Live data from Hacker News

What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?

bbc.com

221–230 of 324 posts

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

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting emails likely would have pissed them off.

So we need an easy toggle, and option to do this via email reply.. and option to change notifications from each message into twice per day or once an hour or other options.. I think that would satisfy most people. I hated emails from fbk and turned them all off long ago, but some people seem to like that kind of thing, so we might need options, and options for those who want a reminder but not a bunch of reminders ev…

I'm impressed you were able to accomplish some specific thing you wanted to do using the FB settings.

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

#222
Search: DDG is the obvious answer. But also reducing usage of general search is a major life improvement. Wikipedia and Stack Overflow have reasonable built-in searches, as do most sites I view as reasonable sources of information. Most discoverability comes from feeds (blogs, HN, Reddit)--searching limits you to terms you've already thought of. General search seems to lead either to the places already mentioned in good cases, and to low-quality results that waste time and mislead you in bad cases. You can save time and improve thought process by going more directly to sources.

Email: Fastmail. But again, just using email less is helpful. My most common form of communication is using text messages to set up meeting in person.

Facebook: Does this even need a replacement? I haven't made any intentional effort to replace Facebook since I stopped using it, and don't feel any sense of loss. The same goes for Twitter/Instagram. The only thing these services ever did for me was make me feel angry, lonely, or inadequate.

Random side note: Stack Overflow has a serious content quality and up-to-date-ness issue. An alternative is using documentation, reading code, and mastering debuggers/REPLs. This gives you a much better understanding of your tools, and gives you much better solutions as a result.

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

#223

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…

I’d prefer people working on making existing alternatives better in terms of features than have yet another “Facebook killer” that doesn’t survive. Check out the Fediverse, help the alternatives for Instagram and Twitter thrive. If you want to create something independently, I’d suggest a perfect replica and replacement for Facebook Groups. We need what’s not yet supported by the current crop of FOSS alternatives and keeps people tied to Facebook.

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

#224

DuckDuckGo is really changing my world. It’s like I’m seeing a whole other internet I was missing before with Google search results. I get much more relevant answers and less SEO targeted garbage that says all the right words usually while saying nothing at all. I was skeptical, but I encourage you to give it a try if you haven’t before.

DuckDuckGo can't even answer simple queries like "how old is Donald Trump", "president of France", "how tall is the Eiffel Tower", "distance from earth to Moon", and "distance from earth to sun"; it forces you to search its results for the answer. For all of queries, Google and Bing give you the answer front and center without making you click links or read the result snippets. Bing even has an interactive solar syst…

Just tried. PoFrance: answered in first 3 blurbs (link not needed). Eiffel: 1st three. Moon distance: Fifth.

DDG will answer some directly, like "10 feet to meters". Could be better.

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

#225
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find that in the US, anyone who communicates with people in other countries uses Whatsapp. It was the first easy way to communicate across borders and not have to worry about international charges. It’s also better than SMS/MMS.

> It was the first easy way to communicate across borders and not have to worry about international charges

It was absolutely not. Skype was before, and many others. If you're talking about general communication applications/medium over internet.

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

#226
post #219

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.

How to you convince the entire extended family that they should use a paid account for something they can do for free, working (functionally on the surface) the exact same way?

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

#227
I started thinking about blocking Google shortly after I (think it was on Google Earth) got shown my current location as a picture of the parking lot outside the apartment I was sitting in. The pix looked like it was taken from 50 feet up.

The clincher: G+ insisting I start using my real name on a 4-year-old Blogger account. SiyoNAHra.

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

#228
post #79

He mentions Brave browser, but Vivaldi browser combined with uBlock Origin (and uMatrix if you're savvy enough) works best for me as I want nothing to do with ads. Telegram is another fantastic messenger. Concerning social media, you don't really need it: https://www.quitfacebook.org .

Worth noting that Brave is a open source browser while Vivaldi is not.

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

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had zero issues quitting Facebook but replacing Gmail and Android? That's going to be really tough considering Gmail is my online identify hub and Android facilitates so many utility services (banking, electronic identification, money transfers, etc).

If you want to contact an acquaintance because you'll be in their city, what do you use to communicate with them? Keep in mind people often change their phone numbers or at least lose their contact lists.

> Keep in mind people often change their phone numbers or at least lose their contact lists

Often? Is this common? Me and the circle of people I know (friends, family, acquaintances, extended family) have had the same number for a number of years and seem to not have lost my phone number recently, as far as I know.

Post reply on HN