PSA: DuckDuckGo is just a Bing frontend. So you’re out of the frying pan and into the fire. The only really independent option is Brave Search. It also happens to have better relevance than Bing, in my experience.
De-googling, so far
161–170 of 197 posts
Re: De-googling, so far
#162The impetus for my years long (i.e., lazy) effort to de-Google wasn't just about the privacy issues but that those seemed to stem from an utter lack of empathy for users overall. In other words, it was recognizing an intolerable pattern of behavior, which seemed inevitable that it would cause me actual, material harm in some way eventually.
I was very much in the Google ecosystem and although privacy became an increasing concern, the final push for me was the horror stories who had their accounts suspended or were otherwise locked out with no recourse.
Re: De-googling, so far
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because this stalking happens invisibly in the guts of a Javascript file it doesn't make it any different than following me around every street I walk down and noting down everything I look at. Here's the metaphor. Google offers free video cameras to any person who wants them. The cameras collect thousands of data points about every single person who enters their field of view. The cameras pick up every movement…
So tl;dr the actual practical impact is just that you see more relevant ads when you’re visiting websites.
I understand the argument of “what’s the practical impact”
Practical impact is important to recognize but the concept of potential impact, otherwise known as risk, is most certainly valid; having the most intimate details of your identity stored outside of your own control can have profound risks for any bad actor especially when our methods of securing our identities haven’t kept up with the pace of it being collected.
Re: De-googling, so far
#164Is there any good alternative to google voice? It's the only google service I haven't been able to replace yet.
I've been using Numberbarn. I've been liking it so far, no issues to report. However, I've only been using it for two months now. Also, similar to Google Voice, some businesses won't let you use a VOIP number for your phone number.
I've been using GV for over a decade. It's the last Google service that I still use regularly. I use mailinabox for my email/contacts/calendar/drive. I've looked, and there aren't any drop-in substitutes for GV. I've had a Number Barn account with two phone numbers for a few years. They seem to provide better voice quality than most alternatives, but their SMS integration is poor. I'm not sure if they even do voicemail, but I don't think they do.
Re: De-googling, so far
#165I would really love to run GrapheneOS (or some other Android OS that can prevent a lot of Google's built-in spying), but broken Android Auto, Google Pay, and a bunch of other things would be a complete showstopper for me. It makes me really sad that I've come to rely on a bunch of things that just aren't available at all through open software.
The official Android Auto app works on GrapheneOS as an extension to sandboxed Google Play. We don't have our own implementation yet and it's not planned in the near term but it is available. Google Pay doesn't allow alternate operating systems but it does work on GrapheneOS from a technical perspective, it just doesn't allow using it in practice without pretending to be the stock OS on a legacy Google-certified Android device without support for hardware attestation. Most banks have their own tap-to-pay implementation in Europe but that largely got phased out in the US.
Re: De-googling, so far
#166I would really love to run GrapheneOS (or some other Android OS that can prevent a lot of Google's built-in spying), but broken Android Auto, Google Pay, and a bunch of other things would be a complete showstopper for me. It makes me really sad that I've come to rely on a bunch of things that just aren't available at all through open software.
Is there no bank with their own mobile payment app where you live?
In some regions, banks stopped supporting their own tap-to-pay systems or they never even got widely adopted in the first place. It's much better in the EU than the US, where most banks still have their own tap-to-pay.
Re: De-googling, so far
#167Is there any good alternative to google voice? It's the only google service I haven't been able to replace yet.
I switched to jmp.chat a few months ago and have been impressed. You can even pay anonymously with crypto and have multiple numbers using a single app and billing account.
Looks interesting. I got as far as where it asked me to pay them $15, which I'm reluctant to do without first trying out the service. How does one receive a Referral code?
Re: De-googling, so far
#168Why is this hard? Since I quit offering a Chrome plug-in, my last connection to a Google account is gone. I should cancel my Google account, if and when I find the password. I post videos on Hardlimit, which uses PeerTube. I don't care about "discovery"; they're to illustrate blog postings elsewhere. So all I need is hosting and playout, which Peertube does just fine. (Peertube handles playout by mooching bandwidth o…
What's your email provider?
Outgoing is Sonic.
Incoming is a site of my own, "animats.com".
Re: De-googling, so far
#169It really takes effort to scrub oneself of big-tech. I don’t know how non-HN-types are supposed to do it. My weak point has been Apple Photos. It “just works” for me and I really appreciate that it does all processing for faces, cats, etc. locally and in a native app. Every other option I find either doesn’t do syncing, offers an Electron app, or forces viewing through a browser. Does anyone know of a solution that f…
Well, do you have the hardware to self-host? People nowadays usually are not okay with 1 week of downloading a torrent like it was in 2005. That is probably how long the embedding will take on your cpu for all the video/picture files?
Ya I have hardware and already self-host some services.
Re: De-googling, so far
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because this stalking happens invisibly in the guts of a Javascript file it doesn't make it any different than following me around every street I walk down and noting down everything I look at. Here's the metaphor. Google offers free video cameras to any person who wants them. The cameras collect thousands of data points about every single person who enters their field of view. The cameras pick up every movement…
okay but you do realize they give you there products to use right. and you probably use them or at least use products that need them to function. thats the deal and i doubt anyone would rather it be for cash instead. i mean would you rather pay monthly for chrome or firefox? pay per google search. pay monthy for youtube. pay for android os. monthly for maps. hell google can stare at my naked ass all day for all i car…
> id rather not pay for any of these things
...and many of us would simply rather not use Google products if that's the deal they're offering. Hence, the original article link.