11–20 of 53 posts
The main thing is that I decided to use Google. I don't even pay Google for the service. If they want to use some information to run ads that might hopefully be relevant, then good for them. I never click ads and I usually use ad blockers anyway.
Honestly Google hasn't really become toxic yet. If something changes where I know for a fact that Google having my information is detrimental in some valid way, then maybe my opinion will change. The main thing is that I decided to use Google. I don't even pay Google for the service. If they want to use some information to run ads that might hopefully be relevant, then good for them. I never click ads and I usually u…
I trust Google to honor their terms of service which is all we can really ask for I think. Outside of that, I trust them as much as any other large company with a profit motive. Which is to say about as much as I trust my dog watching the Thanksgiving turkey while it cools.
Things like Gmail and Google Voice weren't a particularly big deal to me. Fastmail is more then reasonable of a replacement for mail, and in place of Voice, well, unlimited long distance isn't all that hard to get. In lieu of call distribution, I'll just forward them manually if I need to be reached somewhere else.
As for search, I stopped searching the web regularly in about 2008, directly searching Wikipedia, Youtube, Google images, Wolfram alpha, and Amazon directly from the URL bar with bookmark keywords.
I posted recently about how they lost my trust after snaring schools with offers of free email and Chromebooks, used that captive audience of kids to secretively build profiles to show ads, denied it when caught, but chickened out about lying in federal court and now they declare they've stopped doing it. Add to that statements that it couldn't be turned off and silently switching language about tracking on their web…
So to everyone saying there is no good alternative - out of curiosity, what are other services missing? Things like Gmail and Google Voice weren't a particularly big deal to me. Fastmail is more then reasonable of a replacement for mail, and in place of Voice, well, unlimited long distance isn't all that hard to get. In lieu of call distribution, I'll just forward them manually if I need to be reached somewhere else.
So to everyone saying there is no good alternative - out of curiosity, what are other services missing? Things like Gmail and Google Voice weren't a particularly big deal to me. Fastmail is more then reasonable of a replacement for mail, and in place of Voice, well, unlimited long distance isn't all that hard to get. In lieu of call distribution, I'll just forward them manually if I need to be reached somewhere else.