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I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

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Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#171

Post by voakbasda »

hackernewds wrote: post #58
Corrado wrote: post #2

I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…

Same happened to me with investing in the Fitbit ecosystem. Hope they don't botch Reminders next with their migrations to Tasks

When Google bought Fitbit, ours went in a drawer. We know how they operate, so we outright do not trust them. I wonder how many other people take a similar approach to products that Google buys.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#172

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

titzer wrote: post #152
Corrado wrote: post #2

I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…

Prior to replacing my furnace I had a mercury thermostat that was easily over 50 years old. The new one is digital but isn't "smart". I don't expect 50 years, but 20-30 seems reasonable. Somehow software people have forgotten that physical things last a long time, and people want them to keep working and stay the same as long as possible . My thermostat doesn't need "upgrades", and anyone who thinks they are going to…

I wonder if we could wield regulation to discourage products that phone home without also providing the ability to:

- install a cert so we can MITM the traffic and see what they're phoning home about

- turn off the phoning home without breaking local functionality

- configure a different address for cloud I/O, such that I can run the "cloud" part on my own infra if I want those features

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#173

Post by vxNsr »

netsharc wrote: post #111
Drakim wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy, when I remove the YouTube Shorts pane it says "Shelf will be hidden for 30 days". It feels like a slap to the face by some promotion seeking Google Manager who tells me that he knows better than me. It's crazy. I didn't stop using YouTube like you did but I was darn close. I guess they do know better than me, in a way.

On Android you can install https://newpipe.net and turn off a lot of things: no more trending/start screen recommendations if you don't want them, you can turn off comments, or "watch next" recommendations.. the shorts show up in the search results like other normal videos, with a slider so you can still navigate it.

I know this is an unpopular question, but are there ads in newpipe?

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#174

Post by grapesurgeon »

hackernewds wrote: post #59
largepeepee wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's not only products that get left behind once Google gets bored. Many of Google's software eventually get worse too. YouTube for example has killed most of their social features by removing dislikes, limited searchability of videos by channel, allowed bots to fill the comments. And Google search has so much malware in their ads that pop up first, that even govts are recommending ad blockers by default.…

I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.

[dead]

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#175

Post by grapesurgeon »

txtsd wrote: post #154
hackernewds wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.

Try YouTube Revanced from https://revanced.net/

this is NOT the actual domain. do not share this around. the only domain is https://revanced.app, and it will redirect to their github.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#176

Post by cmehdy »

txtsd wrote: post #154
hackernewds wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to delete the YouTube app simply because there was no way to disable Shorts. Those things are hopelessly addictive and unavoidable. If I wanted shorts, I'd install TikTok.

Try YouTube Revanced from https://revanced.net/

I'm pretty sure revanced.net is not affiliated with the actual project and shouldn't be trusted. AFAIK there's no prebuilt APK doing everything for you that can be trusted, it's a multi-step process one has to follow front the official source.

The official Github is https://github.com/revanced

The Github is very obtuse about the installation steps, so this guide on reddit gives the procedure more adequately: https://www.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/comments/xlcny9/revance...

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#177

Post by doctor_eval »

goosedragons wrote: post #31
Corrado wrote: post #2

I feel like this is just one more thing that Google leadership is failing at. I have some similar examples to the ones in the article. I recommended that my brother-in-law get a Google wifi AP some years ago. Recently, I got an email from Google saying that they are no longer supporting it and after a certain date you will no longer be able to make changes to it. WTF?!? My Apple Airport Extreme is older than the Goog…

TBF Airport Extremes stopped getting updates years ago. The last update was 7.9.1 from 2019. Granted you can still change settings and not being able to do that after discontinuation is pretty inexcusable.

I scored a handful of these years ago, and they still run my house internet. Airport utility still works too. On all devices. They are great little APs.

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#178

Post by dymk »

infp_arborist wrote: post #161
cogman10 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is just shit. As my company briefly decided to look into using them for a cloud provider it quickly became apparent that they are just awful stewards of any software that isn’t related to advertisements. It’s beyond shocking how amateurish GCP is being operated. My assumption is it comes down to really awful leadership. They only care about making and selling new things. You simply can’t trust that any piece o…

I have said it before and will say it again: Google wants to look amateurish for as long as possible to avoid stronger regulation.

You should probably stop saying it because it makes no sense

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#179

Post by vxNsr »

rch wrote: post #166
maxerickson wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my Pixel, there's a "Keep the Screen Dark" in the digital well being settings. It's nested 4 screens in or whatever, but it's there. Going from an older device to a Pixel 6, I would say that there is some additional complexity in the settings, but directionally, the changes make the device nicer to use. So like the setting in the alarm isn't the overall device control, it's deep in the digital well being settings…

I had used an option like that, until about 6 months ago IIRC. It's gone now. However I've just found something under Settings - Accessibility that might mitigate the problem a little more. Extra dim: dim screen beyond your phone's minimum brightness. It still won't really be off though, most likely. And the text labels on these settings belong in a Monty Python sketch about product management.

Preface: I’m an iPhone user, but I’m kinda confused what you’re trying to achieve that can’t be had with just pressing the physical button the phone to turn off the screen. Does the screen need to be on for the alarm to work?

Re: I'm never investing in Google's smart home ecosystem again

#180

Post by account-5 »

pabs3 wrote: post #116
account-5 wrote: post #86

This sort of shit is the reason they will never get me to use their passkey implementation. The sooner there's a truly portable open source offline version of passkeys I'm all in. Until then I'm sticking with my password manager. I do feel the only thing you can really trust from Google are the things that make them money. Chrome, and any software that allows them to hook into for advertising money. It makes me worry…

There is a pull request for adding passkeys to KeePassXC: https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc/pull/8825

Amazing thanks for this, I was unaware. Hopefully not too long.
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