Google users locked out after 15 years' use • Hacker News Board

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#701

Post by ljm » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

fao_ wrote: post #644

ljm wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's honestly nobody's problem but your own. Set it to autorenew or buy it for a longer period of time. I bought 10 years up-front for my own domain.

Hmm, let's look at how feasible this is. Namecheap is quite a popular place to buy domains, isn't it? (myname).xyz - 10 years - £85.29 / $110.15 (myname).com - 10 years - £69.87 / $90.24 (myname).net - 10 years - £98.40 / $127.08 In a world where many people are not able to afford food for themselves[0][1], this is hardly an alternative. At minimum wage ($7.25[2]), a single domain name would take about half a month t…

The question wasn't, "how can I afford this?" though, it was "but what if I forget to renew?"

If you're already buying your own domain then this is a valid solution, particularly if you can't or won't set up autorenewal.

The affordability of paying for your own domain and also your email provider is a separate conversation entirely.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#702

Post by Chilinot » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #260

Chilinot wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why i have setup one of my linux servers to automatically download all photos and videos from my shared google photo albums each night. This allows me and my wife to easily share photos of our daughter with each other, as well as have a backup of everything we have locally on my NAS. Next step is to sync this of to several other storage places in case of cryptolocker or the NAS dies.

Do you automatically download all of your photos and videos, or just the ones taken during the day?

I just software that downloads everything from my google photos albums and then only downloads any changes after that. Like rsync.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#703

Post by airbreather » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #347

fullstop wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got gmail accounts for my kids after they were born. My youngest, 12, attempted to sign in from a Windows PC in our house and was told that they could not verify that it was her. Keep in mind, this is the same public IP address that we've had for ages. I am the recovery contact for the account since she is a minor, and have filled out the forms several times now, even giving the exact date and the "verification cod…

Did you sign up and enter a fake birthday? Google doesn't allow creation of real accounts for minors under 13 years old unless you use family link[0]. 0: https://families.google.com/familylink/

I did sign mine up using fake birthdates well over ten years ago, my children are 13 and 16 now.

Long story but fairly serious legal issues issues with their mother making false claims of care/activities etc and needed things like calander and location tracking services and this was just by far the easies way at the time. For safety reasons I put a forward to my gmail of all their incoming emails, once again best known option at the time.

I sense a problem possibly looming, but not seeing that coming clean and engaging with Google likely to be a happy experience.

Anyone got any advice, other than abandon current accounts?

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#704

Post by kashura » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

ksk wrote: post #597

kashura wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay for Gsuite which is $6/mo and extra 100gb of storage, for $8 total. The part that drives me nuts about 0365 is that they don't allow custom email domains below Business 0365 which is $12 a month.

Hmm I see it at $6.99/mo .. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-36...

Personal plan doesn't allow you to use custom domain for the email address EXCEPT for 1 domain that is registered with GoDaddy. And you can't share that domain with another account.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#705

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 8:14 PM UTC

TheKarateKid wrote: post #655

tracker1 wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's moderation rules have determined that Keto and Low Carb aren't scientifically supported, so now tend to suppress resources that proliferate those views. I emphatically don't agree with this, but this seems to be the line of reasoning with a lot of things. The reality that much of science is never truly "settled" doesn't really matter. On the one hand, I feel there are a lot of leeches to society that hop o…

What also probably happened is that Facebook changed their algorithm to reduce organic growth to push businesses like this to spend more on ad money. They've been doing this for a few years now, and have been aggressively doing the same on Instagram. Love or hate TikTok, the reason it's become so big is that their algorithm actually promotes organic growth instead of hindering it.

That is also entirely possible... I have seen some specific statements regarding my assertion. It's entirely possible to be either, both or a mix.

In any case, I'm using FB and Twitter far less these days than even a couple years ago. I happen to like debate, and discussion of competing ideas. Now it's all ad hominem attacks and vitriol. While I do sometimes engage, I simply don't enjoy it and don't fit well into the echo chambers.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#706

Post by pkaye » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

efreak wrote: post #673

pkaye wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use the "download your data" feature of Google to download a copy. However you have to manually trigger the export. Also no incremental download so it can be a lot of data being transferred. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en Edit: Looks like Google Takeout lets you schedule the download (ie once every month)

Unfortunately, you still need to manually download the data each time. There's no way to automate this. There's also no way I know of to directly upload a takeout zip to another service and continue. There's also a (generally long enough, except when you forget) time limit on downloads, as well as a download limit (have a crappy internet connection, and lost access to a file? Start a new takeout, wait for it to be av…

Google does support delivery via email, Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or Box.

