I've been doing most of those things for years. Just never got into Google services.
Alternatives to Google Products
151–160 of 527 posts
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Apple makes its money from expensive hardware. And respecting your privacy and security helps selling it a lot . And they earned trust by being serious about it for a long time.
Apple actually had some of the worst security for a long time. They even lied about Mac OS being immune to viruses rather than market share so low hackers didn't care about it. They still made piles of money due to great product development and marketing. Their brand was the main, selling point for a long time. The iOS situation is quite a turn around for them on privacy/security. They still sell them on mainly image, features, apps, and so on. Just like before [plus Windows-style app dominance] with privacy/security reporting in media likely about boosting sales.
I don't trust it, though, if we're talking domestic surveillance. The ECI-level leaks said FBI "compels" domestic companies to enable their stuff for eavesdropping. Whatever that means is secret. In the Lavabit case, the FBI argued to the judge Lavabit wouldn't be harmed if they lied to their customers about the compromised. The judge agreed. So, court orders, fines, retaliation, forced lies, and secrecy orders of all that are a possibility in the United States. Just don't put secrets on anything made in America or by Americans. You can use American tech for obfuscation or untrusted functions, though.
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is silly. Apple publishes their privacy policy. If they were found to be violating it, they would lose business and be liable for expensive lawsuits. And security researchers are extremely good at finding these things. So yes, Apple has a very powerful incentive to tell the truth. As for the theory of "open source community," see the MyBTGWallet scam. This open source project, recommended by the Bitcoin Gold tea…
He's telling you about the fact that there's conflict of interest between you and crapple and you tell him an anecdote where some scum of this earth stole money and open source software was involved. Does this really sound like a compelling argument?
Yes. There are bad and good actors on all sides.
Just because something is closed source doesn’t make it bad. And just because something is open doesn’t automatically make it good.
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple makes its money from expensive hardware. And respecting your privacy and security helps selling it a lot . And they earned trust by being serious about it for a long time.
Until it paid for them them to sell out their Chinese customers. There they didn't think for a second.
I have no more trust in the American government to not spy on its citizens than the Chinese government. If iCloud data is encrypted and only the user has the private key. It's just as secure as being on American servers.
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#155The 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…
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.
I too feel like I am ingested, rather than served. You may want to take things more in your own hands, requires more upkeep: https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#156I'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 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...
That was in 2009 - Windows 10 probably wasn't even a project at that point, for instance.
I doubt Mozilla would recommend Bing over Google again because it's more "pro-privacy."
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I generally agree with you about the soundness of the FOSS==privacy argument, I think you're misstating it subtly. The claim isn't necessarily that the privacy sensitive user specifically will be able to audit the source but rather that someone somewhere will have done, and will have written about problems they uncovered. See also many eyes making all bugs shallow.
Not always. Heartbleed was present in OpenSSL for two years before anyone noticed. Many eyes make all bugs shallow, but if there aren’t enough eyes with the skills or the time then problems will remain deep, even for important software like this. Perhaps everyone thought everyone else had done the work?
OpenSSL can just as easily act as a point towards FOSS for privacy given that it was a vuln that was discovered externally (multiple times by distinct parties).
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code. I find this to be an extremely un-compelling position. A relatively small proportion of the general population has the skills to meaningfully look at the code, never mind the time. Moreover, even for someone who is capable, such an exercise quickly becomes non-trivial on an unfamiliar codebase for an app of any complexity. In many cases…
That's something reproducible builds address.
You can't check if the server actually runs that reproducible builds.
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure about that price? It looks like it’s $50 per year allowing for custom domain, $30 without.
I paid $117 for the 3-year plan with custom domain (and that price is discounted slightly from the normal 3-year price), which comes out to $3.25 per month. So, definitely not under 2 dollars, but easily under 4.
Ah I see, it doesn’t look like there’s a 3 year option anymore. Thanks for the info!
Re: Alternatives to Google Products
#160I used to be a privacy advocate until I realized the futility of trying to thwart the data collectors. Our Information is everywhere whether we like it or not and the only way to avoid its aggregation is by not associating with the world and abandoning the convenience of modern technology. I feel like at some point we just have to accept the loss of privacy to gain better harmony within our communities. I would recom…
I'm glad you mentioned this- something that perplexed me a lot this year about the uproar on privacy is how people expect to have the ability to upload unlimited amount of personal images and videos for free, make internet call for free and somehow don't expect these companies to make money. And privacy is currency unfortunately- if we were in a perfect society everything will be open sourced and like signal all tech companies will be publicly funded- but it's not. We fail to see value in these companies and what they do and instead demonize them. Hopefully someone can let me see what I'm missing.