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Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

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Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#21

Post by swtrs »

britch wrote: post #19
h4waii wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's any help, NewPipe [0] is a FOSS YouTube client for Android which doesn't require an account, doesn't require Google Play Services, and doesn't (!) display ads. Yes, it has subscription support and you can import/export that list to keep it backed up. It also has a TON of features, like PiP, background play (for video and audio), downloading, and much, much more. Ivory [1] might be the closest iOS equivalent,…

I love NewPipe, it works fantastically. I am nervous that Google will find a way to kill it if it gets big enough. It's not exactly an alternative to YouTube, it's more of a band-aid.

Due to YT constantly changing video decryption functionality, ~4-5 times a year it breaks for multiple days. I fully expect it to be suddenly broken in a year or two.

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#22

Post by diggan »

matty22 wrote: post #16

I've been looking for an alternative to Google Docs/Sheets/Slides/etc for a while and I've seen these couple of suggestions come up a few times. Each time I look at them, I find their websites to be incomprehensible to what their product actually _is_. The worst of them is Coda. Looking at their landing page, I have NO idea what Coda is or does. None of the other alternatives seem to do what I want easily. I want to…

I never heard of Coda before so went to their landing page (https://coda.io) to see if it could really be as bad as you say it is.

The copy on the website is generally marketing heavy with things like "Coda is a new doc that grows with your ideas" but things like "Coda is a new canvas that blends tables and text together" makes sense to me, imagining that it's like a document that also have tables, that you can do computations on (so like Excel). The example videos/GIFs seems to show the functionality and when I reached the end, I feel like at least have a slight idea what it's about.

Wouldn't be enough to compare it with other services, but I definitely have "some idea" of what Coda is.

Am I alone in understanding this from looking at the website, without any prior experience?

I do know some other examples that could fit into the "Classic startup landing page design where they forget to explain what their product is to potential users/clients" ending of your comment, but I don't think Coda missed the mark on explaining what they do.

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#23

Post by oil25 »

How are these alternatives "privacy-friendly"? I'm pretty sure Opera, Vimeo and many others are monetized and include advertising. Also, why does something like Google Authenticator need a "privacy-friendly" alternative when it doesn't even need Internet connectivity to work? Don't get me wrong, we should put down Google products, but are the ones listed here really any better for privacy and security?

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#24

Post by q3k »

LinuxBender wrote: post #14
mont wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mumble is pretty crummy for text chat from my experience. I still use it for voice on a fairly frequent basis, but having very ephemeral text logs (on client restart), and a lack of pinging users makes it a huge pain to use for text. I would happily still use IRC however.

Yeah, I prefer IRC too. I ended up shutting down all my IRC servers. Most folks moved to Discord/Slack and it just wasn't worth the effort to maintain them for my use case. I only suggest murmur / mumble because they are super east to set up.

Have you tried Synapse/Matrix?

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#25

Post by elcomet »

diggan wrote: post #22
matty22 wrote: post #16

I've been looking for an alternative to Google Docs/Sheets/Slides/etc for a while and I've seen these couple of suggestions come up a few times. Each time I look at them, I find their websites to be incomprehensible to what their product actually _is_. The worst of them is Coda. Looking at their landing page, I have NO idea what Coda is or does. None of the other alternatives seem to do what I want easily. I want to…

I never heard of Coda before so went to their landing page ( https://coda.io ) to see if it could really be as bad as you say it is. The copy on the website is generally marketing heavy with things like "Coda is a new doc that grows with your ideas" but things like "Coda is a new canvas that blends tables and text together" makes sense to me, imagining that it's like a document that also have tables, that you can do…

Hello Coda PR

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#26

Post by matty22 »

diggan wrote: post #22
matty22 wrote: post #16

I've been looking for an alternative to Google Docs/Sheets/Slides/etc for a while and I've seen these couple of suggestions come up a few times. Each time I look at them, I find their websites to be incomprehensible to what their product actually _is_. The worst of them is Coda. Looking at their landing page, I have NO idea what Coda is or does. None of the other alternatives seem to do what I want easily. I want to…

I never heard of Coda before so went to their landing page ( https://coda.io ) to see if it could really be as bad as you say it is. The copy on the website is generally marketing heavy with things like "Coda is a new doc that grows with your ideas" but things like "Coda is a new canvas that blends tables and text together" makes sense to me, imagining that it's like a document that also have tables, that you can do…

> I feel like at least have a slight idea what it's about.

