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Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

kkinder.com

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Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#281

Post by kenkinder »

morsch wrote: post #249
kenkinder wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the OP, let me respond. I'm not suggesting that Google is evil. What I am saying is, these products don't work for me and the reason they don't work is that they aren't interoperable with my own desktop software, or the rest of the Internet. I actually do use desktop calendaring software which will stop working this summer. I communicate with people via XMPP who are not on Talk. I used to use Listen and Reader. I'…

Thanks for the post. What're you doing about Listen? I've been happily using it even after they've discontinued it. But I assume it'll stop working for good once Reader is shut down. I've seen other Podcast apps on my friends' phones who weren't "grandfathered" into Listen, and I'm not impressed.

I skipped over that because there are actually pretty straightforward choices in Play Store. I switched to BeyondPod, but I'm hearing good things about AntennaPod.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#282

Post by lucian1900 »

rogerchucker wrote: post #261
white_devil wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am OK with paying with my information. To be more accurate, you're paying with your privacy . Of course, "information" does sound more pleasant.

That's where you (and by some extension most computer science people) are completely off-base. You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me. It is a social construct. I have a select set of information that I do not want in the hands of a select group of people - THAT constitutes MY privacy.

But by volunteering all the information you are privy to, you are almost certainly violating the idea of privacy of one of the people you know.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#283

Post by mseebach »

bad_user wrote: post #252
rogerchucker wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer these services free and have no problem being tracked for more personalized ads. I don't wanna pay with my wallet - I am OK with paying with my information.

By principle I prefer software that's free as in freedom of speech and services that are managed by non-profits. However, you're not talking about "free as in freedom of speech", but rather about being a cheap bastard. Nothing wrong with that, I am and will always be a cheap bastard myself. BUT sometimes being cheap is different from being frugal and can have a negative effect on your bottom line. My Dropbox subscrip…

Huh? Google is happy to give me a very good free e-mail account if I let them process my e-mail and serve me ads. I'm perfectly fine with that, so I'm taking the deal. Similar deals exist for calendar and talk (for which, admittedly, I have limited use for - my work Outlook calendar is canon and I have maybe two persons I IM with on Google Talk).

How does that make me a 'cheap bastard'? In fact, I've been looking around, and my conclusion is that if I were to pay for my e-mail with another provider, I'd be paying more for an inferior product.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#284

Post by amirmc »

jpadkins wrote: post #272
bad_user wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By principle I prefer software that's free as in freedom of speech and services that are managed by non-profits. However, you're not talking about "free as in freedom of speech", but rather about being a cheap bastard. Nothing wrong with that, I am and will always be a cheap bastard myself. BUT sometimes being cheap is different from being frugal and can have a negative effect on your bottom line. My Dropbox subscrip…

what is inherently better about non-profit running a service? Functionally, the only difference is they can't pay dividends to shareholders. Non-profit's can (and do!) turn profits into executives bonus's or perks, or bloated organizations, etc. Why do you feel a non-profit would run a service better?

Non-profits may not run a service better but it does mean they can't be bought (or it's just more complicated to do so). It can be a clear way to signal the intent behind the organisation and restrict what can be done by the company.

In the UK, it's easy to set up a non-profit as a Company Limited by Guarantee, which has no shares. Such companies can still make profits, but they can't necessarily be distributed to Directors. It doesn't prevent them from making profits or spending them any other way.

For a comparison, see past discussions about Post Haven (re: pledges to "never be acquired") [1]. Had they set up as a non-profit from the beginning, the purpose would have been clearer and enshrined in the company's legal structure. Presumably fewer people would have had cause to question the founders' motives.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5229229

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#285

Post by kenkinder »

slg wrote: post #29
masnick wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The $40/year account gives you 10gb of storage. It's comparable with Google Apps, and really $40/year is a totally fair price for something as important as email.

"and really $40/year is a totally fair price for something as important as email." It isn't about importance, it is about a comparison with its competitors. Drinking water is pretty important, but why pay for $5 worth of bottled water a day when I can pay 5¢ a day for water straight from the tap?

I can drink a glass of water and forget about it. Water is a commodity. Email is not a commodity.

If you use gmail, that becomes your online identity. It's hard to switch. If you use your own domain, you can switch providers without changing addresses, though not without hassle. But switching away from that gmail.com address? It's more than just giving out a new address -- I'm sure that in 1 year, I'll still be getting email at gmail.

So that's the difference. With email, you need to plan way ahead. With water, you don't.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#286

Post by kenkinder »

j-kidd wrote: post #216
mutantmonkey wrote: post #172

The issue he is discussing with ownCloud and timezones is not a limitation that applies to their CalDAV implementation, it is just an issue with their web client. If you use a CalDAV client that supports time zones properly (most do), it will work fine.

I am pretty sure ownCloud web client does have timezone support, but he didn't change the setting. From http://owncloud.org/support/calendars/ > The calendar needs your current position for detecting your timezone. Without the correct timezone there will be a time offset between the events in owncloud and your desktop calendar you synchronise with owncloud. You can also set the timezone manually in the personal setti…

You can change the timezone on the web GUI, but that's just the offset. The issue is that CalDav PUT requests included a timezone, which the server just discards. You can try it yourself. Setup OwnCloud with Lightning or something. Create an event and specify a timezone in the event itself. Close and reopen the app, or use another app, and you'll find that OwnCloud simply truncates the data and stores it as UTC with no adjustment.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#287

Post by rogerchucker »

lucian1900 wrote: post #282
rogerchucker wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where you (and by some extension most computer science people) are completely off-base. You don't get to define what is private for me or what privacy means for me. It is a social construct. I have a select set of information that I do not want in the hands of a select group of people - THAT constitutes MY privacy.

But by volunteering all the information you are privy to, you are almost certainly violating the idea of privacy of one of the people you know.

That's not how it works. My privacy perception has nothing to do with another person's trust in me. And no I did not say I am volunteering ALL the information I am privy to - I did say that I have my boundaries. How I define those boundaries will obviously take into consideration what I think is a mutually understood contract between me and another person. But those boundaries vary from person to person and so it is futile to try to define someone else's privacy perception objectively.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#288

Post by nileshtrivedi »

claudius wrote: post #253
aniket_ray wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm ... XMPP is not being dropped only support for XMPP federation.

And what’s the point of XMPP if you drop federation?

Well, you can continue using third-party XMPP clients like Pidgin.

Federation has the inherent problem of spamming. I think whitelisting domains could have been a way out.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#289

Post by J_Darnley »

xwei wrote: post #134
J_Darnley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lookup, did they hide the " https:// ? And why NOT hide the " http:// ? Oh, I see, You are kidding right? :D

Sorry, you are right. Firefox does not hide https. My bad, but in my defence I've only used new Firefox occasionally.

Re: Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more

#290

Post by justin0 »

voltagex_ wrote: post #169
justin0 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an OSS self-hosted e-mail appliance, I've been using iRedMail. It's built on dovecot/postfix with a decent management interface for free. I run it on Ramnode for 2 bucks a month with no other costs. Works fine.

128mb RAM is enough?

128mb of RAM works for me with clamav turned off.
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