" out of curiosity. It literally took 20 seconds, with a fake name and birthday. There are form fields for your phone number and alternate email address, but you can leave them blank.

Can you create a new account on every visit? If not you essentially volunteered to uniquely identify yourself.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#73

Post by jancsika »

eterm wrote: post #7
nvk wrote: post #3

Just talking about search alternative; DuckDuckGo is my default search engine for over 2 years. It's incredibly good, the only caveat is you need to re-learn how to search. The same way you "changed yourself" initially for google.

Except google didn't need learning, in fact that's part of what made it so much more powerful, they early on dropped support for AND and OR and other boolean keywords which other search engines required to get good results. In fact one of google's early "hidden" successful features was using implicit AND not implicit OR, which had been the de-facto on other search engines, so searching for "gold plates" on other sear…

That last sentence is key. Rather than force the user to structure their input based on the computer's constraints (and probably waste time learning/misunderstanding the computer's constraints), they forced the computer to (generally) output meaningful results given arbitrary user input.

Can anyone thing of examples where the free software community has successfully created software that does this? I'm thinking of VLC trying-- and often succeeding-- in playing most of the damaged files I've thrown at it. But I'm drawing a blank otherwise...

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#74

Post by pfranz »

tomphoolery wrote: post #52
syphilis2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is true. But I also have found that sometimes the user experience is diminished when not "logged in" to encourage people to create accounts. Pinterest has a box that slowly covers up more of the screen as you scroll drown. Facebook has a login prompt box that stays at the bottom of the screen and occasionally expands as a reminder. Quora prevents internal redirects to new pages. With enough know-how th…

Is signing up for an account really that big of a deal to you?

Pinterest and Twitter really bug me. I usually hit Pinterest when doing a google image search looking for a product page to buy something. By hitting Pinterest I'm clicking through to the product page (which I would have preferred if that was my result instead), so it's not much different to me than blogspam. I really liked the idea of Pinterest and could see myself browsing and maybe eventually creating one, but the casual experience is so user-hostile I avoid it.

Twitter has been similar because their landing page has been useless (when not logged in) and no search box. Usually I hear about a tweet I want to see for myself. I'll go to twitter.com, then leave and go to Google to search for it. Looking now twitter.com has changed dramatically and now has a search box.

I, like most people, are lurkers and consumers. I lurked here for awhile and I lurk in a lot of communities. At some point I may sign up and contribute, but if my lurking experience is terrible I won't make it that far. I realize this isn't what companies want, and I guess I'm not the "normal" use-case because if I was they wouldn't have anybody sign up. I have a Twitter account, but don't see the value in signing in on every device for my casual use.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#75

Post by __jal »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #27

> These services track us everywhere, while claiming to give us a better “user experience”. That's kind of the problem though; they usually _do_ offer a better user experience. If we want users to start using open source software rather than walled garden solutions from large companies, we're going to have to start building open source solutions which offer a comparable user experience to proprietary ones from large…

"Better" is in the eye of the beholder. It creeps me the hell out, which is why I block the data flows that feed them.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#76

Post by ne01 »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #27

> These services track us everywhere, while claiming to give us a better “user experience”. That's kind of the problem though; they usually _do_ offer a better user experience. If we want users to start using open source software rather than walled garden solutions from large companies, we're going to have to start building open source solutions which offer a comparable user experience to proprietary ones from large…

Only I should protect my freedom. If I give it up for the slightest inconvenience then I don't deserve it.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#77

Post by ryandrake »

StevePerkins wrote: post #66
myowncrapulence wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the post? This is about avoiding tracking. And yes, signing up for accounts can be grueling. Try making a google account without submitting a blood sample.

Wat? It's been years since I created my "real" Google account, so I just created "fakeasdlkvjasklfvjasdkljfgasdf@gmail.com" out of curiosity. It literally took 20 seconds, with a fake name and birthday. There are form fields for your phone number and alternate email address, but you can leave them blank.

bugmenot.com still works. Although an even better solution would be a browser plugin or add-on that, with one click, creates and logs in via a fake account populated with fake, throwaway info, changing every time you visit the site. Don't just avoid tracking, poison it. I'd help fund that kickstarter.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#78

Post by throwaway0391 »

I haven't really looked at what this start up is offering, but I want to point out that you can delete your user history, disable personalized advertising and disable tracking by Google by going to myactivity.google.com. I would encourage everyone who cares about this issue to do that. The only disadvantage that I have seen is that the maps app does not autocomplete past queries anymore. I would also recommend you install browser plugins that prevent tracking by other companies.

A point I also wanted to make is that contrary to popular opinion Google's business model is not build on collecting user data. Google actually makes most of it's money on search ads. These don't really require a lot of information about the user since advertisers are advertising to a specific query.

Disclaimer: I work at Google. Opinions are my own and not that of my employer.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#79

Post by mjevans »

danielpatrick wrote: post #31

Why doesn't google offer a paid version which encrypts your data and takes all manors of privacy measures? I would go for that

It would be nice if Google offered a paid set of services that:

1) Would use a public cryptography key to encrypt for storage any messages sent to you in the clear.

2) Not index or advertise to you (since you're now a customer).

3) Provide some reasonable support.

4) Have 'opt out' for ads elsewhere in their networks too.

5) Provide access to a fully anonymous (globally shared profile, no search/user matching logs of any kind) search system.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#80

Post by a3_nm »

oliv__ wrote: post #42

It's unfortunate that it comes down to this but... maybe people will use an alternative to Google when it stops looking like this: https://framadate.org/images/date.png Unfortunately for these projects, user experience is pretty much everything. Yes people care about privacy, but obviously not enough to have to use lesser products.

I'm surprised because I wouldn't have said that Framadate's interface for voting is particularly ugly or unintuitive, compared (e.g.) to Doodle. The mobile version of the interface is crappy, but so is Doodle's.

However I have to say that Framadate's interface to set up the poll (in particular, choosing voting options) is quite unintuitive and unpleasant to use.

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