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What I Use Instead of Google

kiramclean.com

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Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#71

Post by skinkestek »

systemvoltage wrote: post #30

Google is such an insane value. $5 you get GSuite, auth, drive, chat, meet, and a bunch of things. Folks that are privacy concious are equally deluded. It's marketing and you're falling for it. ProtonMail doesn't have stellar record for privacy (or any Swiss company in general). There has been several discussions about this on HN, and otherwise where many have compared email services and rated their privacy claims. F…

You forgot how they'll also helpfully remove services that you could otherwise end up spending your valuable time on:

- Reader, possibly to make room for Google+

- and then Google+

- etc

You also forgot how they'll ban you from accessing your own paid account, and there won't even be a sham trial or even a kangaroo court, just an automatic death sentence for your data.

Seriously: Google has earned the distrust they are now facing. They have dug this hole

- one shady tactic at a time

- one let down at a time

- one deal with China at a time

- etc

until even former fan boys like me become happy every time I see Google in hot water.

@Googlers: nothing against most of you as individuals. Hope you get well paid and good jobs when Google has to cut. (Except those who think it is OK to use search as a playground for wacky AI experiments, those who implement rules to punish logged in Firefox users with Captchas etc :-)

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#72

Post by logicchains »

I try to use Bing for all my searches (set it as the browser default), but at least a third of the time I end up needing to open Google and search there instead. Anyone got any tips for getting better results out of Bing? It doesn't help that when I'm using a VPN, searching for an English term often causes Bing to deliver a bunch of results in the native language of the place the VPN is located, rather than in English.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#73

Post by skinkestek »

wtmt wrote: post #52

> Maps → Apple maps If Apple were a different company, it would've made maps available for use on web browsers and non-Apple devices. That could also help in a more rapid improvement of maps as opposed to the mostly-useless state it's been in (except for a few countries and regions in certain countries that Apple likes and works more on). > and still a little YouTube (anonymously in a Firefox container) If a Firefox…

> If Apple were a different company, it would've made maps available for use on web browsers and non-Apple devices.

I too actually want to use certain software from Apple, I just refuse to use it on Mac as me and the Mac WM keep talking past each other :-)

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#74

Post by cik »

executesorder66 wrote: post #8

I've been looking for something like sync.com but free and opensource. Does such a thing exist? I'm planning on setting up my own nextcloud server, and they also have their own file manager system (Nextcloud Files), which is great for keeping files in sync across devices. And although it's nice to edit a text file that's stored on a cloud server from any of your devices, I want to be able to use more powerful desktop…

I use your workflow - but back (some of) my data up in O365. On linux, I use insync (closed source) to sync my O365 as needed. Insync allows me to select (within a folder) what sub-folders to mirror. It's pretty perfect.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#75

Post by crocodiletears »

logicchains wrote: post #72

I try to use Bing for all my searches (set it as the browser default), but at least a third of the time I end up needing to open Google and search there instead. Anyone got any tips for getting better results out of Bing? It doesn't help that when I'm using a VPN, searching for an English term often causes Bing to deliver a bunch of results in the native language of the place the VPN is located, rather than in Englis…

The quote and plus search operators are your friends for that last third. I don't think Bing tailors its search results as aggressively as Google does, so you sometimes have to be more explicit with domain-specific searches.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#76

Post by alfiedotwtf »

throwaway9d0291 wrote: post #61
systemvoltage wrote: post #30

Google is such an insane value. $5 you get GSuite, auth, drive, chat, meet, and a bunch of things. Folks that are privacy concious are equally deluded. It's marketing and you're falling for it. ProtonMail doesn't have stellar record for privacy (or any Swiss company in general). There has been several discussions about this on HN, and otherwise where many have compared email services and rated their privacy claims. F…

> Folks that are privacy concious are equally deluded. It's marketing and you're falling for it. At the very least, if you use providers other than Google, you can decentralize it. You can give one company your search history and a different company your emails. Even if both companies are equal to Google in terms of privacy, you still end up with better overall privacy because tehy can't join the two datasets. > Prot…

I’m not sure why wtmt_arn‘s comment is dead... it’s correct

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#77

Post by dusted »

dusted wrote: post #62

I'm all for getting out of the cloud, but moving from one company, to multiple other companies seems to have achieved nothing but diversify and multiply the amount of terms you've had to agree to (they will all tell you the same thing in the end: if they block your account, or lose your data, it's your problem). The only real solution is self-hosting[1], which is becoming a bit difficult with email these days. [1] No…

Down to -1 now, I take that as a clear sign that someone does not want to think too much about just how bad our situation has become :) (or they're trying to sell a SaaS and therefore need me to be wrong), nice :)

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#78

Post by paulcarroty »

logicchains wrote: post #72

I try to use Bing for all my searches (set it as the browser default), but at least a third of the time I end up needing to open Google and search there instead. Anyone got any tips for getting better results out of Bing? It doesn't help that when I'm using a VPN, searching for an English term often causes Bing to deliver a bunch of results in the native language of the place the VPN is located, rather than in Englis…

Makes sense to try duckduckgo or startpage? My Bing using experience was extremely bad for all non-tech, maybe except sport.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#79

Post by iamacyborg »

systemvoltage wrote: post #30

Google is such an insane value. $5 you get GSuite, auth, drive, chat, meet, and a bunch of things. Folks that are privacy concious are equally deluded. It's marketing and you're falling for it. ProtonMail doesn't have stellar record for privacy (or any Swiss company in general). There has been several discussions about this on HN, and otherwise where many have compared email services and rated their privacy claims. F…

> Folks that are privacy concious are equally deluded.

This is the kind of nonsense comment that ends up being used as the moral justification engineers need to build these privacy invading services.

People are entitled to their own privacy, end of story.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#80

Post by [deleted] »

executesorder66 wrote: post #60
wtmt wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have local (non-cloud) backups? If yes, that's great, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend a cloud-only (or a single backup) approach to storing important data.

I currently have backups on some external drives. But I plan on also doing backups with blackblaze or somewhere similar. My plan for the cloud server is just to have a central place to access all my (and my wife's) files from any device. But then my problem is, as I mentioned earlier, how do I bulk edit/organize those files using desktop software?

[deleted]
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