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Why I’m Worried About Google

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Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before using Brave, you should consider if you value their business model as ethical (I don't). What they do is filter-out ads and replace them with ads of their customers.

No they filter out ads. Then they give everyone the opportunity to use a Patreon-Style support or view Ads, optionally. Why isn't it ethical to target big Ad-Tech middle men like Google and Facebook and increase efficiency and privacy at the same time?

The publishers didn't agree to it. Brave is not allowed to unilaterally dictate terms. If I'm going to steal from publishers, nobody should benefit, especially not some smarmy browser vendor. Similarly, if I'm going to pirate, I'm not going to pay some piracy middleman who makes up some cryptocurrency to send to the content creators.

Of Firefox, Chrome, and Brave; Brave is by far the worst browser of the bunch. It's not even pretending not to be evil, let alone trying and failing like the others.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail is really the only thing keeping me in the Google tent. Switching my address after over a decade of use is nigh-impossible. I also use Chrome for development because the debug tools are superior, but everything else Google is an easy switch for me.

No it's not. You get a new email, set all incoming mail from the old one to forward to the new one, tell the people you are in contact with about the new email, and then just change the email on the services you use when you use it. Don't go around to all the services at once. Just the next time you open up GitHub, change it, next time you open up your online bank, change it, and so on. And after a couple of years, s…

This is how I did it twice over the years.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#303

For some reason this was also a breaking point for me. I've switched to Firefox and Duck Duck Go. It's a small thing, but boy do you start to feel like a second rate citizen fast. The state of extensions on Firefox is a mess. I can get the usual privacy extensions easily enough, but things like using media keys to control videos playing in the back ground. Or how in the phone app of Firefox you need to pull up the si…

For Drive I've found Jumpshare to be awesome, for email I can't see my protonmail replacing gmail, I feel that there should be a better alternative.

One of the hard parts will be to leave behind the awesome google photo

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#304

For some reason this was also a breaking point for me. I've switched to Firefox and Duck Duck Go. It's a small thing, but boy do you start to feel like a second rate citizen fast. The state of extensions on Firefox is a mess. I can get the usual privacy extensions easily enough, but things like using media keys to control videos playing in the back ground. Or how in the phone app of Firefox you need to pull up the si…

I use Firefox Notes instead of Keep - https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/notes

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they filter out ads. Then they give everyone the opportunity to use a Patreon-Style support or view Ads, optionally. Why isn't it ethical to target big Ad-Tech middle men like Google and Facebook and increase efficiency and privacy at the same time?

The publishers didn't agree to it. Brave is not allowed to unilaterally dictate terms. If I'm going to steal from publishers, nobody should benefit, especially not some smarmy browser vendor. Similarly, if I'm going to pirate, I'm not going to pay some piracy middleman who makes up some cryptocurrency to send to the content creators. Of Firefox, Chrome, and Brave; Brave is by far the worst browser of the bunch. It's…

But that's essentially was Google is doing: dictating things unilaterally.

And that's also how the web was founded. No one agreed to anything. People just started to build.

If there isn't a law against it, they are allowed to do it.

Everyone who uploads free content on the web without a paywall essentially says "take it and display it however you like".

Besides that, Brave is essentially building a sustainable model in favor of publishers. They will be very thankful.

It is ad-blocker without an alternative model that is problematic for publishers, not Brave. So I don't see why anyone besides Ad-Tech has a problem with Brave.

You conveniently ignore that most publishers desparately want to see a new model succeed, because Google and Facebook take too much of a share of the publishers. Brave takes less then Google et al., so publishers get more. That's why publishers like the Guardian are already on board.

Brave isn't free of problems, but arguing from a moral perspective isn't legitimate. So where does your hostility come from? Do you work for some big ad-tech company?

