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Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
101–110 of 324 posts
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#102You have to be biting your tongue awfully hard to shoot off "Google is, in other words, the new AOL." He admits all of the services are not complete alternatives, save for maybe RSS readers. In other words, either 99% of users can't manage to use these non-alternatives for reasons like calendar and contacts not syncing, or they already don't use the product like RSS, or they definitely won't be able to run their own…
MS sucked
This is not going to be a popular view, but here goes anyway...
Depends. I've been using Outlook Web Access since it was first released. Granted, you need Exchange, but these days Outlook.com provides similar functionality (or so I'm told - I use Exchange Online now).
That said, the most useful calendar I've found is Family Room on Windows Phone. I share it with my girlfriend, who has an iPhone, and it works insanely well for us.
I have to use Gmail at work, and find it to be the most obtuse email UX I've ever encountered.
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#103If you need calendar and contacts synchronization, a hosted Exchange account might fit your needs. For example, Microsoft sells accounts with 25GB storage for $4 per user and month.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/msproducts/exchange/compar...
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#104I've been working on removing myself from the Google silo for the past few months. It's tough, and the alternatives just aren't as good or convenient as what Google offers, but I think it's an important thing to do at least on principle. I found Owncloud to be difficult to install and very buggy. For self-hosted CalDAV/CardDAV, I chose Baikal ( http://http://baikal-server.com/ ) instead of Radicale. It seemed easier…
I'm working on this right now! It's going to integrate with both Amazon S3 for file storage and Amazon Glacier for backup. I hope to get it working with the BitTorrent Sync protocol so I don't have to write my own app that watches a dir and uploads files to the server.
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such as?
Hiding protocol in the URL bar. Fading the server "file path" after a domain name. Tabs in the title bar. Non-native look. No menu toolbar. Status bar. And those are just the ones I'm aware of.
Tabs in the title bar is a better UI decision. The URL box belongs to the tab, so it should be part of the tab. Your objection here seems to be 'Firefox mimicked Chrome and this is a bad thing', rather than these things being objectively bad.
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's about paying for services you use so the businesses that provide those services can have a sustainable business model. I'm not a crazy person who hates ads in gmail (see http://www.maxmasnick.com/2012/02/12/gmail_paranoia/ ), but I do believe in paying for things so that the incentives for a company align with what's best for me as a user.
> It's about paying for services you use so the businesses that provide those services can have a sustainable business model. I can pay for services I use with Google. If I decide that I would prefer to pay for services, why should I choose a non-Google provider?
You shouldn't, assuming you're happy with the service Google provides. If you're on Google Apps and like it, then you're set!
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#107I'd never heard of Lavabit before; it looks like they're still operational, although their website hasn't been updated much since around 2007. Looks interesting. I'd really like to see a high-quality secure email provider get wide adoption.
It's unfortunate that they've closed registrations, with no indication as to when they'll reopen.
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#108Anyone using hosted.im? I'm planning to switch to that one too. Moved away from mail / calendars etc a while ago. Talk has been keeping me attached. If I switch my domain to another XMPP provider using the same email address as in my google apps account, will the migration be seamless for my contacts (who are still using Google talk)?
I'm using hosted.im with my own domain. It works fine, except you can't add GTalk contacts right now, since Google is blocking incoming contact requests from other servers.
I doubt your contacts will migrate unless you do it on the client side.
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's charitable but Google really has been behaving as an evil actor lately. Just because they have essentially unlimited resources doesn't mean that they should be immune to critique.
No, it's not evil to make or ask for money to use your product; it's not evil to discontinue services, especially not with 6-24 month advanced warning; and it's not evil to literally want to be the omnipresent center of everyone's lives. How exactly is Google evil? Their resources have not stopped lesser alternatives from doing business, even with a core product (eg. search) of their's, so it's not that. DuckDuckGo i…
> How exactly is Google evil?
Well, there's an account out there with my real name tied to it that I never wanted to happen and to this day have no idea how it got there. I don't have a Google + account. Probably there was something that I clicked when I was tying my mobile phone to my Google account or something. I can't find any way to delete it either.
My YouTube account keeps telling me I should use my real name there as well....
Basically they try to make you give them things - they're an invasive presence. Does this make them evil? I don't know, I don't care. People who want to argue about good and evil are often avoiding arguing about the real issues, like whether someone's a nasty piece of work, or whether they're being abusive. When someone behaves like a scoundrel you know what sort of person they are, whether you can call them evil or not. What I do know is that my next phone is not going to be an android phone - and, when it isn't, I'll delete my google account entirely. I don't want people who treat me like that in my life. They make me feel dirty for associating with them.
Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more
#110It would be really great if somebody wrapped up all the open source material available and made an image available to AWS and other VPS users. Use the image, have email, an XMPP server, etc -- out of the box. On your own dime. I'd pay for it.