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De-Googling: My Progress

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Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#241

Post by SquareWheel »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #221
lowdose wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never read Google discriminates between paying customers before. That's such a wild accusation that it requires serious evidence. Edit: I can reply anymore but just supply a link of data handling discrimination between paying customers because that's what you imply by "there is not difference between GSuite customers and normal gmail". It's bullshit https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303

You're correct in that Google doesn't discriminate between paying and non-paying customers: It happily abuses the privacy of it's paying customers too. Many of Google's uses of data are not specific to whether or not someone is using G Suite or consumer Gmail as far as I am aware.

You are not aware, because GSuite has completely different data use policies.

https://gsuite.google.com/learn-more/security/security-white...

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#242

Post by CameronNemo »

bananaoomarang wrote: post #211
yachtman wrote: post #181

Firefox is now objectively better than Chrome in every way. I would recommend switching moral reasons aside. Chrome's memory management is abysmal. I now get the same shudder when I see someone with chrome on their machine that I used to get when I saw someone running Internet Explorer (which may even be better than chrome now too).

I wish this were true but certainly on Linux I don't find this to be the case. I periodically try switching to Firefox and always end up back on Chrome for performance reasons. Features wise I prefer Firefox (containers are amazing, extra privacy features/blockers by default nice, the new picture in picture for video is nice, dev tools have a lot of cool extra features etc), but Firefox often struggles and stutters f…

Have you tried toying with the hardware acceleration knobs in about:config? Those issues indeed sound gpu related.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#243

Post by newscracker »

pojntfx wrote: post #129
catchmilk wrote: post #37

I really tried giving DDG a chance but I always found myself having to go back to Google to find the right information. This would especially pertain to technical matters. The 'average-joe-browsing' (e.g. amazon, movies, songs etc.) worked fine, but when it came down to research papers or solving software problems, I was too often left disappointed. A couple of weeks back I switched to Qwant[1]. Privacy focused, tech…

Just prepend `!g` if you use DuckDuckGo and want to have a Google result. It's super simple ;)

You can put the bang commands anywhere in the query — in the beginning, in the end and anywhere in the middle. Startpage (!s) is another option to get results from Google without directly connecting to Google.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#245

Post by vinay427 »

newscracker wrote: post #238
b3n wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I opt for Signal now, hardly anyone uses it and the UX isn’t as nice, but it uses state of art in encryption. Out of curiosity, what don't you like about the UX? And doesn't it use the same "state of the art" encryption as WhatsApp?

> Out of curiosity, what don't you like about the UX? Not GP, but I’ve railed against Signal’s stability and UX before. Apart from messages not being delivered sometimes (or taking very long) and getting unnecessary “device changed” messages when nothing has changed (this happened as recent as last year), within a year or two of use, Signal makes sure that the user realizes that it’s meant for ephemeral use. It does…

EDIT: As someone pointed out in a reply, iOS would in fact support this file functionality, so it would presumably be up to Signal to add it.

> at least in iOS, you’d realize that you’ve permanently lost all your previous chats because Signal explicitly prohibits chat backup by iTunes and does not provide a way to backup chats and restore it either.

This seems like an iOS limitation that Signal doesn't want to compromise on. On Android it outputs an encrypted backup file that you can use a file manager to upload or send wherever you want.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#246

Post by andrepew »

phinnaeus wrote: post #20

I started a similar journey a couple of years ago. Honestly the biggest challenge was getting people to use my new email address instead of my Gmail. I made mostly the same choices, but swapped in: * Email/Calendar/Contacts: Fastmail * Docs: I don't use a hosted solution for this * Messaging: iMessage/Signal/Discord * Music: local music library While I lived in Seattle I was using Apple Maps, but since moving to Sydn…

Try looking at a VoIP service like voip.ms for parking and forwarding numbers. I think I pay less than a dollar a month to maintain and forward each one of my phone numbers. Flowroute is another provider to look at as well. I’ve used both for years and don’t have much to complain about.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#247

Post by cyrialize »

philjohn wrote: post #179
cyrialize wrote: post #139

I have mostly de-googled myself. For search I mainly rely on DuckDuckGo, but as many people have pointed out sometimes DuckDuckGo doesn't cut it. When that happens I either use Google or Startpage. I usually use Google when I want information about a business near me. I haven't tested this thoroughly but I think Google does a better job of getting and presenting phone numbers, accurate store hours, etc. For email I'm…

If you're looking for offsite backup (which seems to be the main use case of your use of Google Photos and now iCloud) then Backblaze if you're on Mac or Windows, or Backblaze B2 if you're on Linux is very affordable.

My co-worker is a big fan of Backblaze, I'll check it out!

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#248

Post by cyrialize »

close04 wrote: post #175
Jenz wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When DuckDuckGo doesn’t cut it, which IME is not often, then Google is always easily available with !g query

My biggest gripe with DDG is that if I search for a business, even when using the exact name, it will almost surely come back with a couple Yelp results (which is like getting a link to a 2005 MySpace page) followed by a dozen Facebook profiles that vaguely resemble the name of the business I was searching for. This being said DDG was able to take over 99.99% of my searching needs for some time now. And when I have s…

> My biggest gripe with DDG is that if I search for a business, even when using the exact name, it will almost surely come back with a couple Yelp results (which is like getting a link to a 2005 MySpace page) followed by a dozen Facebook profiles that vaguely resemble the name of the business I was searching for.

I've had this same experience. Looking up businesses is pretty much the only time I use Google.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#249

Post by newscracker »

lucb1e wrote: post #171
codethief wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you use Telegram if you're concerned about privacy?

I wonder the same. The reason I use Telegram is because it's the only thing I can convince a significant enough number of friends and family to move over to because of the superior user experience and non-Facebook, not because it's the most privacy-friendly solution out there. If I could choose a platform, it would probably be Wire, but the UX is pretty bad and I don't see my mom using that.

I thought Wire seems to suffer from the “Electron curse” (of being sluggish) on desktop. Then I realized that the app is slow on all platforms, including mobile. Any chat that has more than a few images brings the client to a crawl when scrolling. The company behind Wire also focuses on paying users (the solution targeted for teams and companies). So getting support is close to futile.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#250

Post by Drdrdrq »

bananaoomarang wrote: post #211
yachtman wrote: post #181

Firefox is now objectively better than Chrome in every way. I would recommend switching moral reasons aside. Chrome's memory management is abysmal. I now get the same shudder when I see someone with chrome on their machine that I used to get when I saw someone running Internet Explorer (which may even be better than chrome now too).

I wish this were true but certainly on Linux I don't find this to be the case. I periodically try switching to Firefox and always end up back on Chrome for performance reasons. Features wise I prefer Firefox (containers are amazing, extra privacy features/blockers by default nice, the new picture in picture for video is nice, dev tools have a lot of cool extra features etc), but Firefox often struggles and stutters f…

My experience is exactly the opposite. When forced to use Chromium on Linux, I find it slow. The dev tools are lacking basic functionality that I came to depend on, and they are unreliable (missing requests in Network tab). When testing CSP protections about a year ago, Chromium allowed many of the requests that should have been blocked (and were, in Firefox).

I think it comes down to what one is used to. We probably learn to sidestep problems with any browser we use, but using a different browser inevitably leads to frustration.

Of course, this is not true if you are using Google services. Google seems to put an extra effort in making sure that their pages are as slow as possible in Firefox... I don't care much myself as I don't use them, but it's a good reminder of how (non)non-evil they have become.

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