Yeah I have given up hope with ever using my ten year old twitter account due to a similar story :(
I got locked out of my Google account for a month
141–150 of 210 posts
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What's an alternative It’s called paying for the services you use. You don’t even need to switch to a different product / provider, just pay $5/month and ~$10/year for a domain name. Then worst case scenario, you can move your domain off of Google Apps and not need to update your email address everywhere with everyone.
I don't think you read the article: "They don’t have customer service, yet I’m paying for storage."
1) please check the rules of HN before replying that way
2) I did read the article, paying for Google Drive or Photos storage is not paying for Gmail.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sometimes can be better to mark it as spam. There was a thing a while back where the unsubscribe link was just verifying that you still check that email account, and you click on links, so they'd send you more spam.
Mark spam as spam. Unsubscribe from content you signed up for and no longer want.
And how many things are "signed up for you"? There's a lot of those. It's getting harder to tell what I actually signed up for, and what I thought I was signing up for.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#144I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So, this journalist is in the middle of a horrible experience with Gmail and responds by ... opening another Gmail account, because basically realistically imagining email as something other than Gmail is far too much of a stretch in most people’s minds.
I'd love to switch away from gmail, but their 'important mail' function is essentially unique to them, and I love it.
Sadly, this seems like a system that can't really be self-hosted. It requires data.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
If that were all that could do it, sure. That's not the end of it, though. I was trying out anonymization methods a while back, and created an account for use through Tor + a VPN (yes, I know it's Google). I recently tried to get back into it, but since I wasn't "where I usually sign in" (and can't actually say what city they thought that was), I'm locked out. I have the correct password in my manager, and I can even…
If you are smart enough to use TOR shouldn't you also be using 2FA? Ideally, U2F...
Do you have any evidence that Google treats 2FA differently in this scenario?
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell her to be sure there is a distinguishable "unsubscribe" link in letters.
You'd be surprised for how many technology-inept users that wouldn't make a difference. They'll still mark the email as spam. It's easier for many people to understand and easier to click.
You are absolutely right, e.g. I marked Microsoft's MSDN emails as spam. But that was largely due to the fact that the unsubscribe link in their emails redirected me to an unreachable server for weeks and then I gave up.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#147I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So, this journalist is in the middle of a horrible experience with Gmail and responds by ... opening another Gmail account, because basically realistically imagining email as something other than Gmail is far too much of a stretch in most people’s minds.
This happens all over the place -- for some reason, the majority of the people won't learn. They'll tell you horror stories about how they lost a lot of work (or even money!) because a provider never gave them support, yet, go back to that same provider. A group of acquaintances had a Facebook group where they shared research and documents. It got deleted and they lost everything. Thrice. I suggested they used someth…
My sister had her broadband slammed (taken over by an ISP without any request or permission whatsoever) which left her with an unreliable and slower service. She stayed with them.
For about three years the router they sent her would kick off the fifth-oldest DHCP lease and the ISP kept refusing to replace it.
It's a truly fascinating psychological effect.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#148I think this is the money quote: “That same day I opened a second GMail account so I could have access to services like an email account if need be, [...]” So, this journalist is in the middle of a horrible experience with Gmail and responds by ... opening another Gmail account, because basically realistically imagining email as something other than Gmail is far too much of a stretch in most people’s minds.
But a Google account is not just email. It's also drive, calendar, and so on. There's a lot of time spent becoming familiar with those services, and to up and switch that entire suite would take a massive amount of relearning. Under the same circumstances as the author, I think I'd be back to Google. Remember, other services have their own issues as well.
Having read the article, I start to wonder whether GMail is a service for Google, run by the user, where Alphabet are given invaluable personal information about a person, which they can then correlate with their other services in order to build a detailed mine of data about that person.
In the course of this transaction the user may be permitted to read the emails that belong to Alphabet.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#149I have (had?) a G Suite Legacy Free account, that I used for my personal emails.
Around a week ago Google suspended the account saying it broke terms and conditions. I've appealed it but haven't heard back, I've spoken to support many times but the case always needs to go to 'another team' who never gets in contact.
I've since setup a new paid G Suite account but have been unable to reuse my domain name as it's still locked to my old G Suite account... That I cannot login to. Support seem to be unable to help, so I've just had to point my MX records to Zoho for now until Google can sort this out.
I am a big Google fan, but this is now becoming a bit of a joke.
Re: I got locked out of my Google account for a month
#150> Imagine you have spent much of your digital life for the last 12 years on Google. You rely on their mail and calendar, Google Drive for storage and Google Photos for your photo archive. Like I've said in the past here [1], if something is so important to you, you need to treat it as such. Continuing to use a service that offers no guarantees, availability or even continuing access to your account is a sign of ignor…
Can you, or someone else, point to an alternative to gmail that won't decide to lock me out of my account and still offers generous data storage?
Sure, I believe iCloud Drive is $2.99/mo for 200GB. Unless you meant something that was "free".