151–160 of 175 posts
Cool. Now show me how you're going to expunge server-side Google Analytics from your life.
If you mean replacing analytics for your website, piwik is the answer : http://piwik.org/ If you mean not being tracked by analytics, well, it's quite simple : # cat /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com googleadservices.com edit: formatting
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Would love to see some market-share breakdowns. Still, that's pretty huge. I expected them to bigger at video, but I guess there is a pretty long tail of smaller providers such as Vimeo and Liveleak and what not? > And when they attempt to get out of markets so that other new companies can perform better I really doubt that they canceled Reader for such altruistic reasons. > And how are you sure that FastMail and Vim…
I expected them to bigger at video, but I guess there is a pretty long tail of smaller providers such as Vimeo and Liveleak and what not? Also, porn.
When I registered on Quora by using my GoogleId, I was very surprised to see Quora asking me to send an email invite to all my Android phone contacts. Google handed over all the emails of my Android phone contacts to Quora ! Is this what I get from using Android and synchronization ? I didn't see an opt out of that. I'm now waiting for Ubuntu phone, while hoping that they don't try to monetize it using similar abuse…
No, that's what you get when you don't read the permissions you are granting. Here is the permission request I saw: Quora is requesting permission to: View basic information about your account View your email address Manage your contacts Given that, you shouldn't be at all surprised that Quora was able to figure out your phone contacts.
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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…
As an original GrandCentral user, I take this as a complete insult. Google bought GrandCentral and removed features. So chalk this one up to negative innovation.
I don't know about replacing Google with DDG. I'd prefer an engine that actually does its own indexing. Yandex is the only alternative that fits the bill in my mind: http://www.yandex.com Also, so happy to learn about ownCloud. As a developer, I'm a little disappointed to see AGPL licensing, but it's probably a smart choice and I use that license in some projects.
DDG actually pulls its results from Yandex and several other sources. Why limit yourself to a single, old-fashioned crawler, when you can use one of the most innovative meta-search engines? http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399
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Could you explain how Apple is malicious? That's quite an assertion and not one I've previously heard.
Going 'thermonuclear' over product competition capricious, callus, and combative app store submission process anti-competitive & likely-illegal publication conspiracy hoarding profits overseas and refusing to pay taxes for the environment that spawned their successes. censorship of users media
You raise several points, so I'm going to try and respond to them all:
1. Going 'thermonuclear' over product competition. This is the behaviour which best fits the definition of "malicious", namely "having or showing a desire to cause harm to someone". Without taking a personal position here, I'd point out that Apple thought that what Google did was not simply "competition".
2. Capricious, callus [sic] and combative app store submission process: It's certainly true that the App Store process is non-ideal, but I don't think this is malicious, however it feels to be on the receiving end. Never ascribe to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by incompetence. I grant you that any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
3. Anti-Competitive and likely-illegal publication conspiracy To whom is malice being intended here? Not the customers. Not the publishers. Amazon perhaps, but only in the sense that Apple is trying to create competition. Amazon appears to be destroying the value in the book market in order to establish a near monopoly on eBooks. Of course, it's hard to pity the publishers when they're the ones who insisted on DRM in the first place and turned it into a winner-take-all game.
4. Hoarding profits overseas. To whom are they being malicious? This appears to be pretty standard activity.
5. Refusing to pay taxes for the environment that spawned their successes. What kind of taxes are you talking about? What environment?
6. Censorship of users media I'm pretty sure I can copy whatever I like onto an iPad, iPhone or Mac without Apple removing it again, unless I missed a particularly juicy scandal (perhaps Apple censored it from my news feed). Do you mean that they limit what can be sold through their store? I think most store holders retain that right, including Amazon.
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> HN on several occassionas 3 if I count correctly: Reader closedown (which, in my opinion, not a hit to open web at all), XMPP Federation issue (It's fixed now) and CalDAV whitelist (Not closedown, whitelist).
They dropped the Microsoft Exchange format for syncing contacts in favor of the open cardDAV format, so that's one piece of data the points in the other direction. [Edit: originally typed "calendars" instead of "contacts".]
For free customers. It's still there for us paying customers. Google pays Microsoft a licensing fee for use of the EAS specs.
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No, that's what you get when you don't read the permissions you are granting. Here is the permission request I saw: Quora is requesting permission to: View basic information about your account View your email address Manage your contacts Given that, you shouldn't be at all surprised that Quora was able to figure out your phone contacts.
I agree but this means that I can't register in quora with my googleId without giving Quora all my emails. Since I don't use facebook and twitter what options are left ? I do want to use googleId authentication to access Quora but why would that imply I have to give all my emails to Quora ? Why can't I decide about that ? Why is Google imposing that to me ? Is this a commercial deal between Google and Quora ?
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> HN on several occassionas 3 if I count correctly: Reader closedown (which, in my opinion, not a hit to open web at all), XMPP Federation issue (It's fixed now) and CalDAV whitelist (Not closedown, whitelist).
Doesn't whitelisting amount to closing of interface? They may very well use the CalDav protocol which is open, but how good is it if the consumption interface is not open?
From hearsay, I understand it's reasonably easy to get on the whitelist if you're a moderately-known app developer or a legit institution. This would lead me to believe Google's reasons are less nefarious in this case.
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Diversification is a good idea, but the cost seems higher than the benefit in this case. Let's say Google becomes evil and makes Android and Chrome evil: the solution is simple, fork Android and Chromium and continue on without the evil additions. Or, don't upgrade. If you "diversify" now , though, you miss out on cool Chrome features, or you spend your weekend maintaining a web browser fork when you could be at the…
> If you "diversify" now, though, you miss out on cool Chrome features, or you spend your weekend maintaining a web browser fork when you could be at the beach. Sorry but what you are saying doesn't make sense. It is your proposal (fork when Chrome turns evil) which could end up with him maintaining a web browser fork on the weekend. "[M]iss out on cool Chrome features" ... well you miss out on cool Firefox features…
How, exactly? In some cases, waiting seems to be cheaper.
For example, I've always regularly backed up my Reader's OPML, so I could leave anytime, but I'm still on Reader because this way I am waiting out things like Feedly's downtime, letting them iron out import bugs and complaints from less patient Reader refugees, letting people try out the various options and blog about how they are working out over a period longer than a day, etc. When Reader shuts down in June and I finally leave, won't it be cheaper for me to switch to the next-best alternative because I have waited?