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Alternatives to Google Products

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Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#131

Post by GuB-42 »

groyperist wrote: post #102
GuB-42 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm 2014 ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICloud_leaks_of_celebrity_phot... By comparaison, while there have been a few issues with Google, for a company that processes so much personal data, their track record is excellent. I can't think of any major personal data leak that could be attributed to Google. Maybe Apple got better within these 4 years, TBH, they most likely did. However, I don't consider 4 years to be…

Did you even read the Wiki article you linked to? Even if we ignore your conflation of information security and privacy, the Fappening was not caused by a security breach at Apple, but rather through the use of targeted phishing attacks.

Definitely, and note that GP explicitly mentioned security, which is a good thing because they are tightly linked. You can't have privacy if you don't have security.

The thing is: we often associate ad tracking and (lack of) privacy. It is certainly one aspect, but it is far from the whole picture. The most damaging form of privacy violations are usually not caused by advertisers but first by people who are close to you (ex: revenge porn), and second by hackers (ex: blackmail). I used the fappening as an example because nude pictures are the archetype of private data.

As for targeting phishing, I think companies who take privacy seriously have to do something about it. Phishing is the number one threat users face when it comes to cybersecurity and therefore privacy.

Now comes the debatable part: hackers targeted the iCloud platform, why? Why not Picasa, or Facebook, or whatever place images are stored? My hypothesis is that iCloud was the best target for such an attack, partly because compared to the others, it didn't offer as much anti-phishing security.

EDIT: I just noticed I didn't mention governments. First, for most people in western countries, government is unlikely to be their biggest problem. So I would rather focus on the immediate surroundings (ex: boss, partner, neighbors, etc...). And if the government really is after you, then an Apple solution might be good, but I don't think they are completely turstworthy. They are still bound by the US law after all, and they are not completely zero-knowledge. To make things clear, Google and Facebook are also out in that case.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#132

Post by ocdtrekkie »

citrablue wrote: post #22
timwis wrote: post #3

Anyone know of an alternative email client that sorts your mail intelligently into promotions, updates, forums, primary like Gmail does? That's had such a positive impact on my productivity I can't leave it behind (I've tried).

It's pretty easy (less than 2 hours work per quarter) to build your own filtering system that works similarly effectively. Google built a bunch of ML systems that work by default for everyone. Personally, I just have a bunch of filters setup that do the same thing. Has taken minimal effort but some discipline to file incoming emails based on my own patterns.

This is what I've done as well. Mostly for social updates. Even when I was on Gmail, I found issues using smart labels because they weren't supported by other IMAP clients: It's still one big inbox. So I ended up creating my own filter rules to move them to a different folder. I've done the same for some of the more prolific marketing emails I still want to receive but don't want cluttering my inbox.

(Note that FastMail does have filters that classify your inbox like Gmail: Personal, Notifications, and Mailing Lists. But while I highly recommend FastMail, I don't use those features because the aforementioned manual sorting rules are better, I brought them over when I migrated as well.)

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#133

Post by auslander »

IncRnd wrote: post #116
auslander wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> biggest things you can do for your privacy is ad-blocking / cookie cleaning Very true. But there is no problem with apple, in fact Safari is first browser that is clearing cookies - ITP(2). I use uBlock Origin on Safari and Private browsing - no cookies at all.

Firefox has been able to clear cookies like that for years without any extensions.

Usind default settings or manually?

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#134

Post by Godel_unicode »

lev99 wrote: post #14
miguelrochefort wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I like Microsoft, Bing is awful. Ive used it, and I tried to like it. It can't find anything.

I find bing to be better than any other Google alternatives.

It would be possible for you and your parent comment to be correct simultaneously.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#136

Post by driverdan »

Bucephalus355 wrote: post #30

Recently I started shelling out $25 a month for a G-Suite account. I wish I could have kept my @gmail email address, as I think your own vanity URL looks a little tacky, but oh well. Anyway, for privacy but also security it’s been amazing. DKIM, DMARC, SPF, and S/MIME for mail. All attachments are executed in a special sandbox before moving to your inbox (delays mail a little bit). None of my personal data / content…

> as I think your own vanity URL looks a little tacky

Free domains like gmail.com, hotmail.com, live.com, yahoo.com, etc emails are tacky, lazy, and unprofessional. A domain is less than $10/year. You don't even have to be technical to buy one and use it with G-Suite. There's no excuse to use a free email domain.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#138

Post by Godel_unicode »

bartread wrote: post #43
cosmojg wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that "privacy-focused" tends to be conflated with FLOSS. Rather, it's nearly impossible to guarantee privacy in proprietary software. The transparency of FLOSS makes it trustless. Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code. This is why, when it comes to privacy, Apple isn't worth consideration. All we have is their word, and that simply isn't enough.

> Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code. I find this to be an extremely un-compelling position. A relatively small proportion of the general population has the skills to meaningfully look at the code, never mind the time. Moreover, even for someone who is capable, such an exercise quickly becomes non-trivial on an unfamiliar codebase for an app of any complexity. In many cases…

While I generally agree with you about the soundness of the FOSS==privacy argument, I think you're misstating it subtly. The claim isn't necessarily that the privacy sensitive user specifically will be able to audit the source but rather that someone somewhere will have done, and will have written about problems they uncovered. See also many eyes making all bugs shallow.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#139

Post by driverdan »

newscracker wrote: post #89
ccozan wrote: post #69

Again, like I or others mentioned before. If you don't want to be the product, you just have to pay the equivalent of a beer in month [0]. You need a own domain, but who doesn't these days? [0] https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html

Some people trust a company to outlive their domain registrations, and hence prefer not to use a custom domain. A custom domain, commonly of the format, also leaks personal information every time it’s used, whereas a consumer mail provider domain name doesn’t (as long as one chooses a somewhat random address).

> Some people trust a company to outlive their domain registrations

That doesn't make sense. Domains last for as long as you pay their > A custom domain, commonly of the format, also leaks personal information every time it’s used

It only leaks the info you want it to leak. Want to be pseudo-anonymous? Register something that's not your name. Wow, that was tough.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#140

Post by donatj »

driverdan wrote: post #136
Bucephalus355 wrote: post #30

Recently I started shelling out $25 a month for a G-Suite account. I wish I could have kept my @gmail email address, as I think your own vanity URL looks a little tacky, but oh well. Anyway, for privacy but also security it’s been amazing. DKIM, DMARC, SPF, and S/MIME for mail. All attachments are executed in a special sandbox before moving to your inbox (delays mail a little bit). None of my personal data / content…

> as I think your own vanity URL looks a little tacky Free domains like gmail.com, hotmail.com, live.com, yahoo.com, etc emails are tacky, lazy, and unprofessional. A domain is less than $10/year. You don't even have to be technical to buy one and use it with G-Suite. There's no excuse to use a free email domain.

To me the value is in not having to spell it. When I say @gmail.com no one ever typos that half.
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