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No More Google

nomoregoogle.com

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Re: No More Google

#211

Post by subsubzero »

jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

I did a few years ago. Fed up with their overarching encroachment into my data. Removed Chrome from home laptop, changed search to duckduckgo. On my phone did the same, changed google maps to apple maps, only keeping gmail account(using apple default mail client), but am looking for a free alternative. Did the same for Zuckerberg products as well, deleted intstagram and facebook accounts. Missed nothing doing these actions.

Re: No More Google

#212

Post by stevenhubertron »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #131
jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

Personal anecdote, software engineer/techie for 25+yrs: I never react immediately. Unless directly affected by an event, I accumulate information over time and it will influence my decision making. Reacting is too disruptive to my own life, and those of the people I support (e.g. family.) Would an article like this make my family change? No. Many don't care; most don't understand the impact on themselves. My De-Googl…

I moved to DuckDuckGo years ago, Firefox a year ago, from GA to Goat Counter for my personal sites and recently from GMail to Fastmail. It has been slow, but certainly deliberate.

Re: No More Google

#213

Post by macspoofing »

jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

>I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles

I did get a wake-up call a few years ago when while writing an email in gmail, I accidentally moved a folder with 200 icons, into the new email window, as an attachment (I thought the icons in the folder were zipped up, but they weren't). I realized my mistake almost immediately and closed the browser, but I still hit some internal trigger because my account was immediately suspended. As I frantically tried to find a human to call, the account unsuspended itself after a few minutes. Bullet dodged, lesson (almost) learned.

I am, slowly, figuring out a backup approach and these articles do push me to make those plans more concrete. It is a time-bomb.

I don't mind the automation and the inevitable false-positives, but the fact that there is zero transparency, and you can't get a human online to help you (even if you're a paying customer) is just terrible.

Re: No More Google

#214

Post by mxuribe »

blunte wrote: post #66
jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

I moved my many domains and many of my clients' domains and mail hosting to Zoho. I looked at Fastmail at the time, but there was one showstopper which I forget (and should revisit). That said, I have found Zoho to be very reliable and reasonably responsive to support issues. And their pricing is very reasonable, imo. For data, I use Tresorit. They have a great, if premium priced, alternative to gdrive, onedrive, etc…

I'm running a test with paid zoho currently (been going for a few months) to see if they're dependable. I bought a test domain name, and signed with their $1 USD/month plan...so far, quite good. I'm somewhat sold...the only reason i haven't taken the plunge yet is i've been distracted at work, so haven't planned out my migration. (i have so much email that i want to plan this delicately.)

Re: No More Google

#215

Post by tracker1 »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #127
enriquto wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of Google shenanigans, cutting youtube off your life is a pretty good move (as well as reddit, twitter and the like).

Yup. Wise words. I miss pre-2015 Twitter. I interacted with a lot of fellow devs across the world. Who I would often meet IRL at conferences. It was super enjoyable and valuable. Alas I unfollowed everyone and only open Twitter a couple of times a year. FB I stopped using many many years ago which was easy. I do use Instagram for sharing vacation and new puppy photos privately. But I easily go months without checking…

I still use FB and twitter, and trying to use Parler a bit more.. there isn't nearly the engagement on Parler. As to FB and Twitter, I'm on it FAR less than in the past.

They've just become toxic on so many levels. What I used to appreciate was actual discourse with those I don't always agree with and now everyone just got completely intolerant of any views not their own. I've had more unfriends/unfollows in the past year than the past 20 or so before that.

It's an echo chamber of insanity, and if you don't fit cleanly in it, it just feels like you want to drop in less. There are a few FB groups I check in on, and engage with, but now it's maybe half an hour a day across all social platforms where as a couple years ago, it might have been 2-3hrs a day.

Re: No More Google

#216

Post by chenpengcheng »

this is the Google curse. every company will become like Google only if they can.

every of them. the only exception is Wikipedia and i donate monthly.

I remember how good Google was in the early days. most of the “alternatives” could become much worse when they reach 1/100 of Google scale.

I can’t trust “alternatives”.

Re: No More Google

#218

Post by mxuribe »

agentdrtran wrote: post #76

Seeing Zoho, the alternative-universe version of Google where it failed at basically everything, as an alternative listed for a lot of these is hilarious.

Does comment include their paid email hosting plan/service? Because i've been testing them out for the last few months, and they've been great! But, if you have stats and/or info to share, I'd love to hear about before i take the plunge. Also, any alternative to zoho that you could recommend would be greatly appreciated! THanks!

Re: No More Google

#219

Post by pb7 »

dang wrote: post #180
pb7 wrote: post #84

Hacker News is incredibly biased against Google. There was recently an informal survey[0] in "Tech Twitter" (i.e. other technical people) regarding opinions about the top tech companies and Google scored second highest overall behind Apple, with something like 85-90% positivity overall across different questions. Facebook, for reference, was something like 35-40%. [0] https://coda.io/@sriram-krishnan/2020-state-of-th…

The universal experience is that Hacker News is incredibly biased against whatever you happen to favor. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Agree as a rule and even in this particular case, but I think the Hacker News sentiment is closer to the sentiment elsewhere for companies like Facebook and Uber. I do not favor Facebook at all, for example, but defend them equally in instances where I would defend others. I do favor Uber (or at least tech-enabled ride sharing companies in general) but think the common criticism here is warranted even though I do not feel nearly as strongly one way or another. It's a mixed bag.

Edit: Why was my GP moved to top level? It made much more sense as a response to the comment questioning the true sentiment.

Re: No More Google

#220

Post by ivank »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #20
throwaway123x2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, this is me. There is no alternative to Google Voice, which is sad... it's such a neat service.

I moved my Google Voice number to OpenPhone [1] (YC S18). No relation besides being a paid ($10/month) customer. If you have T-Mobile in the US, they have a similar offering called DIGITS [2] you might try (although OpenPhone offers more features for the price). [1] https://www.openphone.co [2] https://www.t-mobile.com/offers/t-mobile-digits

I signed up for OpenPhone just now, but then noticed that the only thing you need to log in to someone's account is their email and a 6 digit code emailed to their account. There are no password or 2FA options. I haven't tested how rate-limited the login attempts are, but it seems like too much to ask for customers to trust that they exist and work, especially when the apparent attack success probability is already > 1/1M.
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