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“Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

vivaldi.com

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Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#151

Post by rconti »

Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

All one has to do is look at the abomination that Google turned Images Search into. Or the Print dialog in Chrome. or...

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#152

Post by Ndymium »

klondike_ wrote: post #39

I wish I could use Vivaldi, it seems like a nice browser for power users. Unfortunately it's closed source (besides the Webkit parts). Considering how much sensitive information goes through a browser nowadays, I would never consider something closed source. I'm sure Vivaldi has no intentions of becoming "evil" like Google, but because of its closed source nature it wouldn't be hard to slip a tracker or two in the br…

Vivaldi is readable source, though, as the non-chromium parts are made with HTML and JS that are not obfuscated AFAIK. So it's the same trust factor as open source, albeit with probably somewhat less people looking at the source (plenty do tinker with the code, though, to modify their browser).

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#153

Post by _pmf_ »

emmelaich wrote: post #137
andosa wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a multihundred billion dollar web company doesn't have the dev resources to support Firefox? Even though it already works when you spoof the agent string?

They are a multihundred billion dollar web company because they carefully manage their resources.

Dozens of product duds speak a different language.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#154

Post by themacguffinman »

deadowl wrote: post #122
freedomben wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I respectfully disagree that "we the general public" don't really care about a company's size. I know a lot of people who will not adopt an app or product until the company has proven and/or established itself in the market. I think this describes a lot of Apple users who won't adopt new products until Apple gets in the game (the Apple watch being a recent example). A lot of people want a seamless and connected exper…

And the XMPP Federation couldn't provide that ideal?

Of course it couldn't. Messaging was moving very rapidly with new features like stickers, reactions, expiring messages, phone number IDs, SMS fallback, stories, bots...and all of this had to be presented a very integrated and user-friendly package. You simply can't move that fast (or move much at all) with a huge standard like XMPP with 20 different clients that barely change.

Not to mention that in this capitalist society, messaging services are incentivized to grow at all cost because user-base is the best fuel for monetization. Holding onto XMPP federation like Google did in XMPP's final years of relevancy would be suicide; you would be helping your competitors while gaining nothing.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#155

Post by talideon »

fyrstenberg wrote: post #22
Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

I discovered this as well. Not only, they're faking it with the new YouTube design as well. I had to set my user agent to Chrome to get the new dark theme (it may have changed later). I did try different user-agents using AgentX[1] and with Edge UA they said the new look wouldn't work (or in effect something along those lines), so there is not much actual feature check going on. Only setting Chrome would give me all…

Regarding the dark theme, could that be down to the version of FF? I'm running 55.0.2, and didn't have to do anything except toggle a switch in the settings to get it.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#156

Post by dblohm7 »

akerl_ wrote: post #13
tryingagainbro wrote: post #3

Vivaldi CEO – “Google: it is time to return to not being evil” Me: that train has left the station. When you have monopoly power (70%-98% of market share) the governments should return Google and Whatever Corp to not being evil.

It seems like companies are stuck in a losing game. We constantly push small companies to capture more market share. Any companies that fold during that effort, we bring out the pitchforks because the services they ran get shut off. Any companies that succeed , we bring out the pitchforks because they own too much market power. It seems a bit much that we ask for companies to constantly grow and simultaneously ensure…

It's usually not the market share itself that is the problem; it is when the company uses that market share to take anticompetitive actions in other markets that we have a problem.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#157

Post by studentrob »

_tulpa wrote: post #146
studentrob wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In this case you're "paying" with your data, which has even less voting power because you can't even opt out of that payment just by not using their services. You'd pretty much have to stop using the internet entirely. Huh? You can use Firefox, Bing and another email provider.

Okay, so you want to opt out of all google services and data harvesting. In addition to replacing chrome, search, and gmail, drive, maps, calendar, youtube, allo, duo, keep, hangouts, etc, etc you must also: - Never send/receive email to/from anyone else with a gmail address. You're still providing your data even if this one won't affect you directly. - Block third-party tracking on websites and advertisements which…

> So through a buttload of effort and some domain specific knowledge you can exercise some percentage (probably less than 100%) of your wallet vote which was worth 3/10ths of nothing to begin with. You have to be a tech-savvy idealist to go through with it, and that demographic is never going to be big enough to force a massive corporation to self regulate against their own best interests.

Making sure a consumer's data reaches no part of a given company sounds highly impractical.

What you describe is an extremely broad scope of "opt-out". By your definition, you couldn't opt out of any company without very detailed knowledge of the company. For example, whenever you make a purchase, or just walk into a store, that data ends up in multiple parties' hands.

I doubt there is precedent for using antitrust law to allow consumers to make such refined choices. How useful would it be to silo the world in such a way?

We're not privy to the amount of data being collected within companies. Even if you break up one company that collects data, what's to stop 100 others from doing the same, particularly those in other countries?

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#158

Post by Zhyl »

themacguffinman wrote: post #154
deadowl wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the XMPP Federation couldn't provide that ideal?

Of course it couldn't. Messaging was moving very rapidly with new features like stickers, reactions, expiring messages, phone number IDs, SMS fallback, stories, bots...and all of this had to be presented a very integrated and user-friendly package. You simply can't move that fast (or move much at all) with a huge standard like XMPP with 20 different clients that barely change. Not to mention that in this capitalist s…

But by that same token, could it be possible for a new standard which incorporates all those features to become viable when the messaging space has stabalised?

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#159

Post by mitja_belak »

Finally someone other than random bloggers dared saying it clear.

And its not just monopoly over advertising. Lately they are in business of censoring political 'wrongthink' on one hand and prioritizing the management & friends political views in mainstream search.

I don't think Google will change anything on its own though and its sad to see a neutral company of engeeners turn into power hungry megacorp.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#160

Post by RijilV »

mistermann wrote: post #131
freehunter wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget the time they refused to make a YouTube app for Windows Phone and when Microsoft made one, Google forced them to remove it. And then seemingly in retribution for making the app, Google blocked Windows Phone from being able to access Google Maps even though the browser was technically capable of using it. Google's reasoning was (similarly to another comment here) "it's too hard to check functionality…

Google has better lobbyists. Government legislation is mostly purchased and "negotiated", voting has very little to do with it.

That's actually not true... I ended up sitting next to a tech lobbyist on a 5 hour flight and we chatted about tech and politics for most of the flight. Google's lobbying strategy is to come in and dump a bunch of money to fix an immediate problem. They don't keep up the pressure - aka they aren't getting people use to the steady flow of "lobbying", it is all reactionary.

This just encourages folks on the receiving side to come up with situations for google to panic over then reap the predictable "lobbying".

Other companies across industries approach things differently- they get their targets hooked on a steady stream of "lobbying" and use the withdrawal of that as leverage.

Microsoft is actually quiet good at lobbying and has been successful on many fronts to keep their products and services the dominant solution for US government systems.

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