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3024190?hl=en

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#707

Post by carapace » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

moonshinefe wrote: post #586

carapace wrote: post #481

A few comments in this thread rub me the wrong way. E.g.: > It should be illegal. > How is this not regulated? No one forces you to use these services. They're voluntary. Imagine you're looking for storage for some stuff. One company advertises a storage service, which is free, but there's a clause in the contract that says, "We can take your stuff at any time, for any reason, no backsies." Would you trust your stuff…

That analogy doesn't even make sense. Also, nobody is arguing that people are "being forced" to use google services, feel free to quote a single person here that said that.

Also, everfree, in a sib comment in this thread:

> [these services] are a lot less voluntary then you think in certain segments.

> So if you are, say, an independent videographer, YouTube is not voluntary.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24969812

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#708

Post by eloff » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 1:23 AM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #705

TheKarateKid wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What also probably happened is that Facebook changed their algorithm to reduce organic growth to push businesses like this to spend more on ad money. They've been doing this for a few years now, and have been aggressively doing the same on Instagram. Love or hate TikTok, the reason it's become so big is that their algorithm actually promotes organic growth instead of hindering it.

That is also entirely possible... I have seen some specific statements regarding my assertion. It's entirely possible to be either, both or a mix. In any case, I'm using FB and Twitter far less these days than even a couple years ago. I happen to like debate, and discussion of competing ideas. Now it's all ad hominem attacks and vitriol. While I do sometimes engage, I simply don't enjoy it and don't fit well into the…

Maybe because all the reasonable people like yourself have left, and took nuance with them. Now it's just the shouty people that remain.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#709

Post by nucleardog » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 8:43 AM UTC

brokenmachine wrote: post #667

nucleardog wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My two cents would be don't worry about a comprehensive degoogling plan. Just chip away at stuff until you feel like the risk level is acceptable to you. For me, that started with email. Email is a root for a lot of your digital identity. I can't guarantee access to @gmail addresses going forward, but I can at least _start_ fixing that problem. I picked up a new domain, hosted the email with someone else, and set all…

I really wanted NextCloud to work but the Android docs app is absolutely hopeless. It's like pulling teeth to work with that interface to edit documents. It's hard for me to believe that anyone actually uses it.

I've never actually used it for editing documents, I just use it more as a Dropbox replacement for backing up / syncing files.

In that case, depending what your actual acceptable risk/goal is... continue using Google Docs and set up a regular backup? Your worst case is that Google Docs goes away tomorrow, and you still have all your data you just need to spend a bit of time restoring to a different account / setting up alternative software / etc and move forward from there. For most people I expect that's more than enough.

Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use

#710

Post by hilbert42 » Wed, Nov 04, 2020, 10:56 AM UTC

Kihashi wrote: post #469

hilbert42 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Thunderbird but I only do so as it's the best of a bad lot (before that I used Eudora before Qualcomm dropped it - Eudora users know everything else is a letdown). Thunderbird has forks but they too need much work. The trouble with email started when free email was included in Windows thus taking the incentive away from development. Same goes for Thunderbird nowadays with free Gmail being available.

I was working in a College's IT Dept when they were migrating everyone from Eudora. Lots of the professors were of the "You can pry it from my cold, dead hands" opinion. They often had 10s of gigabytes of email dating back to the early 90s, some even earlier.

Yeah, and converting old mail wasn't easy even when Thunderbird had an importer. 10s of GB were a problem as the importer often broke at about 2GB. Even TB's own native boxes broke when about that size.

So could Eudora's for that matter. Crashes were a particular problem with large boxes (.MBX files) as they often had crosslinks from users shutting down too quickly. Trouble was that when the mailer reindexed/compressed the box it would often stop at the crosslink and the remaining mail lost (I used to advise everybody never to reindex unless they'd backed up immediately beforehand). No doubt if you were in the IT at the time then I'm preaching to the converted. ;-)

I often use this example to illustrate bad design and the need for data hardening. If the time you're mentioning was before Qualcomm announced an end of Eudora then this may have been one of the reasons to move away. That said, mail clients haven't progressed much since. The MBOX is simple and still predominates but that's a mixed blessing when we need separate index files. Essentially, those who've many GBs of mail still have a problem. Little wonder many have turned from POP/IMAP to web mail.