31–40 of 452 posts
So glad I switched to Duck Duck Go two months ago. Another reason to wean myself completely off Google products.
I've been on ddg for years now. The only time I have to use Google is when I'm hunting for very specific memes from years ago.
Use LineageOS+microG and (at the very least) Aurora Store on your phone. Use Firefox containers to sequester all Google services away from your other activity. Of course, use uBlock Origin. Achieve near total peace of mind when faced with things like this. Soon, I want to unsubscribe from all YouTube channels and move them over to RSS. I'll use a third-party YouTube client to watch videos queued from my feeds. Then,…
I did this recently and it's wonderful. RSS-Bridge, locally hosted feeding into my locally hosted FreshRSS.
If you use a plugin like privacy redirect, you don't need to remember to use an alternate front end
That reads as "too many users were disabling our creepy shit, so we're re-enabling it!"
YouTube recently did the same with autoplay. I hate autoplay with a passion, and watching the setting suddenly turn itself on again made me incoherently angry.
For those with Legacy G Suite plans that are going away on May 1, this is convenient timing for Google to slurp up the user data of those who are about to leave the service.
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I tend to agree. Companies don't seem to switch to being good once they go evil. I would love it if someone could share a counterexample. I want it to be true that companies don't just turn evil but can become better too.
How about Microsoft?
What is going on inside Google? Far worse search results recently, verbal ads during Maps navigation directions, and stuff like this. Do they see some writing on the wall (eu pressure?) and they’re squeezing as much as they can while it’s an option?
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This has been in my app for a couple years - I hate it every time. Not only is it very clearly advertising, it's nearly always useless because the restaurant/whatever is barely or not at all visible on the approach to the turn. It's pretty clear they're going for paid landmarks, not useful ones (though I don't like landmark-directions either way).
Waaaaaaaiiiiittt, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold up. You mean the comment you're responding to isn't being sarcastic?
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On the other side, DuckDuckGo is becoming pretty reasonable. I now only need to flip back to google for some hard to search technical topics. DDG also brings up a ton more of the old internet, you get way more variety in the search results.
I have been using DDG for years. I inadvertently used google for a search (damn browser defaults) and i was genuinely difficult to find something relevant with the amount of ads cluttering it up.
What is going on inside Google? Far worse search results recently, verbal ads during Maps navigation directions, and stuff like this. Do they see some writing on the wall (eu pressure?) and they’re squeezing as much as they can while it’s an option?
A gigantic pile of cash yet no world changing ideas to throw money at. No big ideas. Google is essentially search and ads today. Nothing more. A series of startups will begin to cut away at the fat and the cycle will continue.