Why I’m Worried About Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#141

Post by NeedMoreTea » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #4

It’s the closing paragraph that’s the important bit: In the end, this is why I’m moving away from the Google ecosystem. If nothing else works, then at least I can vote with my feet—or my fingertips. Google have set their path, so it will take effort for them to deviate from it. The best way to show them that the effort is worthwhile is to affect their bottom line by reducing your use of their services. And maybe you’…

I'm almost there. There are no Google apps on the phone any more.

The last push to stop using Chrome even occasionally has been the recent user-hostile changes, and the recent style redesign. It must be my middle aged eyes, but ever since that I had a significant misclick rate, despite or perhaps because of, all the extra whitespace. Of course now any contrast at all is against Google style guidelines.

I wish there were a neat way to avoid the online Google features every other site links to - Captchas, fonts, Google scripts and such. Possibly just for bloody-minded completeness, but I'd prefer to give them no data at all.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#142

Post by Angostura » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:17 PM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #124

daveFNbuck wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are the easy changes. It's much harder to move away from their ecosystem if you're using gmail as your primary or only e-mail provider.

This is why it’s best to have one layer of indirection: in this case a personal domain that lets you move between providers. Same thing as running your site from mygreatcompany.com instead of geocities.com/mygreatcompany.

Same here. Bought a personal domain about 10 years ago as piece of mind. Does the job and my registrar handles e-mail forwarding including catchall which is handy for throwaway addresses

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#143

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

the_clarence wrote: post #82

CaptainZapp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is fine and DuckDuckGo is good enough by now. Firefox has the added bonus that it doesn't implement a two tier cookie system. Of which one tier cannot be deleted. This, in combination with the new and improved "sign-in-convenience" convinced me that Google is exactly as dirty as any other tech company and should be avoided like the plague, wherever possible.

Firefox is fine? It’s the best browsing experience thanks to Tree Style Tabs unless you are a lambda user and you only have 3 tabs open at all time. And even lambda users pile up tabs when they browse

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#144

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

bla2 wrote: post #72

CaptainZapp wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is fine and DuckDuckGo is good enough by now. Firefox has the added bonus that it doesn't implement a two tier cookie system. Of which one tier cannot be deleted. This, in combination with the new and improved "sign-in-convenience" convinced me that Google is exactly as dirty as any other tech company and should be avoided like the plague, wherever possible.

DuckDuckGo is mostly a skin on Bing search results. By using it, you're saying you trust Microsoft more than Google. If that's your intent, cool, but you're not really getting away from the big tech companies by doing this.

> By using it, you're saying you trust Microsoft more than Google

I do. They make inferior software imo, but seem a lot less suspicious.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#145

Post by dwighttk » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

janpot wrote: post #11

This bothers me a little bit > By clicking “Agree,” you consent to Slate’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and the use of technologies such as cookies by Slate and our partners to deliver relevant advertising on our site, in emails and across the Internet, to personalize content and perform site analytics. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information about our use of data, your rights, and how to withdraw c…

I guess my ad blocker blocked that

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#146

Post by newsoundwave » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

ngngngng wrote: post #126

I really want to get away from using a pixel (or Android) phone, but an equivalent iPhone costs literally twice as much. Is it worth it for privacy alone?

Maybe not relevant to you, but my Pixel 2 XL was already $900-ish, so switching this year to the iPhone XS wasn't a big deal.

I will say a brand new iPhone 8 is also currently $599 (and the 7s is even cheaper) and will likely get updates for the next 4 years or so.

I've used Android since the original Android phone (T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream). It felt hypocritical, however, to have switched away from most of Google in my personal life and still give them access to me through my phone. I dislike Apple for many reasons, but I'd much rather deal with those issues than continue to use Google.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#147

Post by solarkraft » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

move-on-by wrote: post #129

ekzy wrote: post #65

I've switched to Safari and DuckDuckGo last week. I can still search on google with the DuckDuckGo shortcut !g when the duck doesn't quack. I tried Firefox but it became too slow. Safari is actually pretty good, for me the main problem is that it reduced my productivity for web development (I need to get used to the safari devtools) and the lack of some browser extensions (redux devtools etc). For now, I keep switchi…

DDG's bang features are great. You might be interested in the !sp bang - which takes you to StartPage (a proxy for Google). This way you can still get the Google results without using google when DDG isn't cutting it.

Great tip, thanks!

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#148

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

the_clarence wrote: post #105

gagege wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a lambda user? Sounds like I might be one. I only keep a few tabs open at a time.

In terms of browsers that would be someone who only go on HN, reddit, facebook, gmail and linkedin. In other words HRFGL.

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#149

Post by xur17 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #40

robin_reala wrote: post #4

It’s the closing paragraph that’s the important bit: In the end, this is why I’m moving away from the Google ecosystem. If nothing else works, then at least I can vote with my feet—or my fingertips. Google have set their path, so it will take effort for them to deviate from it. The best way to show them that the effort is worthwhile is to affect their bottom line by reducing your use of their services. And maybe you’…

Firefox is fine and DuckDuckGo is good enough by now. Firefox has the added bonus that it doesn't implement a two tier cookie system. Of which one tier cannot be deleted. This, in combination with the new and improved "sign-in-convenience" convinced me that Google is exactly as dirty as any other tech company and should be avoided like the plague, wherever possible.

> Firefox is fine and DuckDuckGo is good enough by now.

I finally made the jump to Brave and DuckDuckGo, but replacing Gmail, Google Photos, and Google Voice is going to be hard. Gmail will be the hardest since it's attached to so many of my online accounts.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#150

Post by rolandog » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

GnwbZHiU wrote: post #56

demxzy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is looking more like a very good insurance policy going forward privacy-wise. I would like to see more open source browsers though. It feels like we are getting nearer and nearer to browser mono cultures with all the chromium clones. Maybe Ms can release edge as an opensource app with it being far behind in adoption.

There's also Brave browser by Brendan Eich. It's still very young and have issues, but it's getting better over time.

I've enjoyed using the Brave browser so far (less than a week).

I'm excited to try out the BAT payments feature! For those out of the loop, like I was a week ago, it's a way to pay what you want per month, divided proportionally by the time spent per site between the sites you visited, as a way of trying to compensate the publishers and creators for your ad blocking.

You use a crypto currency called Basic Attention Token (BAT).

If anyone has any questions about the setup process, I'd be happy to help.

As a side note: I live in Mexico, but I was happy to be able to fund a wallet and not be region-blocked for once.