What can you use instead of Google and Facebook? • Hacker News Board

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#211

Post by dnpp123 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

edraferi wrote: post #202

dnpp123 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, things are still moving fast. AFAIK the final 1.0 version of the protocol spec was only released last Summer. The "I missed message because I only use xxx for that one thing" is valid for every app as long as you have fragmentation in the messaging space I think. That's why I like the idea of using the same client for a multitude of services through bridges, and not forcing people to necessarily use your network…

How do you deliver end-to-end encryption in a federated architecture like that?

You can peek at : https://matrix.org/docs/develop/ tldr; similar to signal afaik

The docs there for E2E are fairly old but get you an idea how it works. E2E has improved a lot in the last few months IMHO.

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#212

Post by underthensun » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:08 PM UTC

dnpp123 wrote: post #99

annadane wrote: post #36

It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously

For messaging, I highly encourage people to use matrix.org. For tech savvy people it's really easy to self-host https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy and the good part is that you can set up bridges to telegram, whatsapp, facebook, irc, discord, slack... So you can use those apps privately while waiting for people to switch to better alternatives (which may never happens sadly). Bonus: the deskto…

I was relly looking for something like that. I'll give a try!

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#213

Post by brewdad » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

auiya wrote: post #179

Jommi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're living in a US bubble.

Agree. I've heard WhatsApp usage worldwide is huge, but I'm in the US, and I don't know a single person who uses it.

Funny enough, the only friends I chat with on WhatsApp are US expats living in Europe for the last couple of years.

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#214

Post by gravitas » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:17 PM UTC

viklove wrote: post #169

kodt wrote: post #129

When 90% of the people you email are on Gmail or GSuite does Proton mail really help? Yeah you get end to end encryption for other Proton mail users, but I don't know a single one. Google is going to have all of my emails anyway. As for Facebook it is best just to quit. I don't even use Facebook to keep in touch with friends anymore. The value in Facebook is some of the groups. Local neighborhood groups seem to be th…

> When 90% of the people you email are on Gmail or GSuite does Proton mail really help? This is such a common, but strange attitude to have in these circumstances. Think about how user migration works. It's not like it happens overnight and suddenly your 100% gmail contact list is 100% proton. No, it goes from 100% to 99%, then continues to 92%, then to 75%, and so on. Having this defeatist attitude guarantees that b…

I don't think it's necessarily a strange attitude, just more about what people might use email for versus what they might use instant messaging for - which target audience. My Signal experience mirrors yours, as I think folks really don't care too awful much which app is used, so long as everyone can use it together to chat/communicate as possible work peers, friends or family.

Email, however, is the line item on every single one of my bills (utility, credit, etc.), my mortgage, my doctors, my bank accounts - a cornerstone of what it takes to live in our modern society. Migrating to a new email address is daunting (to me) due to all these arms and legs having had this email address in use for ... 2 decades? (however long GMail has been around). It can be done, but it's a lot more work to go through for the average individual than just installing a new app.

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#215

Post by brewdad » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

kodt wrote: post #171

Jommi wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're living in a US bubble.

I admit that but switching to Signal does me no good if no-one I know uses it. I am not saying no-one should switch.

At least Signal is seamless once you set it up. I use it for all of my SMS/MMS messages even though my immediate family and a couple of other contacts are the only Signal users I text.

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#216

Post by silentsea90 » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:24 PM UTC

How does search work for end to end encrypted apps/email? If they can't read it, they can't index it either. Does the index live locally?

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#217

Post by stevenicr » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:26 PM UTC

have_faith wrote: post #24

I'm actually building an alternative to Facebook for people fed up with Facebook and just want to stay in touch with people and not much more. I would go as far as calling it a glorified address book with some extra features for having up-to-date contact details for everyone that has granted you the privilege of having them and a very cut down version of the feed. Which brings me to the question of monetisation. I do…

the only way I figure it's gonna work is to charge $20 / month for an 'instance' maybe two of them... this way a group of friends can have a private one and a family can have another private one.. at 20 per month for the group they can all chip in, or one person can pay for the whole group.

should be easy with upgrade option if storage gets huge, with the option to auto-download / export old data and keep it lean.

I've been thinking of doing this for years, but have not found the right people to box up a wp+bp combo with a couple extra plugins and settings that can deploy automatically like softalicious.. or one of those one-click DO deploy type things

one day.. the pieces are all there already, just gotta put em together.

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#218

Post by stanferder » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:27 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #64

reaperducer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at about 90% Duck these days, and 10% Google. But I'm not sure it's because Duck got better, or because Google got worse. Google's results just seem less and less useful for the kinds of searches I do. A recent example: There was a news event near where I live earlier this week. It made national headlines briefly. Yesterday I wanted to know if there was anything new about it. So I hit the duck with my search quer…

Google got too polluted with adverts it became intolerable. More or less across the board.

Someone should start a company called "Google 2010".

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#219

Post by tyfon » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:27 PM UTC

My extended family and I are using diasp.eu (a diaspora pod) with paid accounts.

So far it's been working fine, we only need it to share photos in a closed environment.

I haven't had an account at facebook since around 2012.

Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

#220

Post by pramodzion » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

I know this is not an exact replacement for Facebook, but y'all should check https://storry.io We are also planning to add a lot of cool features including end-to-end encrypted chat system.