Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alternatives to Google Products

restoreprivacy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 527 posts

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#81

Post by SomeHacker44 »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #75
godzillabrennus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t found a replacement for Gmail yet. I’ve tried fastmail and ProtonMail but both have limitations. From a search engine perspective I’ve switched to DuckDuckGo and I’m impressed with how good it has gotten. With maps I’ve tried various solutions including mapquest, Microsoft, and Apple but nothing comes close to Google Maps.

Can you elaborate on the limitations you experienced with fastmail and protonmail?

I have used Fastmail for years with a custom domain without a single problem. Amazingly great communications from the company too. Highly recommended but not free. (Less than $2/month though - so almost free.)

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#82

Post by jake_the_third »

malloryerik wrote: post #68
mailbomb wrote: post #40

Besides the Gmails alternatives: 1. Mailfence – Based in Belgium – 500 MB free; 20 GB Pro 2. Tutanota – Based in Germany – 1 GB free; 10 GB Pro 3. Mailbox.org – Based in Germany – 2 GB storage 4. Protonmail – Based in Switzerland – 500 MB free; 5 GB Pro 5. * * Runbox.com - Based in Norway * * They forgot #5, runbox.com

If you use something like protonmail aren't you sending a signal like, "Look at me I've got something to hide!"? If I were role-playing as some mighty and wealthy intelligence bureaucracy, I'd likely monitor anyone using such services as well as Tor, etc. No? I do like protonmail btw and am concerned about privacy in general, esp for the maintenance of democracy. And I'm not at all against the intelligence bureaucrac…

I think it's more about adhering to ones own values than keeping your mail secure from rouge nation states. For example, I don't use google (except for the occasional search) and use privacy focused products almost exclusively instead. Yet if a government agency decides to violate my privacy, they wont find anything of interest.

It's about doing what you can.

Besides, using privacy focused products sends a clear signal to companies that privacy is something we want.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#83

Post by newscracker »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #74
tehabe wrote: post #46

The worst thing, the absolute worst thing is, you know all that but you have gotten so used to the way Google services work, that you simply have a hard time to switch. E.g. thank to Gmail I rarely use an email application on my computer and use webmail. When I tried out Posteo it was extremely annoying that it logged me out every few minutes and I couldn't get my email. They said this couldn't be changed. Google rea…

>When I tried out Posteo it was extremely annoying that it logged me out every few minutes I haven't encountered this with my personal email server nor heard of it from anyone else. I think this might just be an issue with Posteo. It's easier if you don't try to move all at once. Spend some time looking at different email options and move that. Do calendar later. Get rid of Google Apps on your Android later still. Gr…

Posteo is very aggressive on privacy, reducing exposure, and keeping information safer. So a shorter webmail session timeout may be related to this. Depending on the use case, if this were the only issue with Posteo, the GP could’ve used Firefox with one of the many tab reload or tab refresh extensions to keep the logged in session alive.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#84

Post by millstone »

extralego wrote: post #35
citrablue wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Incentive. When devs announce how their software handles privacy concerns, they have an incentive to be honest because all it takes is one discovery of conflicting code and their trust is lost. But if the code is closed source, that incentive for honesty is removed. Of course the media can still seek circumstantial evidence and make accusations, but that’s a far cry from version control. Separately, closed source cod…

Companies get hit with multi-million dollar fines for violating their privacy policies. So there's your incentive.

I just don't see open source as better protecting privacy. See for example the telemetry in .NET Core or VS Code [1]. Users discover this stuff by watching network traffic, not through code audits.

1: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/16131

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#85

Post by flafla2 »

anonu wrote: post #51
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 disagree that Apple looks really good nowadays from a privacy perspective. They treat their customers with respect and don't sell their data.... until they do. How can you trust a single point of failure to "do no evil"?

Apple doesn't have the data that Google et al has. All of the ML that apple does for example is done on-device or is privatized [0]. This goes for all of their services that Google has built their business off of: Messages, Siri, Maps, etc. People don't respect Apple's security because they trust Apple, they respect it because Apple has intentionally shot themselves in the foot if they wished to sell their data in the future.

[0] https://machinelearning.apple.com/2017/12/06/learning-with-p...

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#86

Post by stevehawk »

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #81
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on the limitations you experienced with fastmail and protonmail?

I have used Fastmail for years with a custom domain without a single problem. Amazingly great communications from the company too. Highly recommended but not free. (Less than $2/month though - so almost free.)

I think half of my comments on hacker news are how much I love Fastmail, which I've used for email, calendar, and contacts for a decade now.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#87

Post by newscracker »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #30

Recently I started shelling out $25 a month for a G-Suite account. I wish I could have kept my @gmail email address, as I think your own vanity URL looks a little tacky, but oh well. Anyway, for privacy but also security it’s been amazing. DKIM, DMARC, SPF, and S/MIME for mail. All attachments are executed in a special sandbox before moving to your inbox (delays mail a little bit). None of my personal data / content…

If your use of G Suite is only for email (and calendar), and if you don’t need phone support, there are better paid options out there that are a lot cheaper. Mailbox.org, Fastmail, Protonmail, Posteo (this one doesn’t allow custom domains) and more.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#88

Post by lev99 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #27
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...

I like/sometimes use Bing, and it's decent, but it's not significantly different than Google in terms of data collection. The biggest difference, arguably, is that they pay you for it via Bing Rewards. DuckDuckGo uses Bing data and respects your privacy more, and probably the best choice for the privacy-conscious.

My primary goal of using Google alternatives is to deprive Alphabet of revenue. Privacy benefits are secondary.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#89

Post by newscracker »

ccozan wrote: post #69

Again, like I or others mentioned before. If you don't want to be the product, you just have to pay the equivalent of a beer in month [0]. You need a own domain, but who doesn't these days? [0] https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html

Some people trust a company to outlive their domain registrations, and hence prefer not to use a custom domain.

A custom domain, commonly of the format, also leaks personal information every time it’s used, whereas a consumer mail provider domain name doesn’t (as long as one chooses a somewhat random address).

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#90

Post by bronco21016 »

millstone wrote: post #84
extralego wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentive. When devs announce how their software handles privacy concerns, they have an incentive to be honest because all it takes is one discovery of conflicting code and their trust is lost. But if the code is closed source, that incentive for honesty is removed. Of course the media can still seek circumstantial evidence and make accusations, but that’s a far cry from version control. Separately, closed source cod…

Companies get hit with multi-million dollar fines for violating their privacy policies. So there's your incentive. I just don't see open source as better protecting privacy. See for example the telemetry in .NET Core or VS Code [1]. Users discover this stuff by watching network traffic, not through code audits. 1: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/16131

Is a multi-million dollar fine enough to matter?

Let’s assume Apple violated their privacy policy and was fined $999 million, the highest “multi-million dollar” fine they could be assessed. That’s just barely more than 1% of their market cap.

Fines are definitely incentive to do right but the fine must be felt. I’m not aware of any cases where the tech giants have been levied a fine that really hits them hard.

Post reply on HN