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Why I Quit Using Google

kylepiira.com

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Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#141

Post by new2628 »

Spearchucker wrote: post #134
new2628 wrote: post #133

I was deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem ... I would upload all of my family photos to Google Photos and all of my personal documents to Google Drive ... I used Google Hangouts ... My home is covered with Google Homes ... I have easily invested thousands of dollars into my Google ... Honest question: why should one take advice from someone showing such a systematic pattern of poor judgement?

Maybe because just a few short years ago Google was the darling of the internet because search and chrome were better than anything else. People believed the do no evil spin. And back then why wouldn't they?

Many of us already saw it differently back then and often had to face ridicule when pointing out concerns with these services.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#142

Post by 2ion »

Who can afford for their main email account (gsuite, paid), cloud hosting (if you use it, maybe even for business), means of payment (gpay), backup and storage (drive) to get banned/locked without meaningful support just because you happen to post a comment on a yt video that some googler or algorithm found offensive/non-pc or you happened to log into your account from the wrong IP address, city or continent?

As soon as I started travelling frequently, gmail/google was not longer an option. You can't rely on it. Can't trust it.

That, on top of everything else is a dealbreaker.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#143

Post by 2ion »

Mistri wrote: post #39

Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended? I literally use it for everything in my life, and without it I would probably lose access to a lot. I would change away from Google in a heartbeat but it just seems like too much effort if I can avoid getting my account suspended in the first place. If anyone has gotten their account suspended, what was it for and how can I avoid it?

> If anyone has gotten their account suspended, what was it for and how can I avoid it?

For logging in from the wrong location (or network?). Most of the times you just get an email about log in attempts. This was for logging in from JP while usually logging in from DE/EU.

How can you avoid it? Using a private VPN I suppose when using Google (avoid cloud IP address blocks though, else you'll get captcha hell).

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#144

Post by simion314 »

revskill wrote: post #139

Main reason is don't seriously use Google or any social network anymore is because of privacy. They never respect my privacy. OK, i still use their services, but just for non-serious work.

It depends, I do not use gmail for personal/private messages just work and login to webpages, I do not use maps or location or assistance on my phone either, but this story still sounds scary because google has many products and a ban on youtube(where they forced people to use google accounts) will lock you out of everything. Part of the solution for this problem would be if you get a ban on Youtube you can still use gmail and the other products. Other part of the solution is to tell people what exactly they did wrong, I sometimes got warnings from Sony that I did something against the TOS and not to do it again but not details what I did (my son plays games on a PS4, I tried to look into the chats he made recently but I could not find anything to explain it so I tried the best I could to explain him to watch his language because he could get locked out the games) and like others said some human support would also help a lot.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#145

Post by toper-centage »

Mistri wrote: post #39

Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended? I literally use it for everything in my life, and without it I would probably lose access to a lot. I would change away from Google in a heartbeat but it just seems like too much effort if I can avoid getting my account suspended in the first place. If anyone has gotten their account suspended, what was it for and how can I avoid it?

You can get suspended if you make an inappropriate comment on YouTube 8 years ago and it only gets flagged today. Also if someone from your IP does something that flags their account, you can get affected too. The main point is that Google never tells you exactly why you're being suspended because they don't want people figuring out the reasons and working around them.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#146

Post by cameronbrown »

xwowsersx wrote: post #101
boring_twenties wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buy an external hard drive or SSD, download the photos to it, put it in a safe place away from your other computer stuff.

That's viable for sure, but one thing I'd like is regular backups of the photos from my phone (where most I take most of my photos). That's the nice thing about Google Photos with Google One - all my stuff is backed up to the cloud regularly. I understand, though, that this comes with some risk.

That's why I use Google Photos/Drive as source of truth and keep regular, offline backups based on that.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#147

Post by monktastic1 »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #9
abhisuri97 wrote: post #5

Wouldn't it be best for google to allow you to download a takeout of all your files in the case that your account is suspended?

They do, and the service is called, drum roll, Google Takeout. https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

You're sure it works on suspended accounts?

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#148

Post by xwowsersx »

mceachen wrote: post #105
xwowsersx wrote: post #102

For those who don't know (I didn't), you can create and download archives of any of your data on Google by visiting https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout

Just an FYI: if your Takeout archive fails with errors, try creating multiple archives, with only one large service selected per archive. My photos archive didn't even work that way, I had to create albums and back then up one by one. But it did eventually work.

Thanks for the advice

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#149

Post by Brian_K_White »

Mistri wrote: post #126
Havoc wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Has anyone else had experience with getting their Google account suspended? No but this is why I opted for own domain + paid g-suite. Just so that I can take my toys elsewhere if needed

Are you immune to the TOS if you're paying for G Suite?

"so I can take my toys elsewhere"

You are immune in the sense that G can only kill the services and hosting, and your access to G's copy of any content.

But the domain is still yours and your email is not @gmail even if it's hosted on gmail servers. So when G kills your account, it's only the hosting. You can switch your domain to any other hosting povider including self hosting, and all your old urls and email addresses resume working.

It would still be up to you to maintain your own off-G backups of any content. Saved emails, website, gdrive, docs, photos. When the account dies you may lose access to G's copy of everything, so ensure all they ever have is a copy.

Also probably don't use G for domain registrar. Even using them for dns host is ok, just not actual registrar.

Might make for a crappy day if you have to do all that switching, but you can, and that is enough to provide the safety net against the small chance that you will ever need to.

But if your email is actually @gmail, and that is say the "prove you own this account at life-savings-robo-advisor" email, then you are truly boned, and small risk is infinitely too-large risk.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#150

Post by xorand »

xorand wrote: post #121
xenator wrote: post #7

I love that other companies have sustainable alternatives to Google services. But these articles looks more like hype train and doesn’t really add any new value for me. You are not building something new switching from one big corp to another small company that want to become another big company next day. Probably I’m getting old but I remember times when Google doesn’t exists. We had software for files, messages, ca…

> There is life outside of Google, and always was. I had a collection of animations related to lambda calculus and alife on g+. Well, now is back online and moreover it is better, because I can add the option to remake these animations live, with js. http://imar.ro/~mbuliga/collection.html

Looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/S0kG880
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