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Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

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Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#141

Post by dodobirdlord »

jeena wrote: post #16

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…

> And then they can listen to everything I'm doing, which is not cool

If this is a concern to you I encourage you to read about hardware-implemented wake words to get a better understanding of how is that the microphone is only recording when you trigger the device. This has alleviated the concerns of a number of people I've spoken to about this. If you concern is about accidentally triggering the wake word and being recorded when you did not intend to be, can't help much with that, but it seems like something of a niche concern.

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#142

Post by opportune »

steelframe wrote: post #51
mikedilger wrote: post #40

ReCaptcha is about the only google product that I still have to use... some 15% of websites I use eventually make me reCaptcha. 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.

You don't have to use ReCaptcha. You just elect to do your business in another way or with another company. For example, I was a lifelong member of a regional bicycling club until they started trying to force me to solve ReCaptchas whenever I'd need to log in to their web site, and they stopped accepting membership dues and event registration fees by a check in the mail. That was easy enough: I stopped giving them mo…

Personally every time someone asks me to pay them with money I roll my eyes and slap down some silver coins. I got in a big fight with the bus driver the other day because fluctuations in the price of silver made the same amount of silver no longer cover the fare

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#143

Post by doctor_eval »

sneak wrote: post #138
doctor_eval wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Siri can control your smart home and doesn’t phone home (any more). You can hook it up with a raspberry pi to control just about anything, including generic zigbee devices.

Siri absolutely phones home, on every single command.

Yes - sorry you are technically correct (the best kind of correct!), but you can fully opt out of having your spoken commands recorded and reviewed. That was the point I was making.

I don’t know if that’s possible with the other players. None of them have showered themselves in glory but Apple’s track record has been generally positive.

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#144

Post by kerkeslager »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #141
jeena wrote: post #16

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…

> And then they can listen to everything I'm doing, which is not cool If this is a concern to you I encourage you to read about hardware-implemented wake words to get a better understanding of how is that the microphone is only recording when you trigger the device. This has alleviated the concerns of a number of people I've spoken to about this. If you concern is about accidentally triggering the wake word and being…

If this alleviates your concerns, I have a bridge to sell you.

If you trust Google to only activate recording when you say a wake word, why not just send a stream of your audio data and trust them to delete it? If you're trusting amoral corporations whose entire business is selling your data with access to a bug in your house, just go the whole way.

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#145

Post by jeena »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #141
jeena wrote: post #16

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…

> And then they can listen to everything I'm doing, which is not cool If this is a concern to you I encourage you to read about hardware-implemented wake words to get a better understanding of how is that the microphone is only recording when you trigger the device. This has alleviated the concerns of a number of people I've spoken to about this. If you concern is about accidentally triggering the wake word and being…

But there are 3rd party apps which can change the wake word so I'd assume it's implemented in software on the Google Home/Nest mini.

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#146

Post by prince707 »

It's surprising to see LineageOS listed in the repository. It relies on several Google services, even if you are not using Google Play services, and doesn't even include microG.

For instance it is using: - google servers for connectivity check - google server for ipV4/ipV6 check - google NTP servers - google DNS servers - google search engine by default and all the default apps like calendar etc. are fully oriented against google services.

I think LineageOS should definitely be considered from removal, though it's a nice project and a great playground for ROM hackers.

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#147

Post by megaraid999 »

prince707 wrote: post #146

It's surprising to see LineageOS listed in the repository. It relies on several Google services, even if you are not using Google Play services, and doesn't even include microG. For instance it is using: - google servers for connectivity check - google server for ipV4/ipV6 check - google NTP servers - google DNS servers - google search engine by default and all the default apps like calendar etc. are fully oriented a…

Couldn't agree more...

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#148

Post by Youden »

elagost wrote: post #43
dempedempe wrote: post #29

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…

Fastmail is great, but as this list is supposed to be "privacy focused", Fastmail (company from Australia) is not a good alternative. https://www.wired.com/story/australia-encryption-law-global-...

Reporting on Australia's encryption laws is wildly inaccurate. For one, it does not allow authorities to compel companies or individuals to introduce an encryption backdoor or otherwise weaken encryption. The law very explicitly addresses this issue in section 317ZG, which forbids any kind of "systematic weakness" or "systematic vulnerability" and very explicitly states that weakening encryption is included in those definitions.

What's permitted is to build something that targets a particular person in such a way that it cannot possibly affect another person's security.

The example I use (though IANAL) is that a request to backdoor WhatsApp's encryption would not be permitted under the law. However I think that pushing an update that checks for a particular person's hard-coded phone number and forwards messages to law enforcement would be permitted.

The law in question: http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997214...

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#149

Post by goatinaboat »

dehrmann wrote: post #25
burgerzzz wrote: post #6

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.

> Google Captcha This one's scary from an infrastructure perspective. Way too many websites depend on Recaptcha, and an outage would be somewhat painful. There aren't tons of competitors, so with Google's penchant for killing services, it puts things at risk.

There aren't tons of competitors, so with Google's penchant for killing services, it puts things at risk.

The real purpose of it is to get free human labour classifying images their ML can’t handle. Why are there so many asking you to find squares with cars, or pedestrian crossings do you think?

Re: Cutting Google out of your life (2019)

#150

Post by kureikain »

I used Youtube Red for video without ads and google one membership which give me 1TB for evertyhing: photos, docs, drive for up to 5 people.

I'm very happy with it. But I read so many stories about people getting banned by google. Recently someone got ban because they used Apple Card. I'm a bit worry about getting block by google photos as well.

Anyone know something that cheap as google photo? Basically it gives everyone in family 1TB

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