Moving from Google cloud to Apple cloud, from Google messenger to Facebook messenger... What's the point honestly?
Virtue signaling.
De-Googling: My Progress
161–170 of 348 posts
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#162> I probably just lost 99% of you
Yeah, moving from Google over to Apple is just cheating. It's better for privacy, but I'd rather thinker with my system to remove the spyware than remove the spyware and largely give up the ability to easily tinker with my system.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#163Moving from Google cloud to Apple cloud, from Google messenger to Facebook messenger... What's the point honestly?
There is no point since iCloud runs on Google Cloud infrastructure.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#164> I probably just lost 99% of you Yeah, moving from Google over to Apple is just cheating. It's better for privacy, but I'd rather thinker with my system to remove the spyware than remove the spyware and largely give up the ability to easily tinker with my system.
I don’t know. I’m a tinkerer but if we think about phone ecosystem, then I just want my phone to work and not spy on me. I’ll tinker with my other devices, but after bricking one phone, I won’t do it again.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#165They do have lineage OS now. Not that buggy. Have been using it in my Samsung S5 for a while now.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#166I posted a similar post on my own blog yesterday( https://sharitt.com/2020/04/28/practicality-vs-purity.html ) Oddly one of the few things I actually kept is Google search itself after noticed that I basically add !g to every DDG search, and I've tried to firewall it off as much as I can.
Having used DDG for several years now as the default on all my devices, i can say that since December the results are completely useless. Not sure what happened. I had never to use "!g" before. Now it is required for 1/3 of my regular searches, and "!ig" for 100% of the image "!i" searches.
> "!ig" for 100% of the image "!i" searches
I replaced 90% of my images searches with Bing Images. I like the UI better and the results are almost as good. Since I use DDG for ~80% of regular searches and Google for the remainder, not giving one party all information seems like it should somewhat level the playing field.
Also, I was going to type that a small percentage of my image searches still go to Google for their license selection feature, but I figured I should double check, and whaddayaknow? Bing can do license filtering too. Not sure how good it'll be, but I'll definitely be trying this.
Note that instead of typing !something (which I find quite annoying), you can just bind your browser to a keyword. I type "bi test" in my address bar for Bing Images "test" search, instead of having to type a bang and some by-ddg-defined shortcut and giving DDG the data (not that I distrust them, but need-to-know...). Wiki searching is also super convenient like this: wi for wikipedia, dwi for deutsch wikipedia, owi for openstreetmap wiki, etc. Right click in the search field and choose 'Add keyword for this search' usually does the trick.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#167What are you using instead of Google maps?
I'm using Here Maps[1] since 2013, both on PC and mobile.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't you guys use an ad blocker? I barely see any ads since I started using uBlock. Occasionally I browse without an ad blocker and the experience is horrible and intimidating. Actually ads and propaganda were the reasons I quit TV around 10 years ago and I have never regretted it. So much time and mental energy is freed up to do constructive and fulfilling things (e.g. reading books, sports, socializing, musing etc…
Threw away TV 15 years ago, zero regret.
I got rid of cable tv. Was spending $80 a month ($960/year) for something that’s mostly previously taped.
Best decision ever!
The problem, is that during a pandemic or crisis, you sorta miss the cable news. Local TV broadcasts are not as sufficient, but at least I can get some good digital signal coverage for a few channels.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#169> I probably just lost 99% of you Yeah, moving from Google over to Apple is just cheating. It's better for privacy, but I'd rather thinker with my system to remove the spyware than remove the spyware and largely give up the ability to easily tinker with my system.
I don’t know. I’m a tinkerer but if we think about phone ecosystem, then I just want my phone to work and not spy on me. I’ll tinker with my other devices, but after bricking one phone, I won’t do it again.
The tinkering doesn't have to be invasive or risky. I share your worry and am rather scared of breaking anything because of the amount of work I put into the configuration. My solution is to root very early on, just after testing everything and making sure I don't want to make sure of my 14 day return right, so if something goes wrong there I don't lose data. After that, I use root for all sorts of things, but after configuring everything I don't do invasive things like installing different ROMs or removing system apps or so.
Re: De-Googling: My Progress
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Been avoiding internet ads and tracking for 15 years now. I feel like the unibomber. Facebook and google probably still have a good fingerprint on me, though, due to iOS not letting you use good ad blockers. Something uncanny happened recently in terms of the ads I do see that gave me quite a bit of paranoia. My SO recently bought a distinct pair of leggings. How am I seeing ads for that same exact pair of leggings,…
Unabomber not Unibomber, not that it matters. Ted Kaczynski, the man you are referring to is a fascinating man, try to ignore all of the recent hype and delusion following that Netflix series. I encourage everyone to read his book "Industrial Society and Its Future", he is without a doubt a luddite but presents some very compelling reasons in the book, if nothing else it will give you some insight into a rather notor…
Terrorism is always wrong and always hurts the causes it attempts to advance. Thus, even when committed for a good cause it's counterproductive.
If Kaczynski had good ideas, he did them a terrible disservice by resorting to terrorism.