But is a slight idea enough to make a purchase decision? I deduced that it's some sort of application that combines a table and text. But that could look and function 100 different ways. There's 4 or 5 animated gifs all doing something completely different, and none of those is typing text into something that looks like a spreadsheet. So I'm left wondering, does it have a spreadsheet capability? Without digging further or watching product tour videos, I have no idea.

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#27

Post by LinuxBender »

q3k wrote: post #24
LinuxBender wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I prefer IRC too. I ended up shutting down all my IRC servers. Most folks moved to Discord/Slack and it just wasn't worth the effort to maintain them for my use case. I only suggest murmur / mumble because they are super east to set up.

Have you tried Synapse/Matrix?

A coworker suggested matrix, but I have been fine with murmur/mumble for my use cases. If a lot of people needed text chat, I would crank up the ol' IRC daemons and put TheLounge in front of it.

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#28

Post by diggan »

matty22 wrote: post #26
diggan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never heard of Coda before so went to their landing page ( https://coda.io ) to see if it could really be as bad as you say it is. The copy on the website is generally marketing heavy with things like "Coda is a new doc that grows with your ideas" but things like "Coda is a new canvas that blends tables and text together" makes sense to me, imagining that it's like a document that also have tables, that you can do…

> I feel like at least have a slight idea what it's about. But is a slight idea enough to make a purchase decision? I deduced that it's some sort of application that combines a table and text. But that could look and function 100 different ways. There's 4 or 5 animated gifs all doing something completely different, and none of those is typing text into something that looks like a spreadsheet. So I'm left wondering, d…

As I said: "Wouldn't be enough to compare it with other services"

I was mainly replying to the "I have NO idea what Coda is or does".

> does it have a spreadsheet capability?

The first GIF (https://cdn.coda.io/assets/21b38f7b35ac/img/welcome/doc/tabl...) shows a spreadsheet, as far as I understand that tiny demo.

I agree with you that it could be better, but so many other startups do a lot worse that looking down on someone that is not perfect, hurts the cause of "fixing shitty landing pages" rather than helps.

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#29

Post by matty22 »

diggan wrote: post #28
matty22 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like at least have a slight idea what it's about. But is a slight idea enough to make a purchase decision? I deduced that it's some sort of application that combines a table and text. But that could look and function 100 different ways. There's 4 or 5 animated gifs all doing something completely different, and none of those is typing text into something that looks like a spreadsheet. So I'm left wondering, d…

As I said: "Wouldn't be enough to compare it with other services" I was mainly replying to the "I have NO idea what Coda is or does". > does it have a spreadsheet capability? The first GIF ( https://cdn.coda.io/assets/21b38f7b35ac/img/welcome/doc/tabl... ) shows a spreadsheet, as far as I understand that tiny demo. I agree with you that it could be better, but so many other startups do a lot worse that looking down o…

That first gif is a todo list, which is NOT a spreadsheet.

> I agree with you that it could be better, but so many other startups do a lot worse that looking down on someone that is not perfect, hurts the cause of "fixing shitty landing pages" rather than helps.

So you agree that it sucks, but it isn't the worst landing page, so it gets a pass? I'm not on some crusade to fix shitty landing pages. I'm actively looking for a replacement for an application I use in my day-to-day life. The onus is on Coda to explain to me clearly and in 3s if their application meets those needs. I'm simply pointing out that their landing page has failed to do that FOR ME.

Re: Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google

#30

Post by amarshall »

kryogen1c wrote: post #11
mikedd wrote: post #6

I love how this always pops-up and how I always reply with these 2 links: - https://prism-break.org/ - https://droid-break.info/

OpenDNS is on prismbreaks avoid list! Why is that? I use opendns enterprise at work and free at home.

Likely because they’re now owned by Cisco and their privacy policy is now just Cisco’s generic policy, so it’s not clear how much they log.
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