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Alternatives to Google Products

restoreprivacy.com

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Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#11

Post by theamk »

nemothekid wrote: post #2

I'm a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy alternatives like Apple. For example, the "best" calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me (which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I'm not a fan of hooktube either - it just…

I don't see that in the article. Search, email, drive, youtube, maps all have many non-FOSS entries.

I am fairly sure that no apple product is mentioned because replacing all the hardware one has just for more privacy is likely too extreme for many. Not to mention that one of the biggest things you can do for your privacy is ad-blocking / cookie cleaning, and apple does not make it easier at all.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#14

Post by lev99 »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #9
lev99 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was strange bing was not mentioned, even though it has Mozilla's endorsement of having a better privacy policy than Google[0] and is probably the most popular alternative to search in the United States. This far from a complete list of Google alternatives. [0] https://www.pcworld.com/article/184520/mozilla_endorses_bing...

As much as I like Microsoft, Bing is awful. Ive used it, and I tried to like it. It can't find anything.

I find bing to be better than any other Google alternatives.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#17

Post by cosmojg »

nemothekid wrote: post #2

I'm a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy alternatives like Apple. For example, the "best" calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me (which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I'm not a fan of hooktube either - it just…

It's not that "privacy-focused" tends to be conflated with FLOSS. Rather, it's nearly impossible to guarantee privacy in proprietary software. The transparency of FLOSS makes it trustless. Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code.

This is why, when it comes to privacy, Apple isn't worth consideration. All we have is their word, and that simply isn't enough.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#19

Post by decebalus1 »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #4

What's wrong with data collection and tracking? Privacy seems extremely overrated here on HN. Am I missing something? Why would anyone take such efforts to avoid using Google products? That doesn't seem very rational...

> What's wrong with data collection and tracking? Privacy seems extremely overrated here on HN. Am I missing something?

Plenty wrong. It seems you're not new here so I'm amazed you asked that question. Have you been living under a rock in 2013?

Just to start, it creates a big power imbalance between consumer and corporations [1] and due to the tightly knit relationship between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley it's also a civil liberties problem [2]. It also screws with your ideology by turning your internet usage into an echo chamber.

And here's some books:

https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/10384432

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/452645

https://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/5/digital_disconnect_rob...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16006587-spying-on-democ...

[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2309703

[2] https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#20

Post by citrablue »

cosmojg wrote: post #17
nemothekid wrote: post #2

I'm a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy alternatives like Apple. For example, the "best" calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me (which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I'm not a fan of hooktube either - it just…

It's not that "privacy-focused" tends to be conflated with FLOSS. Rather, it's nearly impossible to guarantee privacy in proprietary software. The transparency of FLOSS makes it trustless. Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code. This is why, when it comes to privacy, Apple isn't worth consideration. All we have is their word, and that simply isn't enough.

This is true iff you look through the code yourself, or are willing to trust that others have done so in as thorough a manner as your use case (attack vectors) necessitate.

Apple isn't worth consideration if you are willing to put in the effort, or delegate trust, to other systems. If you'd prefer to delegate trust to them, how is that effectively different that FOSS that you haven't examined?

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