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De-Googleify Internet

degooglisons-internet.org

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Re: De-Googleify Internet

#241

Post by johnsmith21006 »

jrnichols wrote: post #240
babuskov wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your average web user loves Google Many average users I know think Google is the Internet. 10 years ago, they thought that Internet Explorer is the Internet. They don't really care, the same way most people don't care what's the manufacturer of the bus that takes them to work every morning. They just want to get stuff done, get information they need and go on with their lives. Whether Google makes some money with t…

> Many average users I know think Google is the Internet. yep. i mention this a lot, but it's scary how well Google has done in the education market these days. Kids (at least all of the 0-6th graders I know) equate all things Google with "the internet." They know nothing that isn't Gmail. To them, "Gmail" IS email. They know no video sites besides YouTube. They go for Google Maps. Even on mobile devices where Google…

Google also is naming their products the English word and basically taking ownership. So Google Photos becomes Photos. Google Home instead of something like Echo. Google WiFi instead of OnHub.

But we are capitalist and Google is using the system in a smart way to grow their business.

So Google is a verb and now they will own more and more English nouns.

I can not fault Google.

On privacy and service capabilities. It is also about choice. If you are not concerned with Google having your data as you feel it does allow improved offering then you should be able to.

I get some think willing to share your private data is insane there are some of us that that would like companies like Google to do more with the data. If I am going to get an ad I prefer one on the NSX Acura than a tampons ad.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#242

Post by Freak_NL »

wallacoloo wrote: post #229
Freak_NL wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also make DuckDuckGo the default search engine in Firefox' location bar. That way anything that is not a URL is treated as a search query. I particularly like !wen for Wikipedia and !wikt for Wiktionary.

> That way anything that is not a URL is treated as a search query. And if your search query does look like a URL, you can just add the !ddg bang to it & you'll be sent to DuckDuckGo instead of having your browser try to navigate to the URL! (At least, that's the only semi-legitimate use for !ddg that I can find - when else could it be used?) Btw, you can also just use !w for Wikipedia.

> Btw, you can also just use !w for Wikipedia.

Yeah, but there is one caveat; !w will send you to the Wikipedia language matching the region DuckDuckGo is currently set at. So if you just did a search with the regional limiter set to The Netherlands, !w will send you to the Dutch Wikipedia. This is not usually what you would want for non-regional information. Without the region set it does take you to the English Wikipedia.

!wen is always the English Wikipedia.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#243

Post by xtracto »

eterm wrote: post #7
nvk wrote: post #3

Just talking about search alternative; DuckDuckGo is my default search engine for over 2 years. It's incredibly good, the only caveat is you need to re-learn how to search. The same way you "changed yourself" initially for google.

Except google didn't need learning, in fact that's part of what made it so much more powerful, they early on dropped support for AND and OR and other boolean keywords which other search engines required to get good results. In fact one of google's early "hidden" successful features was using implicit AND not implicit OR, which had been the de-facto on other search engines, so searching for "gold plates" on other sear…

There's a reason why the term Google-Fu exists ( http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/19967/what-does-g... )

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#244

Post by vageli »

bigbugbag wrote: post #232
ryandrake wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

bugmenot.com still works. Although an even better solution would be a browser plugin or add-on that, with one click, creates and logs in via a fake account populated with fake, throwaway info, changing every time you visit the site. Don't just avoid tracking, poison it. I'd help fund that kickstarter.

There's a chrome extension trying to do just that, hopefully it will ported to other browsers. >> Kill Analytics[1] is a chrome extension that runs in the background while you use the web. When you visit a website, it sends a little extra data to the server which breaks that site's Web Analytics. [1]: https://hello-kill.github.io/

It has November 1st, 2016 as the release date but I can't find the extension anywhere.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#246

Post by KirinDave »

pierre_d528 wrote: post #235
KirinDave wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares about Squeak anymore. We have browsers.

Average web page is > 2MB[1] Lol... you are really clueless. [1]: https://www.soasta.com/blog/page-bloat-average-web-page-2-mb...

But that's mostly raster images and fonts. Code density is quite low, and JavaScript takes many cues from SmallTalk.

"Lol." A technical term.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#247

Post by timdierks »

Twisell wrote: post #222
sdenton4 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whynotboth.gif Stack overflow works better when people provide answers and feedback on prior answers; persistent login greatly increases the chance that someone will leave a reply, which in turn helps future users.

Nope this is directly linked to ad revenues because StackOverflow don't care about them they can offer freedom. And if they ever get into financial difficulty you can count on me to subscribe to a paying "gold membership" and I still won't care if broken students get the same content for free and without login. You never wondered why there is very few fake account on stackoverflow as compared to ad based social netwo…

Why would you think StackOverflow doesn't care about ad revenue? They both run ads and want to make money by helping recruiters reach logged in users.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#248

Post by [deleted] »

Twisell wrote: post #222
sdenton4 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whynotboth.gif Stack overflow works better when people provide answers and feedback on prior answers; persistent login greatly increases the chance that someone will leave a reply, which in turn helps future users.

Nope this is directly linked to ad revenues because StackOverflow don't care about them they can offer freedom. And if they ever get into financial difficulty you can count on me to subscribe to a paying "gold membership" and I still won't care if broken students get the same content for free and without login. You never wondered why there is very few fake account on stackoverflow as compared to ad based social netwo…

[deleted]

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#249

Post by KirinDave »

pierre_d528 wrote: post #228
anigbrowl wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people here are politely explaining to you that these tools have great intentions but that they are poorly designed, and you respond with irrelevant assertions about performance records. It is as if people tell you that a velo is unsuitable for construction work, and you respond with praise of Romain Bardet. This discussion is about 'Free, Decentralized, Ethical Internet built on Solidarity.' Who cares about rec…

"Many people here are politely explaining to you that these tools have great intentions but that they are poorly designed," So, the "design" of the iPad is superior to the "design" of the Dynabook? Despite paperless vision of the future thx to "software", usage of printers has just begun to stop growing. Patronizing and blind or high priests of the "rentware" cult.

> So, the "design" of the iPad is superior to the "design" of the Dynabook?

Yes. For the audience in question the iPad is in fact a design superior in every dimension except perhaps the child who wants to write a long form novel and already knows how to physically touch type.

> Patronizing and blind or high priests of the "rentware" cult.

I highly doubt this forum is prepared or inclined to have a conversation about your orthodoxy or how market forces interact with it. Certainly I'm done.

But good luck to you.

Re: De-Googleify Internet

#250

Post by hobarrera »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #27

> These services track us everywhere, while claiming to give us a better “user experience”. That's kind of the problem though; they usually _do_ offer a better user experience. If we want users to start using open source software rather than walled garden solutions from large companies, we're going to have to start building open source solutions which offer a comparable user experience to proprietary ones from large…

> That's kind of the problem though; they usually _do_ offer a better user experience.

Except for search, where DDG is superior to Google Search, and has been for some time, amongst others...

> If we want users to start using open source software [...]

There are paid alternatives that are also superior to Google's ones. Fastmail works a lot better than GMail, even if you have to pay for it.

The problem is when people want zero-effort, perfectly-polished, zero-cents services. Nothing is completely free.

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