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De-Googling: My Progress

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Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#311

Post by karinakarina »

dredmorbius wrote: post #158
prodave wrote: post #52

Do de-googlers consider Startpage to be acceptable? The results are from google but they claim that your privacy is protected.

Pretty questionable. A listing of search alternatives, including Qwant (French-based, so EU/GDPR), SwissCows, SearX, and others, with good rationales: https://restoreprivacy.com/private-search-engine/

Hi - Startpage person here. Maybe I can clear some stuff up.

1) Startpage provides Google results, but Google never sees you. Startpage submits your query to Google anonymously, then returns Google results to you privately. For more info on we keep your search private: https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/how-does-st.... 2) Startpage is HQ'ed in the Netherlands, meaning we don't have to comply with US government or law enforcement and comply with EU/Dutch privacy laws such as GDPR. Also, we’re not likely to receive requests by governments to hand over user data – simply because we don’t have any. 3) In 2019, Startpage announced an investment in Startpage by System1 through Privacy One Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of System1. With this investment, the plan is to further expand privacy features and reach new users. (Lots of new privacy features in the works!) The Startpage founders have control over the privacy components of Startpage. And! After conversations with the privacy community, Startpage was recently relisted in PrivacyToolsIO. More info on that: https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...

That's a lot of text, but I hope it helps.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#312

Post by pkamb »

abtinf wrote: post #300
pkamb wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely switch to Safari or Firefox except for the fact that I find Chrome's tab system to be so good. Chrome tabs load and appear instantly. As you add more tabs they shrink down to a tiny but still usable favicon size. As you close tabs they resize well and with nice little UX behavior like the next close button always appearing directly under your mouse. They close and re-open instantly. When you press…

Firefox with tree style tabs is on another level. Firefox also supports lazy loading tabs when restarted, so only pinned tabs and tabs you view consume resources. I have nearly 1000 tabs open in Firefox and navigate them extremely efficiently. Does chrome do that?

I don't really want/need to use a new horizontal tab paradigm that supports thousands of tabs. I just want a really good implementation of the standard top-of-the-window tab bar.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#313

Post by 00811050 »

andrepew wrote: post #246
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.

sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 77869806 : GNggaHF7HKde Line 1471: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 00811050 : MJwCnW3b4wzn Line 1472: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 05012270 : rXaRN6yK9NYz Line 1473: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 08094747 : pGtxg6ymPK4G Line 1474: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 08352915 : 9p6DmcDXhpGz Line 1475: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 08595647 : XJKTXEJgTwqD Line 1476: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 09162079 : q7ePqchJHXnD Line 1477: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 10959234 : fdgbqNJRWGnE Line 1478: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 13714708 : aPRYMAkzdmEb Line 1479: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 17504284 : Md3HA4Mgwp7b Line 1480: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 20772225 : DHMNGbMpdqbt Line 1481: sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 25614372 : PhTTKNhYfeD9

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#314

Post by Naac »

jlarocco wrote: post #296
Naac wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs specifically have you encountered?

The most annoying is the way it handles updates. There's no easy way to turn off auto-update (I get updates via my package manager), and the functionality in Firefox is completely broken. It downloads the update and then refuses to open any pages until the browser is restarted, but the restart functionality is broken, and it just exits, losing all of the tabs that were open. It happened again one day, and when Firefo…

I definitely share the frustration with Firefox refusing to work if it detects that it was updated, and just showing the "Please restart Firefox" page. AFAIK that's a recent addition, and done on purpose, so not a bug. But definitely not the best user experience.

I haven't had a problem restarting Firefox and having all my tabs appearing again. Maybe something is corrupted in your profile?

I also haven't found that to be Mozilla's attitude. Luckily a lot of things are configurable in about:config

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#315

Post by Naac »

galkk wrote: post #55
Naac wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bugs specifically have you encountered?

The amount of random crashes on the Youtube pages is crazy

I'm not sure what you mean, I haven't experienced that behavior. Maybe try with a clean profile?

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#316

Post by adiabatty »

Since this place, at this time, seems to be as good as any to ask for recommendations:

Is there a paid service that's similar to Google Voice where I can get an extra phone number and have calls to it routed to my normal phone? I'd like to have a phone number that's "out there", so to speak, but not my real number.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#317

Post by jdofaz »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #6

> I’ve already pulled down my 2-300GB Google Photos archive How? I've tried several times and can never complete the download. Wired ethernet, not wifi.

That is scary, I migrated off of Google Photos before the integration with Google Drive was removed, but I was only ever comfortable using it knowing that as I snap photos they were being downloaded to a hard drive at my house.

I switched over to OneDrive and thankfully it still works that way.

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#318

Post by tartoran »

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 am spending more time in FireFox too and want to give it some love. It still has some catching up to do with Chrome. I find myself switching to Chrome for work related activities, namely developer tools, and that's pure habit. I didnt have time to experience the FF version. Is it comparable?? But since my company's only supporting Chrome I'll do development in Chrome. At home I am on FF and have been so far loving it. Some extensions have to do some catching up in FF as well.

When in FireFox I am still experiencing weird bugs but am willing to give her some slack and hope they get fixed. Come on Firefox, FireFix and Rock!

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#319

Post by geekgonecrazy »

andrepd wrote: post #133

Moving from Google cloud to Apple cloud, from Google messenger to Facebook messenger... What's the point honestly?

I should have explained more here. This was only for family communication. Other communication is split up pretty much depending on where the friend is. Convincing people to up and shift is easier said than done. It could be argued it might be better that way because then my data isn't all with one message service.

For other communications I use Rocket.Chat for team collab, signal, keybase chat or sms(which if they do happen to have iMessage does convert). I definitely do not trust facebook any more than Google. And I would agree thats a sideways move not an improvement

Re: De-Googling: My Progress

#320

Post by geekgonecrazy »

lucb1e wrote: post #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.

The ability to tinker was my argument for Android for years. And if I want to tinker Android is still the way.

After a point of tinkering, flashing Roms, getting stuck in hairy situations where your phone is bootlooping and you don't know if you will get it back.

At some point having to mess with configuration gets annoying.

I kinda view this like an experiment to see how the other side is living with my eye very much on Android waiting for an excuse to jump back over.

I wish there were more good options for De-Google'd Android shipped from a vendor that actually cared about privacy and had the chops to make a smooth experience

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