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Bye Bye Gmail

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Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#111

Post by xigoi »

nunez wrote: post #108
pveierland wrote: post #59

Just disabled the "Smart features" setting in Gmail. Disabling this feature force-disables these other settings: - Grammar - Spelling - Auto-correct Pretty dark UX to force users into an all AI or nothing situation. PS1: Yes, I've paid for Google One for years and I'm not just a free user. PS2: Yes, these features are entirely possible to provide without training on your specific user data.

These don't disable Gemini. You can disable it completely if you pay for Workspace, but you can also use a Hide Gemini extension to hide most pop-ups and nags.

It used to be that you had to buy a premium version of software to get more features, now you have to buy the premium version to disable features you don’t want…

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#112

Post by CTOSian »

mapontosevenths wrote: post #7
CTOSian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can use your gmail on zoho, they have some low cost plans

How will that prevent google from training AI's on his data?

no idea, do they really read any darn email on storage, or just when you use their webmail/android app?

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#113

Post by tim333 »

throwaway2056 wrote: post #5

> I tried turning off Smart Features and oh my, that's not usable. Why? What did it do? This is the problem. Overload. It is not a google problem. If you get 200 emails - even without AI - just by using Thunderbird or k9mail (android) it will be a problem. edit: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/15604322?hl=en I cannot find that "Messages and attachments might be reviewed by humans, so don't share any sensitive…

I've been a gmail user without smart features for years. I'm guessing the 'not usable' was too much junk drowning out important messages. The answer usually is spending 5 minutes clicking 'unsubscribe' on the stuff you are not bothered about.

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#115

Post by tklenke »

It's a bit unfortunate that this turned into a discussion of email hosting alternatives. The real scream in to the void is the force feeding of AI into places were it's not wanted by the user. Also missed is the discussion of is it okay to use or personal information to train models. It's one thing to scrape this discussion (it's public) To me it's another to scrape my personal conversations... I trust Google, MSFT, AMZN to more or less do their best to keep information private (e.g. Google Voice, Alexa) But once it's in a model, they have no idea what can leak out.

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#116

Post by kkfx »

I'm on my mail since year BUT the issue is that most mail tools came from another era, nice for us, but not really usable for most people.

My setup include notmuch as MUA, muchsync to have messages via ssh on some machines, MailDrop to auto-refile them and keep my inboxes clean enough. Generally speaking it's not that hard, but the need of many components and the absence of a shiny UI for end users makes their use a no go even for many generic GNU/Linux user.

Most development since to many years is only on WebMails that's the issue.

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#117

Post by dmtroyer »

palata wrote: post #78

> My email is now being hosted by Microsoft, [...] Then I guess it's off to Switzerland ( https://proton.me/about ); I am all for moving away from Gmail, but I think this is completely the wrong way to do it. Why go through the hassle of changing your @gmail for @microsoft (or whatever it is?), already thinking about moving to @proton.me in the future? Get your own domain, and then you won't depend on the service pro…

iCloud is also a decent option. Works well for me.

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#118

Post by DavideNL »

dmtroyer wrote: post #117
palata wrote: post #78

> My email is now being hosted by Microsoft, [...] Then I guess it's off to Switzerland ( https://proton.me/about ); I am all for moving away from Gmail, but I think this is completely the wrong way to do it. Why go through the hassle of changing your @gmail for @microsoft (or whatever it is?), already thinking about moving to @proton.me in the future? Get your own domain, and then you won't depend on the service pro…

iCloud is also a decent option. Works well for me.

Sure, move from one Big Tech monopolist to the next...

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#119

Post by woleium »

goku12 wrote: post #106
woleium wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google hosts 1/4 of all emails. They will probably have most of your email anyway

They never said anything about keeping their messages away from Google. It's about having some agency. One fine morning, you'll find yourself locked out of your gmail account and every other Google service because they just decided that something you said isn't politically correct. You'll also be locked out of any external thrid-party services that rely on Google's OAuth service, email 2FA or verification. You'll nev…

I think it’s more about picking your battles.

I don’t use google oauth, prefer user pass and email

I use google for email and docs, it’s convenient. i use my own domain though, and i backup my data nightly.

I feel like i have de-risked the relationship as much as is reasonable and am happy to move if i have to with minimal data or access loss (time to restore all data somewhere may be a bit of an issue, but there are workarounds)

Re: Bye Bye Gmail

#120

Post by woleium »

soraminazuki wrote: post #110
woleium wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

google hosts 1/4 of all emails. They will probably have most of your email anyway

Except it's not the '00s anymore and most emails don't come from personal gmail accounts. Almost every single email that people receive are automated ones that come from corporations.

Google Workspace + Microsoft 365 together around 95% of hosted corporate seats.

Total people using email (2024–2025): about 4.5–4.6 billion.

Google (Gmail consumer + Google Workspace): ≈3.0 billion active users/mailboxes.

numbers from perplexity, but probably good enough for casual conversation

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