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Alternatives to Google Products

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261–270 of 527 posts

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#261
I would like to see more projects that make robust self-hosting easier and friendlier. That would make decentralization of the Internet services actually more fun.

Today, only people who basically live inside terminal emulators have a fair chance of correctly configuring and running a server with mail/webdav/www/webindex/dns/git, and all of that with letsencrypt.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#262

So I'm one of those who doesn't care if Google tracks me or sells me as a product. [ * ] Is there actually some real, tangible harm that can come to me from using Google products? Not theoretical stuff, not stuff that is less likely than dying in a plane crash. Something that is actually likely to happen, that will affect me in measurable, negative ways? I'm really trying to come up with something, and I'm really try…

I think the average worst thing that could happen is that you end up going to court against someone (since we are thinking about averages, I'm thinking divorce), they obtain your data, and use that to build a case against you. If you were cheating, for instance, your location info could be used to show all your meetings in quite some detail. And even if you weren't, you can always bend your stats a little bit to make it look as if you did. Enjoy discussing p-hacking and statistical significance with a judge.

If you live in the US this may not be a problem now, but you also have to think ahead: courts may not be allowed to obtain your information right now (although that's probably not true if you are in a murder trial), but they might in the future.

And even then, someone close to you could provide that information to the other part: a (soon to be ex) friend of yours downloads all your information* thanks to the new GDPR tools and provides them to the other part.

*: I think this evidence would be admissible in court, since it's not the police the one who obtained evidence with illegal means. But even if it were not directly admissible, parallel construction is also a thing.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#263

> All they do is repackage mass corporate surveillance into convenient, free, trendy applications that suck up all your data. Your private data helps Google dominate the online advertising market. Google has what I think are the most transparent and user friendly controls for visualizing what personal data is collected, and disabling it (most often per product, for ex. disable location history and YouTube viewing his…

That's an understandable point of view because if you perceived Google the way many of us do, it would be impossible or at least very difficult for you to work for them without strong emotional struggle.

You see, the point is that we, the users, helped to create a mammoth that has an enormous pile of sometimes very intimate data on almost anyone. This in itself is dangerous, regardless of what they do with this data - whether they share it with advertisers and other third parties, the government, NSA etc. or not. Also, the world changes fast. Owners change, governments change. Who is to blame when things end up badly? We are, because we got lured by free unlimited spam-free mailbox, free browser, cheap phone, free analytics, accurate search engine. We like these so much that we gave up critical thinking for a while. But the society as a whole is slowly waking up, hence articles like these (which is quite lacking on several points BTW.)

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#264
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAQ ( https://posteo.de/en/site/faq ) says the do it because a domain has personay identifying information in WHOIS and they would need to store it. I think for .de domains, you are required to have your personal address in WHOIS if you are not a company.

That's a new claim, and it's also obvious bullshit. First, I may be okay with it. And why would Posteo store WHOIS data? Unless they want to be a domain reseller, which is not what I asked them about. Second, there are other TLDs. I still insist that they do it because of lock-in and that they lie about it.

They wouldn't store whois data of course, but the domain needs to be stored at it can then be used to look it up.

I think mailbox.org supports custom domains and is similar in other respects.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#265

So I'm one of those who doesn't care if Google tracks me or sells me as a product. [ * ] Is there actually some real, tangible harm that can come to me from using Google products? Not theoretical stuff, not stuff that is less likely than dying in a plane crash. Something that is actually likely to happen, that will affect me in measurable, negative ways? I'm really trying to come up with something, and I'm really try…

Then you must assume one of: * No one can get access to Google's data * Those who can get access cannot harm you In addition to trusting google not to be evil. What are your assumptions that lead you to that conclusion? Or are you assuming that no matter who has access to your data, there is no one could ever do any harm to you with that data? (That's the 'I have nothing to hide' argument)

> * No one can get access to Google's data * Those who can get access cannot harm you

Maybe it's more about will than can if you're a bit more pragmatic? Anyone on the street can harm you, but not many will....

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#266

Hi all, I'm an engineer working on Firefox Platform (Gecko). In the linked blog post, the author recommends Firefox (thanks!) and links to a "privacy recommendations" for it, which include items such as "resistFingerprinting" settings. I'd like to remind everyone that turning on this setting has far fetched consequences to how you experience the Web. Your dates, timezones, preferred languages will all be masked which…

Yea, maybe you should prioritize 'ironing' it out.

Prioritize it over the probably 1,000s of other things they have to do, which we might not have any idea about? Just because one person was kind enough to try to help people with a short cautionary message, therefore bringing this specific issue to our attention?

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#267
post #254

> All they do is repackage mass corporate surveillance into convenient, free, trendy applications that suck up all your data. Your private data helps Google dominate the online advertising market. Google has what I think are the most transparent and user friendly controls for visualizing what personal data is collected, and disabling it (most often per product, for ex. disable location history and YouTube viewing his…

Google has what I think is the most transparent and user friendly controls for visualizing what personal data is collected, and disabling it (most often per product, for ex. disable location history and YouTube viewing history, but enable personalized ads). I don't think this stops Google from collecting your viewing history. If it did, Youtube recommendations wouldn't work at all, because they would know nothing abo…

The second link I posted allows you to explicitly disable search and viewing history on YouTube, which also disables recommendations (at least those based on your profile; you will still get recommendations after watching a specific video).

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#268
post #227

This is all fine and well, but to be honest, I like how Google integrates all the different products. I get a better experience when search is customized to what is in my email, especially when I search for flight info and it tells me about flights I already have booked, or better yet, flights my in-laws are on that they forwarded to me and I'm now tracking to go pick them up. Sometimes the ads it gives me are so rel…

Well, most people are boring and don't rock the boat. Things can get tricky if they pop up (thorough bad luck or as a consequence of their actions) on the radar of someone that wants to make their life miserable or if they bother someone with power. Otherwise I assume you're well off financially by now, so getting screwed on insurance should be a non-issue. Discrimination is likewise a non-issue. In general money hel…

While all these things help, I still think it's true that for 99.9% of people, nothing really bad will happen because of info that Google collects. I mean, as terrible as "getting on the radar of someone that wants to make [your] life miserable" is, it's a relatively rare occurrence, and I doubt that Google is really making it that much worse (if at all).

Disclaimer - would be happy to be proved wrong if you want to provide contrary evidence...

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#269
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a new claim, and it's also obvious bullshit. First, I may be okay with it. And why would Posteo store WHOIS data? Unless they want to be a domain reseller, which is not what I asked them about. Second, there are other TLDs. I still insist that they do it because of lock-in and that they lie about it.

They wouldn't store whois data of course, but the domain needs to be stored at it can then be used to look it up. I think mailbox.org supports custom domains and is similar in other respects.

That's a stupid excuse.

They should stop storing the mails themselves, they are full of private information. /s

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#270
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their support replied with a mumbo-jumbo of techno-babble why it's not possible. Of course it's possible. The reason is clear: lock-in. People are reluctant to change providers if they lose their mail address.

The FAQ ( https://posteo.de/en/site/faq ) says the do it because a domain has personay identifying information in WHOIS and they would need to store it. I think for .de domains, you are required to have your personal address in WHOIS if you are not a company.

AFAIK the GDPR explicitly mandates registrar to hide personal information.
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