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The publishers didn't agree to it. Brave is not allowed to unilaterally dictate terms. If I'm going to steal from publishers, nobody should benefit, especially not some smarmy browser vendor. Similarly, if I'm going to pirate, I'm not going to pay some piracy middleman who makes up some cryptocurrency to send to the content creators. Of Firefox, Chrome, and Brave; Brave is by far the worst browser of the bunch. It's…

But that's essentially was Google is doing: dictating things unilaterally. And that's also how the web was founded. No one agreed to anything. People just started to build. If there isn't a law against it, they are allowed to do it. Everyone who uploads free content on the web without a paywall essentially says "take it and display it however you like". Besides that, Brave is essentially building a sustainable model…

> arguing from a moral perspective isn't legitimate

Not the one you're responding to, but to say his/her reasoning isn't "legitimate" is a bit rich when the GP (me) was about ethics. I'm with you on Google/Fb getting all the ad spent, but I don't think another middleman and wannabe monopoly such as Patreon is going to solve it. I might be in the minority here, but I think its fair publishers get their clicks for their content-based, non-tracking ads; we need to drive tracking, targeting and other third-party crap out of the web under privacy regulations, though, because that's what breaks the feedback of ad spend to publishers/creators (apart from causing the general race-to-the-bottom trend).

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#307

For some reason this was also a breaking point for me. I've switched to Firefox and Duck Duck Go. It's a small thing, but boy do you start to feel like a second rate citizen fast. The state of extensions on Firefox is a mess. I can get the usual privacy extensions easily enough, but things like using media keys to control videos playing in the back ground. Or how in the phone app of Firefox you need to pull up the si…

I feel you about Keep, but it looks like Microsoft's Sticky Notes will soon get an update with syncing and a mobile phone client - https://winbuzzer.com/2018/09/03/microsofts-sticky-notes-3-u... so that's an option.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's essentially was Google is doing: dictating things unilaterally. And that's also how the web was founded. No one agreed to anything. People just started to build. If there isn't a law against it, they are allowed to do it. Everyone who uploads free content on the web without a paywall essentially says "take it and display it however you like". Besides that, Brave is essentially building a sustainable model…

> arguing from a moral perspective isn't legitimate Not the one you're responding to, but to say his/her reasoning isn't "legitimate" is a bit rich when the GP (me) was about ethics. I'm with you on Google/Fb getting all the ad spent, but I don't think another middleman and wannabe monopoly such as Patreon is going to solve it. I might be in the minority here, but I think its fair publishers get their clicks for thei…

"Not the one you're responding to, but to say his/her reasoning isn't "legitimate" is a bit rich when the GP (me) was about ethics."

I agree, I overlooked that.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The publishers didn't agree to it. Brave is not allowed to unilaterally dictate terms. If I'm going to steal from publishers, nobody should benefit, especially not some smarmy browser vendor. Similarly, if I'm going to pirate, I'm not going to pay some piracy middleman who makes up some cryptocurrency to send to the content creators. Of Firefox, Chrome, and Brave; Brave is by far the worst browser of the bunch. It's…

But that's essentially was Google is doing: dictating things unilaterally. And that's also how the web was founded. No one agreed to anything. People just started to build. If there isn't a law against it, they are allowed to do it. Everyone who uploads free content on the web without a paywall essentially says "take it and display it however you like". Besides that, Brave is essentially building a sustainable model…

> But that's essentially was Google is doing: dictating things unilaterally

Nonsense. The publishers agreed to sell their inventory to Google, just as the movie studios agreed to license their content to Netflix or sell it on DVD.

Everything else from your post stems from this fundamental misunderstanding about how publishers monetize their content.

> That's why publishers like the Guardian are already on board.

Then it's ethical for Brave to monetize The Guardian's content. It is not ethical for it to monetize everybody else's. The same with a piracy service. If a piracy service resells content it has an agreement from the owner to resell, that's kosher. It doesn't mean that it also gets to resell everybody else's content.

> Do you work for some big ad-tech company?

No. I'm just not stupid enough to accept Eich's stupid output.

Re: Why I’m Worried About Google

#310

Firefox doesn't highlight find-in-page search results on the scroll bar. Chrome does. Am I the only person who relies on that feature daily for their work?

Doesn't Firefox use the default OS scrollbar? I believe Chrome has their own custom scrollbar, and it allows developers to replace it. For instance, in Trello on Firefox, I see my big native (read: usable) scrollbar on the bottom and in card lists, while in Chrome they're just a thin little line.
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