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Why I Quit Using Google

kylepiira.com

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Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#161

Post by Havoc »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #149
Mistri wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 addre…

Exactly that. Thanks for writing that up.

...one big gotcha is gdrive, docs and GCP. Haven't worked out what to do about those yet, but priority is being able to salvage the email addr since everything is linked to it

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#162

Post by thebruce87m »

judge2020 wrote: post #77
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?

The ones I know of are: - saying you're under 13 on YouTube (probably elsewhere as well) - TOS violations that malware performed using your account (eg. using your google session to share malware using drive) - Using drive to share or store copyrighted content - spam, eg via gmail

Storing copyrighted material on drive? Seriously?

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#163

Post by dredmorbius »

rapnie wrote: post #130
dredmorbius wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several times, several different accounts. Fortunately Google is (or more accurately, was) simply a convenience for me. I have not yet fully deactivated the several Gmail accounts I have still standing, though those are largely inactive, and most are strictly associated with specific nyms I'd created (one notably after a primary nym account was suspended). The best way to avoid having your Google account be suspended…

I like to self-host too, and there is a huge amount of awesome selfhosted [0] software to be had. Only problem is, you have to be willing to become a moderately good sysadmin and spend your time doing the chores to keep your systems up-to-date. This takes considerable amount of time. Dropping the ball once, and you may find yourself hacked (I had this recently when being slow in updating a nginx reverse proxy). [0] h…

Self-hosting applies more to data. If I've got the bits, I can deploy them (or channel them) elsewhere. If I don't, I'm SOL.

Self-hosted services -- Web, Mail, messaging, etc., -- remains more complicated. I really wish it weren't, I've been watching projects for a decade and more now to make it less so. I'm thinking that this won't happen.

Simply based on skills distribution, some sort of federation or clustering at the level of 1 admin per 100 - 100k users is probably necessary. That's a scope at which regional or interest-based community hosting becomes viable. At the same time, it means thousands to millions of individual service providers, a scope at which at least some mechansisms of mass surveillance (state, capitalist, non-state actor, criminal) become less viable.

Concentration is its own risk.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#164

Post by Kye »

snisarenko wrote: post #68
nolroz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried getting into Mastadon a while back but didn't manage to find decent instances to subscribe to. There's just so many! Any advice on where to get started?

Hey, I am working on a mastodon aggregator, which can help with exploring instances and figuring out which one to join. It should be launching soon! https://mastodonia.club

I hope you get consent from people and instances before aggregating any data like posts and profiles. This kind of thing is very unpopular on the fediverse if done the wrong way. Meaning without permission.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#165

Post by mceachen »

rapnie wrote: post #131
mceachen wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Resilio Sync, and have tried SyncThing. Both work. They both have an app you run in your phone, and a companion app you run on macOS, Windows, Linux, or your NAS, and it syncs (even through a NAT) whatever you've configured to backup on your phone to N servers. If you're away from home, you can run it on your laptop next to you, so your phone is backed up quickly, and then throughout the day you laptop can sync…

What made you move away from Syncthing? I plan to sync my relevant Android dirs (downloads, Markor, photos, etc.) to my laptop and archive.

In my setup it was slower and more resource intensive. SyncThing is open source, though.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#166

Post by tekknik »

How does one leave the large corps for things like movies and tv shows? I used google for the longest time and recently switched to apple but i’d love to self host and buy drm free media. i’m guessing people doing this are using p2p or something?

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#167

Post by dkersten »

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…

> May be for “millenials” you need to be brave to leave this circle

According to the Wikipedia definition of millennial, a large chunk of millennials also likely remember a time before Google.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#168

Post by dkersten »

creato wrote: post #81
ravenstine wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make matters worse, Google isn't known for their good customer service.

This is often repeated, and I believe it... but on the other hand, I've been using google services pretty heavily for over a decade, including some paid services, and I've never wanted customer service from google over all that time. Precisely the thing I like about google services is that their shit works and I don't need help from them to use it. I suppose there's a risk of account suspension as mentioned above, bu…

Most people also don’t ever need customer service from PayPal, or any company really. The point is that when you do, you’re screwed. That’s not a worthwhile risk for important services like email. For other things perhaps it is.

And everybody thinks it won’t happen to them. Every time there is a PayPal horror story there are comments from people whose business relies on them saying that they don’t believe the risk is high and that it won’t happen to them.

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#169

Post by dkersten »

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?

Switching away from gmail was something I put off for years for the same reason as you but was ultimately painless and easy. Start off by forwarding your gmail to your new address and moving incrementally. Start by only replying from your new email and only giving out your new email. Then start switching automated emails (newsletters, mailing lists etc) over as you receive a forwarded email.

I still have a google account but I don’t use it. Haven’t logged into google docs and such in years and while I still get the occasional gmail mail forwarded it’s typically spam (usually people who got my gmail address mistaken for mine).

Re: Why I Quit Using Google

#170

Post by fluffything »

dkersten wrote: post #168
creato wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is often repeated, and I believe it... but on the other hand, I've been using google services pretty heavily for over a decade, including some paid services, and I've never wanted customer service from google over all that time. Precisely the thing I like about google services is that their shit works and I don't need help from them to use it. I suppose there's a risk of account suspension as mentioned above, bu…

Most people also don’t ever need customer service from PayPal, or any company really. The point is that when you do, you’re screwed. That’s not a worthwhile risk for important services like email. For other things perhaps it is. And everybody thinks it won’t happen to them. Every time there is a PayPal horror story there are comments from people whose business relies on them saying that they don’t believe the risk is…

I needed PayPal customer service once cause I got scammed for thousands of dollars.

Customer support was excellent, professional and quick. I got all my money back in 3-4 days.

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