What I Use Instead of Google • Hacker News Board

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#121

Post by oauea » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 2:50 PM UTC

reaktivo wrote: post #58

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…

Apple Maps is available on the web, DDG uses it for it's own maps

Where? I went to https://www.apple.com/maps/ and clicked "Open Maps" but that just brings me straight back to that same page with no map in sight, just a lot of pictures of idevices.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#122

Post by oauea » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

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…

> a rented server in some datacenter is not self-hosting

It is though. Don't be elitist.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#123

Post by hairofadog » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

oauea wrote: post #121

reaktivo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Maps is available on the web, DDG uses it for it's own maps

Where? I went to https://www.apple.com/maps/ and clicked "Open Maps" but that just brings me straight back to that same page with no map in sight, just a lot of pictures of idevices.

“DDG” in the parent comment refers to DuckDuckGo, for example https://duckduckgo.com/?q=New+York%2C+United+States&t=iphone...

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#124

Post by probably_wrong » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 2:56 PM UTC

vinni2 wrote: post #21

Every time I try to get out of google they (my colleagues) pull me back in. They share documents in google docs and google drive. I have no choice but to keep my google account.

"I'm sorry, I don't have a Google account (anymore?). Could you share it in a different way?"

I have seen this work more than once.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#125

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 2:57 PM UTC

eating555 wrote: post #17

I've checked Linode. Why it's price is much lower than others like AWS, Azure or GCP? Because of some drawback?

Cloud providers like AWS are more expensive because what they provide is a completely different set of services and guarantees, so their value [and cost] is much higher.

There are actually much cheaper VPS providers than Linode. Check out lowendbox.com for deals. I've had a Linode for years and it's completely underwhelming for the cost. I'd try out multiple different cheaper VPS providers instead, maybe even use multiple for redundancy at the same cost as Linode.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#126

Post by duffyjp » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 2:59 PM UTC

ajdude wrote: post #106

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…

This is ultimately what I ended up doing, with one caveat: I have mailinabox running on a VPS in a local datacenter. If my ISP wasn’t so aggressive with sending mail, I would’ve just self hosted on my own computer. However, mailinabox also comes with nextcloud, and it works out of the box with exchange activesync, allowing me to basically mimic gmail’s syncing of calendar/contacts/etc. I made the switch about a year…

The fact you were able to register your lastname as a dotcom is incredibly fortunate, especially if that was a recent registration. Mine has been a marketing agency since 1995.

I ran my own business email for a while in a DigitalOcean VPS, but it was a huge pain. I did it all by hand though, I should give mailinabox a try.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#127

Post by CobsterLock » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 3:01 PM UTC

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…

Is getting your mail sent from your own e-mail server past the GMail and Outlook spam filters trivial? I always hear about the aggressive spam filters that these providers have which makes it hard to set up your own server. Not saying it's not possible, but I am assuming it is somewhat difficult to set up and their is probably some maintenance that goes along with it. So much so that paying for a provider makes sense. As long as my subscription is the only revenue stream, I see no issue with using a "cloud service" to run email for my custom domain.

I'm willing to be the other services have similar situations where you might as well just pay someone to do it for you. $160 to not have to maintain a server room seems like a nice deal to me.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#128

Post by whoknew1122 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 3:05 PM UTC

Interesting to see what others use. I'm a bit curious about using CloudFlare's DNS though.

If you take a stand against Google's societal impact, why switch to CloudFlare? CloudFlare's 'content neutral' stance enables a lot of hate speech and other, more disgusting material.

It seems odd to have ethical concerns about Google, but not CloudFlare.

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#129

Post by jtbayly » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

skinkestek wrote: post #85

vvanpo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perkeep devs built a tool to grab the originals: https://github.com/perkeep/gphotos-cdp#gphotos-cdp

I'm afraid Google will lock me out of my account if I use anything like this?

Why?

Re: What I Use Instead of Google

#130

Post by eeZah7Ux » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 3:11 PM UTC

dusted wrote: post #77

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 :)

It's amazing how this place is called "Hacker" News and downvotes opinions that are not mainstream enough or not corporate-friendly enough.

You are right that self-hosting means that your data sits on your devices, and this should be made possible to most users without having to pay 3rd party services, buy domains, pay for VPSes and learn to manage servers.

(edit: hah, the downvotes are coming already!)