31–40 of 182 posts
Is the goal to stop being watched or not having your info being sold as a product to others? The title seems to imply the second while talking about the first?!
This reminds me of people trying to cut out plastics from there life. This is hard because plastic is cheap, convinient, useful and it's embedded in every product in modern life.... Just like Google
I don't see the problem. There's still privacy benefits to be had by cutting Google out of your life 90% of the time, or even 75% or 50% of the time. I've largely cut out Google, but still occassionally use YouTube, Maps (usually through a 3rd party), and very rarely search. For me, StreetView and the huge library on YouTube are just too useful to completely give up, and, unfortunately, I don't know of any alternativ…
there are obvious downsides to plastics, google and TV. that excising it completely is extremely difficult if not impossible in the modern world does not diminish the positive effects of reducing consumption.
I am going down this road atm. I just signed up for fastmail, but I don't see it on this list, does anyone have any comparisons with the others listed? My main concern was being able to use my own domain.
I am going down this road atm. I just signed up for fastmail, but I don't see it on this list, does anyone have any comparisons with the others listed? My main concern was being able to use my own domain.
I've stopped using every Google product but Google search, and unfortunately Google Captcha, which I absolutely abhor. I downloaded Google Photos a few days ago to try and export some old photos and it refuses to let you view your old photos until you have give access to your current photos. That really typifies my experience with Google.
Also there is no easy way to export all your photos. I learned this the hard way when I decided to move my photos to iCloud. There used to be an option in Drive to link your Google Photos albums and download them, but they removed it. You can request your data from Google and then download a large ZIP, but I had numerous issues with it and it broke the Live photos from iPhone. In the end I had to manually select ~100…
Seems that using Google takeout is your best bet.
I almost successfully cut Google out with one exception, YouTube, I don't seem to be able to find what I get there anywhere else. Fun anecdote: Google is very smart, because I've been a paying customer of YouTube for a long time they gave me a Google Nest Mini for Christmas free of charge. And it fills another niche which I can't really find a meaningful alternative for: Speech to text hardware/software which can be…
Looked at the site. Not sure I understand what flagging the services as 5-eyes, etc. is supposed to mean. Perhaps - sponsored by 5-eyes (that seems to miss the point) - prevents spying by 5-eyes? This seems strange also. Clarifications welcomed.
I'm not sure I buy this argument though. We've seen companies just not hold onto data, be served, and release "sorry we got nothing". AFAIK you don't have to create backdoors for the NSA. Canaries are legal. You don't have to store data. So listing if a service is from a -eyes country misses the point really. Point being if the service is secure and follows best practices or not. Something isn't secure because it is located in Switzerland.
Or am I missing something?
This reminds me of people trying to cut out plastics from there life. This is hard because plastic is cheap, convinient, useful and it's embedded in every product in modern life.... Just like Google
Also would the advertising industry then be like oil/petrochemical complex?
I'm surprised to see that Fastmail is not listed as a Gmail alternative. I've tried it, Protonmail, and Zoho as replacements. IMO, Fastmail has the simplest interface and best suite of tools. I had trouble setting up an alias with Protonmail. Fastmail provides very clear instructions for this right on the app. Zoho was cool in that it lets you use a custom alias for free, but it just felt too cluttered. I also rememb…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21680293
Interestingly, u/protonmail's contributions is littered with comments trying to defend ProtonVPN against such allegations here on HN. I guess, user paranoia is the bane of privacy-as-a-service upstarts.
Re: Zoho:
As a Zoho user myself, I must point out that though India isn't 5 eyes or 9 eyes, it has some of the most restrictive laws in terms of Internet freedom and is a surveillance state.
Everything else is blocked with pihole/uMatrix/pf. Been this way for about six months now. Occasionally I still youtube-dl from a server and scp the file locally.