Live data from Hacker News

Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

moddedbear.com

131–140 of 865 posts

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#131

I find it odd how so many tech involved people here use gmail - are privacy concerns not a concern for them? I moved to mailbox.org years ago. Pay a few pounds a year for private email with webtools and drive and don't have google snooping my emails and sending me targeted ads.

I did the same except switched to fastmail. I love it, it’s such a great service.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#132
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chose typing every time.

And I chose to set a browser bookmark with the corresponding GET parameters.

Bookmarks is a surprisingly underutilized feature of browsers, I constantly see tons of people doing 5-6 clicks going to some page, I'm guessing simply they don't know about it. Similarly, lots of powerusers who don't know about "javascript:" bookmarks that basically behaves like tiny like browser extensions (the content-script part specifically) when you click on them.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#133
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you use as your client?

I'm not the poster you're replying to, but i did the same thing and use Purelymail (and their web interface, which i think is open-source) it's a very cheap no-nonsense service, i recommend it

Also not the poster you're replying to, but I get email with ProtonVPN, which I've linked to my domain.

I'm not without my questions about them as a company, but Google are getting beyond a joke.

Full migration away is coming with next phone upgrade.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#134
I am also considering leaving Gmail over the blue squiggly lines trying to tell me how to "improve" my phrasing.

I like the nuance my words convey, Google.

I don't need to sound like an LLM with no sense of personality. My phrasing is chosen very deliberately to draw a very precise picture. I don't appreciate you trying to blur it.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#135
Google/Alphabet collects massive amounts of information on us, for commercial and US-governmental purposes. It's good that Jerremy has dropped GMail - but he should not have adopted it in the first place. Large commercial corporations (especially though not only in the US) should not be entrusted with so many people's private mailboxes and communications, nor subsube so much of people's activity on the Internet.

Unfortunately - one can't really leave GMail until others leave as well, in that Google will still have a copy of all of our email exchange with people who still use GMail.

It doesn't matter whether Google thinks we're stupid or not - it's always thought we are suckerds, and to a great extent, we are.

Anyway, friends shouldn't let friends use GMail. Try any number of email service providers. I personally like Proton Mail (https://proton.me/mail) as far as privacy-minded webmail goes, but it doesn't have to be, nor should it be, one provider for everyone.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#136

Related to this, I hate how aggressively Google pushes Gemini and all of the privacy implications involved with that. 1) Lots of features got moved around and there are now many "Write with AI", "Generate image with AI", etc buttons polluting user interfaces even though I don't use them and don't want to use them. 2) Actually, I would use some of these features if I didn't have to do a full opt-in to Smart Features f…

It's the same on phones. You can't use Gemini as your default smart assitant without it also then becoming your default smart assistant for Android Auto, where it is useless.

It will happily find you some restaurant reviews for a town you are going to, but useful stuff like "Send a whatsapp to Jane Smith saying I will be 10 minutes late." or "Play XXX from Spotify" it totally fails at.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#137
It still amazes me that Google and Microsoft and most of the rest of the "AI-first" companies continue to believe that shoving AI down our throats will eventually cause us to like it.

I've never been waterboarded, but I'm pretty sure that if somebody ever waterboarded me I wouldn't drink water for the rest of my life.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#138
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've always been this way. I think until recently Google Maps would refuse to save your home address unless you enabled location history, so you had to type it in every time.

I chose typing every time.

I chose using OpenStreetMap where possible, and in other cases, things like Here We Go etc.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#139
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know everyone's tired of hearing this, but this doesn't happen on Linux. I know I know, it's different and a little janky here and there and maybe you have to find a replacement for one or two pieces of software. But like, you don't actually have to put up with this. There is a better way.

It's hilarious seeing people complain about Microsoft when a free alternative exists. Humans are really curious creatures.

Up until very recently gaming is the only thing keeping my l and millions of others main pc from being Linux or Mac. I dual booted in the past but was annoyed. With all the work steam has put in I’m personally about 6 months out from just dumping Microsoft on all my personal products.

It’s impressive they have dropped the ball so hard that it’s causing a complete rethink for so many users like myself. Bullet >> golden goose.

Re: Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left

#140
I understand that this is frustrating for people who mostly write thoughtful emails. But personally I use gmail for exactly the following things: account recovery, system notifications, and b2b email threads. For the latter, I really couldn't care less about form or shape. It's a tool to an end, to get a point across. I found the auto writing stuff pretty useless so far (suggestions change the intended tone or even meaning of the email) but summaries are very useful to get a grip what happened in a larger thread which I should only know the gist of anyway.

I might be in the minority but to me email is an annoying requirement to reach out to people, and that is not due to the AI tools, it's due to: thread management, the horrible noise of unasked for newsletter, and system messages and updates I theoretically do care about but that are just inconsistently formatted and badly listed. I welcome AI giving me a better overview over what's going on than what I myself have.

Post reply on HN