Google Talk uses an open protocol, XMPP. So basically any client that support XMPP should (hopefully) work with Google Talk. This means you wouldn't have to migrate your friends / family over to a new client but you can still expunge Google's IM client specifically.
Expunging Google
131–140 of 175 posts
Re: Expunging Google
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are not innovations, those are incremental improvements. (If you want to call all minor improvements innovation then, well, everyone's innovative.) Innovations are new products and new ideas . Of course Android is following in Apple's footsteps; Apple came first, after all, and established everything that Android has since also implemented. Whatever Google is doing, it's an incremental improvement on that revol…
I would argue that an open smartphone ecosystem is innovative. Not original, but innovative. Google Now IS innovative. Google's method for voice recognition is certainly innovative, as are the myriad ways in which they have implemented that core technology. Google voice (grandcentral) was certainly innovative; the calling system and the text transcription in most specific. My main problem with your exchange is my per…
Symbian was an open smartphone ecosystem. Google is just taking it a step further (to serve its own ends, of course).
I am not moving the goalposts. The original article was about Google web products such as Chrome and Reader. The only non-productized item mentioned was OpenID, which concerns integration with the rest of the web and could be considered a feature of their user-facing products. These things are the things that matter to people when they view Google as a company. Not whether Maps has vector graphics.
So, yeah, for the purposes of this discussion, I do discount technical, low-visibility innovation. If we are talking purely about technology, then sure, Google is probably an innovation leader.
Re: Expunging Google
#133owncloud was an interesting item on his replacement list. Has anyone else used owncloud and can vouch for it? If so, are you self-hosting it or using a commercial host? If the latter, which one?
I was mildly interested in it until I saw the letters PHP, then lost interest.
Re: Expunging Google
#134Google Talk uses an open protocol, XMPP. So basically any client that support XMPP should (hopefully) work with Google Talk. This means you wouldn't have to migrate your friends / family over to a new client but you can still expunge Google's IM client specifically.
Google just recently reinstated federated XMPP for their Google Talk service [1] so you can talk to peers on other XMPP servers. I use an XMPP server that has been provided to me by my e-mail provider (lavabit.com) to chat with my friends/family that use Google Talk without any issues.
[1] http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-April/001672...
Re: Expunging Google
#135I try to avoid these sorts of submissions, mainly because of their non-content and the subsequent familiar discussion, but somehow they keep reaching the front page. It’s certainly your prerogative to use whatever you like but the incorrect assertions bother me, especially the prevalent one: “It's because I think that Google is now working against the potential of the open web”. Here’s a rebuttal in the form of a par…
Here’s a rebuttal in the form of a partial list of links to Google
initiatives that exist primarily to advance the “open web”:
http://www.chromium.org
So now it's "standards" even though it hasn't been submitted, ratified or approved yet. And everyone else, if they dont want Google's stuff to work poorly in their browser, has to be a dog and follow Google's leash.
I consider Chromium some of the worst damage Google has done to the open web.
Re: Expunging Google
#136This is not conscious consumerism. This is a childish temper tantrum. Chrome has better developer tools. If your job is being a web dev and you purposely make your job harder because you're mad at Google for shutting down Reader, you're not being rational.
I've never found Firebug to be lacking; what do the Chrome developer tools have that make it impossible to stop using Chrome? In my experience Chrome is a PITA for web development due to its weirdly aggressive caching. I thought people were just making it up a few months back, but I experienced it recently and it's infuriating.
Shift+Reload takes care of all caching issues.
It's hard to nail down the difference between Chrome Dev Tools and Firebug with just one thing. For me it's not one killer feature it's a quality of life issue. It's all the little things that, IMHO, Chrome Dev Tools does right.
I have no problem using Firebug or even the Firefox Inspector when needed to actually find a Firefox specific problem but for working day in and day out, I prefer the experience of the Chrome Dev Tools.
Re: Expunging Google
#137I love these articles and seeing alternatives to mainstream solutions but focusing on alternatives for a single company is not the end goal for me. You can go with Apple, Google or Microsoft and get a nice packaged solution for email, calendar, contacts, music, storage, etc and the end goal for me would not be switching to separate packages. The end goal would be to have a self-hosted easy to install and solution, OwnCloud is almost there for 90% of what I want but it doesn't maintain my email. There is no solution for me unless it's easy and all works seamlessly together, like Google and the rest have.
Re: Expunging Google
#138Note that you can often get jabber/xmpp from your email provider: e.g. https://www.fastmail.fm/help/features_chat.html
Re: Expunging Google
#139Even assuming Google is not being malicious--and I think that's a broadly safe assumption--I'm still concerned. I'm am significantly over-reliant on Google's serviced: my email, my calendar, my OpenID, my web search, my videos, my phone, my maps, my web browser... (Well, I do use Firefox now.) It's a single point of failure. A rather scary one at that. Some of these things do not have good alternatives. My phone? I c…
Yeah, this was my thought process too (although I do use an iPhone unfortunately). The only point I'd add is that it seems unlikely that Google will move to be more open and more privacy conscious; any change seems likely to go the other direction (for obvious and understandable business purposes, not, as you said, maliciousness).
Re: Expunging Google
#140Google's primary objective is not money, but information gathering and control. The move to Google+ is a centralisation of the information repository. Google Glass is an attempt at getting more detailed personal information. The autonomous vehicle development is for them to control your vehicle.