151–160 of 266 posts
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.
When programming I restrict most of my searches to 1 year since in most cases it makes sense. DuckDuck go doesn't allow this.
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That's possibly just inexperience on the child's part
I was explaining to an adult yesterday that using -x will remove x from his google results. He was stoked! Then he concluded further that he could use +x too! I hated to have to disappoint him.
e.g. "x y z" ~ "x y z" + "x y" + "y z" + "x z" + "x" + "y" + "z"
where "+x y +z" ~ "x y z" + "x z"
Still, I would imagine this isn't exactly the behavior your friend would have expected.
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I feel like nowadays you can just Google "how do I change my oil" or "why do spiders make webs" and I pretty much always get something good. It seems to me as if you can just ask Google the way you would a normal person. I know that wasn't always the case, but I'm curious what specifically you feel like you need to learn about using Google today.
My wife does this. It drives me crazy; I'm thinking "That's not how you search! You should just type 'changing oil'." But she gets the results she's looking for anyway so she doesn't listen.
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(For those who are saying it is possible, they might already know who you are based on browser cache, ip etc. Try it in incognito on a vpn. I get this: http://imgur.com/a/Y5Cxq
That's probably the result of using a VPN. Google undoubtedly knows that lots of accounts registered through VPNs are spammy. I just registered billyjiminy123@gmail in a private browsing session and didn't get prompted. I even sent an email without being prompted for verification.
Worth an upvote for the Asterix reference alone. For me it's mostly the smartphone which is difficult to unlock. I use Ubuntu on my laptop, run my own web/mail/irc/etc servers, flashed all routers with OpenWRT... and it all made my experience better but Android with a Google Apps account is hard to beat. Say what you will about tracking and spying but it delivers. Using FLOSS tools I can compete with Microsoft or TP-…
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I think the public doesn't care for a good reason; no one has articulated a realistic, tangible cost to quality of life caused by letting Google track you. Lots of people talk about it being 'creepy' and dreaming up possible scenarios where it WOUDLD be costly, but for most people, the costs simply aren't actually felt. I am trying to think about it for me personally, and I can't come up with a single time that Googl…
They can change your perception of anything, leading you to buying stupid shit you don't need, or to voting for somebody that doesn't protect your interests. And any piece of knowledge is dangerous in the right context. This is usually felt more strongly by minorities. You're actually privileged if you're a straight, white, middle class male, but even so you can end up being harassed and hurt for who you are. Have yo…
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My wife does this. It drives me crazy; I'm thinking "That's not how you search! You should just type 'changing oil'." But she gets the results she's looking for anyway so she doesn't listen.
Why 'should' you?
It's unlikely to happen as the vast majority of the public simply does not care . There is a deep technological disconnect. The only way to de-google-ify is to bring about mesh network that runs on our mobile devices or volunteer run nodes. Maybe you need to take the Skytrain to a remote part of the city to access specific information because there are no nodes there yet. The centralized infrastructure created betwee…
Same thing in the music industry, most people just want sound on in the background.
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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.
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I don't want to think or speculate. I want to see people do better and then we can congratulate people. Not before. Do better and people will recognize it. That's the best part of this industry.
People I know think before they act and sometimes do better. They also see much more than an "industry" or a "product". Best thing of all: we may have ≠ POV and still not hurt each other. Freedom!
Open source is irrelevant in most fields of user-facing software because they have insisted on being irrelevant. And any time a group forms a structure to do better, they're ceaselessly attacked by the community and given increasingly worse components to build off of.