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Alternatives to Google Products

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Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#451

Post by bubblethink »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #114
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 know it's not exactly your point, but Etar is pretty nice, and apparently is cross-platform (Android & iOS - which I didn't know), and exists on F-Droid ( https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ws.xsoh.etar/ ), Google Play (it seems somehow wrong to link to the Google Play Store given the context, but it's easy to find there anyway), and Apple's App Store ( https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/etar/id1217625781?mt=8 ). I think…

There is a fork of maps.me on f-droid that strips out analytics/ads/proprietary bits. It's called omim (https://gitlab.com/axet/omim).

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#452

Post by vortico »

Reedx wrote: post #183
vortico wrote: post #165

A rule of thumb is that the more you pay for online services, the more pleasant, more privacy-respecting, and better support you have in the services you use. I use email hosts, file hosts, git hosts, and video hosts that are quite expensive, but the cost is totally worth it when you get used to the quality of service and product you get. There is very little reason for a company to sell your data when they make $200…

It would be interesting to check those out - who are the providers?

I don't want to feel like an advertisement, but here are some "expensive" services that make me feel that I'm using their product instead of being their product. The following are some services I'm proud to pay their amount for.

https://www.fastmail.com/ for email

https://vimeo.com/ for 4K HD video uploads

https://www.backblaze.com/ for backup

https://www.rackspace.com/cloud/files for sharing files and photos to people

https://www.shopify.com/ for processing payments for my company

https://www.linode.com/ for frontend hosting

https://www.heroku.com/ for app hosting

I don't use online services for calendars, project management, to-do lists, etc. so I can't help there.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#453

Post by smadge »

Theodores wrote: post #448
Skunkleton wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the constant succession of revelations of the sorry state of privacy, along with myriad data breaches... I remember reading an article about how Richard Stallman interacts with the internet a while back. I remember thinking that it seemed totally insane. But in light of the reality of 2018, I am coming around. The way I see it, I can keep tweaking privacy settings in a browser, or opting out of collection, or…

The irony is that everyone knows a bit too much about RMS and exactly how he behaves online or in interviews. His efforts at privacy have backfired.

RMS’s efforts are not for not privacy as some absolutist doctrine: no one must know anything about me. Instead they are about freedom: people should know about me what I let them know about me; I am in control of my data and my online presence. We know lots about RMS’s internet habits specifically because he shares them with us using free and open services.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#454

Post by parkersweb »

4ad wrote: post #335
amelius wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, what does GDPR say about fingerprinting? Is it legal? (Asking because the EU explicitly made cookies an opt-in technique, but not sure if they considered fingerprinting).

The EU did not make cookies an opt-in technique. The EU made irrelevant cookies opt-in. Cookies that are essential for the functioning of the service do not need a notice. If you require user accounts, you don't need to show a cookie notice. If you implement a shopping cart without user accounts, you also don't need to show a cookie notice. Unfortunately most websites don't understand this simple idea and show the co…

That’s one of the most frustrating aspects of GDPR in relation to cookies - many businesses that could happily run a site with no cookie opt-in end up implementing one anyway because that irritating pop-up gives the end user a perception of ‘handling privacy well’.

I’d be so keen for the solution to lie in the browser UX- in the same way as we currently request location information - rather than the current mish-mash of badly implemented, often disingenuous site overlays that have become the modern equivalent of the ‘enter site’ splash screen...

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#455

Post by IncRnd »

systoll wrote: post #449
IncRnd wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does not have a feature analogous to safari 11+'s tracking prevention. I never said that it did... I wrote that firefox has had the ability to block cookies automatically for years, which it has had. My response was not a comparison between the browsers but a statement of one particular feature that was mentioned. I simply said that what had been stated by the gp was also available in Firefox.

When you wrote 'like that', I assumed that you meant 'like that'. > I simply said that what had been stated by the gp was also available in Firefox. Given that the gp referred to ITP... no, it's not.

The gp has clarified their comment, since that time. Snark is beneath you.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#456

Post by 0xmaverick »

shawn wrote: post #273
halflings wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Fair enough, though that would require me to sign in. Does that actually prevent the data from being stored on Google's servers? I'd like to believe that the data isn't being vacuumed up regardless of what the user says, so if you're willing to vouch for it then that would mean a lot.

How can you ever trust anyone like that ? Unless, you see the line of code that is deleting the data ?. It's kind of unfair when people on HN take Apple by their word and for Google "oh is it really deleted though" ?

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#457

Post by hanspeter »

parkersweb wrote: post #454
4ad wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU did not make cookies an opt-in technique. The EU made irrelevant cookies opt-in. Cookies that are essential for the functioning of the service do not need a notice. If you require user accounts, you don't need to show a cookie notice. If you implement a shopping cart without user accounts, you also don't need to show a cookie notice. Unfortunately most websites don't understand this simple idea and show the co…

That’s one of the most frustrating aspects of GDPR in relation to cookies - many businesses that could happily run a site with no cookie opt-in end up implementing one anyway because that irritating pop-up gives the end user a perception of ‘handling privacy well’. I’d be so keen for the solution to lie in the browser UX- in the same way as we currently request location information - rather than the current mish-mash…

If you're a business, you have tracking on your site. The cookie warning it's almost always warranted.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#458

Post by Skunkleton »

pieterr wrote: post #447
Skunkleton wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the constant succession of revelations of the sorry state of privacy, along with myriad data breaches... I remember reading an article about how Richard Stallman interacts with the internet a while back. I remember thinking that it seemed totally insane. But in light of the reality of 2018, I am coming around. The way I see it, I can keep tweaking privacy settings in a browser, or opting out of collection, or…

> I remember reading an article about how Richard Stallman interacts with the internet a while back. One of these you mean? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16869515 [2] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

It was directly related to #2, but I only made it there as a result of reading some other article. It has been a while and I don't remember the source.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#459

Post by x2f10 »

halflings wrote: post #249

> 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…

How do I view the data Google has collected on me if I do not have a Google account?

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#460

Post by driverdan »

icebraining wrote: post #412
Sylos wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With your own domain, you can shorten the part before the '@'. You could call it "forename@lastname.com" instead of "forename.lastname@gmail.com".

Only if nobody got lastname.com first. My last name is squatted, and the leech will sell it for "only $2995". I later discovered I could get the "lastna.me", but that's prone to be mistyped as well.

So register something else that's short and memorable. It doesn't have to be your name.
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