Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can • Hacker News Board

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#81

Post by jopsen » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 12:38 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

Wasn't there are story a while ago mentioning: https://one.google.com/ It'll be interesting to see what this support can do..

Anyways, print recovery keys for your account, use 2FA with yubikey or other U2F provider.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#82

Post by Godel_unicode » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 12:43 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

You're looking for LTO and a vaulting service.

http://www.ironmountain.com/digital-transformation/iron-clou...

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#83

Post by nixpulvis » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 12:49 AM UTC

benatkin wrote: post #78

markdown wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a current user of gmail this worries me. Anyone using a free service anywhere provided by anyone should be worried. I pay to use gmail and their service is incredible. Whether it's been support chat, phone calls, etc... I've always received very prompt support from Google.

It isn't free if you have your own domain. In fact they prorate it when you cancel.

I have my own domain, and use gmail for free. Because I'm cheap, not because I care. One day I'll find a better solution, one that avoids Google (paid or unpaid) altogether.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#84

Post by nixpulvis » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 12:51 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

I mean, at least they aren't encrypting your data so you must use their services to view it, like what's happening in the paid music industry.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#85

Post by nixpulvis » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 12:53 AM UTC

Godel_unicode wrote: post #82

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

You're looking for LTO and a vaulting service. http://www.ironmountain.com/digital-transformation/iron-clou...

What's the old saying, "If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it".

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#86

Post by benatkin » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 12:58 AM UTC

nixpulvis wrote: post #83

benatkin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't free if you have your own domain. In fact they prorate it when you cancel.

I have my own domain, and use gmail for free. Because I'm cheap, not because I care. One day I'll find a better solution, one that avoids Google (paid or unpaid) altogether.

Yeah, I got mine for free too since I've had my domain for a while, but I have a newer domain that I set up on GSuite, and was paying $5/mo for, until I realized I could set it up as a domain alias of my original domain and get it for free.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#87

Post by Godel_unicode » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 1:00 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #75

I've never really been a fan of the whole "browser extensions" thing, with perhaps the exception of UI mods, and things like this only serve to reinforce that notion. I prefer to use a MITM filtering proxy, which works in all browsers and is independent of, so isn't beholden to, the authoritarian institutions which control them. Incidentally I also have a filter which does the same thing as his extension, and I proba…

Good luck with that once hsts, cert pinning, and TLS 1.3 become more common.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#88

Post by superkuh » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 1:05 AM UTC

Boulth wrote: post #2

It's interesting to observe current landscape of app delivery, previously it was just binaries or sources on developer's site now it's shifting to centralized model in the name of protecting users from malicious actors. I wonder if there is a way to have a cookie (developers don't need to worry about random behavior of your centralized owner) and eat it too (fight malware).

And in the end the malicious actors are the centralized hosts. Even if they don't start that was centralization leads to perverse incentives for censorship.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#89

Post by wnevets » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 1:10 AM UTC

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #20

In another thread[1] on HN today there was discussion over developers selling out their web extensions to marketing corporations which end up filling them with tracking scripts and malware. Someone suggested that google should be much more aggressive at filtering out said extensions, and one of the responses was a sarcastic comment over a future article about Google attacking extension developers and the free web. An…

> web extensions to marketing corporations which end up filling them with tracking scripts and malware.

one of the worse parts about this is that they auto update without you knowing. So an extension might've been safe when you first installed it then a month later its infested.

Re: Google to developers: We take down your extension because we can

#90

Post by sfotm » Wed, Jul 04, 2018, 1:22 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #77

nixpulvis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that an extension was removed. There will always be erroneous attempts at making things safer for users when playing the game of content moderator. The problem is that Google is impossible to talk to, and makes no effort to help when things go wrong. As a current user of gmail this worries me.

This petrifies me. Google provides an incredibly easy way for me to capture all data that I care about. Getting photos and videos of my kids growing up and keeping them for years is trivial with Google. And in one little error it can all disappear with no recourse. I continue to struggle today to find a silver bullet solution for someone like me who just wants to hurl money somewhere and say, "use this money to guara…

Go to Digital Ocean, make a NextCloud droplet, and configure backups to Backblaze. There you go. Bonus point if you buy a small server and become a custodian of your own data.