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Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

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Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#61

This is a dumb take. They're both equally untrustworthy. VSCode has an insane amount of telemetry turned on, ChatGPT is monitoring everything you type, and GitHub was abused to train a LLM. Microsoft and Google have both shown they would sell your data in a heartbeat to make a quick buck.

Github wasn't abused to train LLMs. Whatever website existed that openly hosted OSS repositories would have been scrapped if it had such a large number of repos. You don't need to be Microsoft to train on github.

The question is: How much private repos went into copilot? I guess for specific software (how to use a commercial database? How to use some enterprise framework?) they'd find more relevant samples there, which might be worthwhile scanning.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my personal and limited view I agree. But to be honest, I don't trust neither, at all, probably forever. MS actively destroyed 1 decent thing I liked about them, their OS. First they tried to make it better and actually succeeded over the years (anybody who went from Windows 95/98 into 2000/XP and realized MS can actually make stable usable modern OS would probably agree, 7 was their best OS for me). And then th…

NSLs and FISAs are insidious and powerful tools that the US Federal government utilizes against the populace. Once the government sets about forcing requirements, those two tools ensure that the companies, organizations, or individuals, cannot speak to the requirements or that there was a discussion at all. Never attribute to malice which can be easily attributed to stupidity. Secret courts, and secret squirrel gover…

Secret courts aren't an accident. "Whoops my hand slipped and I accidentally drafted thousands of pages of legislation!"

No, secret courts are deliberate and malicious. Hanlon's razor is for credulous fools.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#63
Don't trust the company. Trust the business model.

Eventually a company with great intentions will be dragged to do terrible things if it required to serve their business model.

Google will ruin their user experience (e.g. YouTube, Google) and push the boundary on user privacy in the interest of more clicks & higher CPM.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#64
post #43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use VsCodium, telemetry is disabled. https://vscodium.com/

Or just simply vi and it's variants? Far better UX

The world disagrees with you [0]

0: https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2023/#section-worked-with-vs...

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay the very small fee for YouTube Premium and do away with all the ads because it doesn't do away with _all_ the ads: every video still has the video maker themselves talking about their 'sponsor' for at least a minute, reminding us to 'like and subscribe' for at least ten seconds, and a patreon scroll of users that have paid extra for another three minutes

What’s YouTube supposed to do about that?

Pay their creators not to insert ads into their content.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#66
post #46
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What could do with your data to make more money that they aren’t? Sure in theory they could be selling access to anyone’s Gmail account to the highest bidder, but that’s going to lose them money by actively driving their customers away. Google may be actively harmful/evil, but they aren’t stupid.

> What could do with your data to make more money that they aren’t? Nice try Sundar Pichai.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/792/

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#67
I love VSCode, I use Google Workspace for my domain, run a Mac and an iPhone (and use iCloud), a Surface Go 2 with Linux (quite workable), I host on all sorts of stuff.

Uncritically associating "trust" with a brand is a mistake. Microsoft are no more on the side of the angels than anyone else (and are very clearly on the other side in some of the legal positions they stake out, such as their amicus brief in support of Oracle against Google in the Java case).

Pick a sports team if you must, but don't pick a brand and support them loyally. Be an interchangeable consumer, because this is how they model your behaviour anyway. Maximise that.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#68
Microsoft is a known entity. I know (or expect) that my outlook.com account is heavily datamined to the fullest extent of the most permissive interpretation of the law.

Google was supposed to be not that, and so it's not that I trust Google less, it's that I don't know how much they can/can't be trusted in general.

Re: Today I realized I now trust Microsoft more than Google. What is happening?

#70

I generally avoid Google products, but I do not understand the animosity towards YouTube, nor why anyone would not just pay the very small fee for YouTube Premium and do away with all the ads. The content being created for YouTube is fantastic, you can easily watch news from all over the world, conference talks, lectures, interviews, in-depth documentaries and deep dive analysis that blows away anything you'll ever s…

> pay the very small fee for YouTube Premium and do away with all the ads because it doesn't do away with _all_ the ads: every video still has the video maker themselves talking about their 'sponsor' for at least a minute, reminding us to 'like and subscribe' for at least ten seconds, and a patreon scroll of users that have paid extra for another three minutes

The Firefox addon Sponsorblock blocks almost 100% of those ads. Together with uBlock Origin, I have an almost ad-free Youtube experience.
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