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Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

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Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#271

Post by Tor3 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #263
Tor3 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tracking for everything.. with Android 6 and upwards you now have to turn on location in order to (get this!) find your Chromecast dongle when you set it up. Positioning, to find a wi-fi source inside your own place? Fortunately I still have an old screen-broken Android 5 tablet to use for such things. After that everything works.

FWIW, at least the official story is that that is because doing a scan on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi is in fact enough to locate you regardless, so it now requires the permission to do so.

A scan on Bluetooth (although N/A for this situation) can't possibly give away any position. A scan of wifi might, if the device happens to pick up a wi-fi source that Google has already collected (by some means). Still not very relevant though - it would mean that location permission would be needed in order to use wi-fi at all, because how would it otherwise find the hotspot or access point you want to connect to.. other than having to enter the SSID manually every time. But we don't have to enable location tracking to do that. To configure Chromecast though, 'google home' (which replaced the 'chromecast' application or whatever it was), takes you to Settings and unless you turn on location tracking it refuses to look for the dongle.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#272

Post by snarfy »

ubercow13 wrote: post #269
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way, and it makes me sad. I was so bullish on Google when I first got a job and investing my savings, bought into the company when it was still Google. I thought the rebrand to Alphabet was a good idea like everything Google, though their abandonment of 'Don't be Evil' planted the first seed of doubt. What made that doubt grow was that I use Youtube as a customer and... well. I'm sure you've seen the…

What's wrong with YouTube?

Search for anything, watch the video, then watch the next recommended video. Keep following the recommendations. See where you end up.

If you know exactly what you want to watch it's fine, but the whole browsing/surfing experience sucks.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#273

Post by jannes »

mattip wrote: post #109
partiallypro wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What choices? And I mean ones that people would actually use or know about? Apple Maps is basically it, and it's only one one platform. Bing Maps...maybe? But Google has an effective monopoly on consumer based maps.

maps.me works pretty well, they use open street map data augmented with ad based reccomendations. You download maps so you don’t need wifi to navigate. Best for walking or biking directions, getting better for driving

Maps.me is Russian now. In terms of being spied on maybe not the best alternative.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#274

Post by ubercow13 »

snarfy wrote: post #272
ubercow13 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with YouTube?

Search for anything, watch the video, then watch the next recommended video. Keep following the recommendations. See where you end up. If you know exactly what you want to watch it's fine, but the whole browsing/surfing experience sucks.

I agree that if you leave it playing it will go off on a tangent, but I find the list of recommended videos along the right side to be _very_ good. It really does list things I would want to watch based off past viewing and what's currently playing. I find it to be the most useful (only useful?) recommendation engine in any product.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#275

Post by okal »

a_imho wrote: post #126
scalablenotions wrote: post #66

Dark patterns seem to be becoming standard UX for Google now. I notice so much of it all over their products.

There is nothing dark about this, they are doing this in plain sight, there is very little people (who wants to use Google services*) can do about it. Even GDPR looks more and more toothless as days go by and nothing happens to obvious violators and it only covers European users of course.

Dark patterns aren't dark because they're "hidden". They're dark because they're misleading, or coercive.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#276

Post by endorphone »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #141
WalterSear wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlock and commnd the google assistant via a bluetooth device. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, sometimes it would unlock but then be unable to respond to subsequent commands. Then every few days, the feature would disable itself and stop working entirely (via voice or bluetooth) and have to be set up again. The first support person showed me how to clear the application cache, and then walked me throu…

It was discussed on HN a few days ago: the size of the company is inversely proportional to the quality of their support. After the company reaches a certain size, they can simply afford not to care. Also, in this case it makes more business sense for them. Therefore I prefer to deal with smaller companies.

Apple has absolutely fantastic support, and remain outrageously profitable regardless.

Years back I bought a Nexus and chose an engraving option. I got the phone and it wasn't engraved so I contacted Google mostly to make sure I wasn't going to be shipped multiple phones (after battling the various prevent you from contacting us bosses).

I mean, I bought the phone from them, from their site, with Google branding on it, paying Google, with a warranty theoretically provided by Google, etc. Eventually someone responded giving me the phone number for HTC. No, you contact HTC, Google.

That was the last voluntarily purchased Google device I bought. I did get a couple more Nexus phones for development purposes, but did so begrudgingly. The Pixel line of phones and tablets...not a chance in the world.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#279

Post by larkeith »

ubercow13 wrote: post #269
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way, and it makes me sad. I was so bullish on Google when I first got a job and investing my savings, bought into the company when it was still Google. I thought the rebrand to Alphabet was a good idea like everything Google, though their abandonment of 'Don't be Evil' planted the first seed of doubt. What made that doubt grow was that I use Youtube as a customer and... well. I'm sure you've seen the…

What's wrong with YouTube?

Separate from the recommendation problems, which seem to vary by person, the site has gotten substantially worse for mobile players, to the point I've almost entirely stopped using it:

- The mobile page does not allow quality selection, and always selects quality options far below what would be supported by your connection (It sometimes drops to 240p, and I have not seen it select anything above 480p, yet can easily stream 1080p on the desktop site or other players).

- The mobile page does not respect the "Request Desktop Site" option, even in Chrome - and neither does their own "Desktop Site" link; Both still use the abysmal mobile player, and only by enabling both can you use a high-quality video player.

- Anything 60fps has issues on my mobile device, while other web players are fine - even 720p60 lags, while I can stream 1080p60 elsewhere.

I uninstalled the app years ago when it requested additional permissions with an update, and implemented a 30-second delay (with countdown!) before launching until I updated. YouTube is no longer the pinnacle of web video, and have not been for years.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#280

Post by mcculley »

wutbrodo wrote: post #270
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same way, and it makes me sad. I was so bullish on Google when I first got a job and investing my savings, bought into the company when it was still Google. I thought the rebrand to Alphabet was a good idea like everything Google, though their abandonment of 'Don't be Evil' planted the first seed of doubt. What made that doubt grow was that I use Youtube as a customer and... well. I'm sure you've seen the…

Can you elaborate on the problem with YouTube? Other people have mentioned it too here. I use it pretty frequently and it seems to work the way it always did, more or less. Hell, they don't even bug me with original content recommendations the way they did briefly (and the way Netflix continues to).

Maybe he is referring to things like the weird videos for kids that emerged from monetization: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-in...
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