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Alternatives to Google Products

restoreprivacy.com

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Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#321

Post by jonathanstrange »

robbrown451 wrote: post #288
TheCabin wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, let’s think about some side effects of having lots of potentially sensitive data nicely stored at one location: * Propaganda: Because you understand what people need to hear, it’s a perfect tool to influence opinion. Of course, this doesn’t happen in your country (it never does). A recent popular example is the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Thankfully this evil cooperation does not exist any more (by changing it…

I don't see how any of this applies to Google. Are you saying that dictators can steal my data from Google? I'd think they'd have an easier time breaking into my house and stealing my computer. By a factor of maybe a thousand.

Not only can they, they already do it, via MLAT and via Google's voluntary disclosure. Google even makes money with it.

On a voluntary basis, we may provide user data in response to valid legal process from non-U.S. government agencies,

Just go to the Google transparency report, select Russia, Egypt, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and you'll get plenty of requests that Google has fulfilled.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#322

Post by brongondwana »

stevehawk wrote: post #86
SomeHacker44 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have used Fastmail for years with a custom domain without a single problem. Amazingly great communications from the company too. Highly recommended but not free. (Less than $2/month though - so almost free.)

I think half of my comments on hacker news are how much I love Fastmail, which I've used for email, calendar, and contacts for a decade now.

Aww, shucks :) Thanks.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#323

Post by Tepix »

zbraniecki wrote: post #224

Hi all, I'm an engineer working on Firefox Platform (Gecko). In the linked blog post, the author recommends Firefox (thanks!) and links to a "privacy recommendations" for it, which include items such as "resistFingerprinting" settings. I'd like to remind everyone that turning on this setting has far fetched consequences to how you experience the Web. Your dates, timezones, preferred languages will all be masked which…

If Firefox really cared more about privacy than about its money flow they would have disabled 3rd party cookies by default instead of explicitly hiding¹ that setting.

Apple can do it. There's no reason why Firefox can't. And if there is a reason, it should have been dealt with years ago.

--

¹ i just noticed that in Firefox 60, the setting is no longer as hidden as it used to be. Good!

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#324

Post by blub »

robbrown451 wrote: post #281
blub wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it become some sort of fashion statement to be ignorant about privacy? Whenever I discuss this topic people seem to almost take pride in giving their information to Google, Facebook and the thousands of other companies they have no clue about. I think it's cognitive dissonance rearing its ugly head again: those people have tied their identity at some level with the use of the products and an attack on e.g. Google…

I'm ignorant, I suppose, because you are unwilling or unable to list a single tangible potential harm. Home invasion? Please explain how Google tracking me is going to help a home invader. Or are you talking about me posting stuff on Facebook? Because that's a very, very different thing.

My goal when commenting is to counterbalance overly pro-surveilance comments, not become somebody's privacy coach and patiently explain to them all the bad things that could happen.

That takes a lot of effort and offers me zero benefit - even in real life, people that I've known for years can be stubborn and they dig in when confronted with arguments.

I'm more concerned about the effects of mass corporate surveilance on society itself and key members of society than any particular individual.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#325

Post by amelius »

zbraniecki wrote: post #224

Hi all, I'm an engineer working on Firefox Platform (Gecko). In the linked blog post, the author recommends Firefox (thanks!) and links to a "privacy recommendations" for it, which include items such as "resistFingerprinting" settings. I'd like to remind everyone that turning on this setting has far fetched consequences to how you experience the Web. Your dates, timezones, preferred languages will all be masked which…

By the way, what does GDPR say about fingerprinting? Is it legal? (Asking because the EU explicitly made cookies an opt-in technique, but not sure if they considered fingerprinting).

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#326

Post by bitL »

After DDG recently switched to imprecise search, ignoring what I really search for, the same way as Google does for a while, I don't see any use for it anymore.

Is there another good alternative for precise search? Thanks

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#327

Post by arrayjumper »

edanm wrote: post #268
blub wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, most people are boring and don't rock the boat. Things can get tricky if they pop up (thorough bad luck or as a consequence of their actions) on the radar of someone that wants to make their life miserable or if they bother someone with power. Otherwise I assume you're well off financially by now, so getting screwed on insurance should be a non-issue. Discrimination is likewise a non-issue. In general money hel…

While all these things help , I still think it's true that for 99.9% of people, nothing really bad will happen because of info that Google collects. I mean, as terrible as "getting on the radar of someone that wants to make [your] life miserable" is, it's a relatively rare occurrence, and I doubt that Google is really making it that much worse (if at all). Disclaimer - would be happy to be proved wrong if you want to…

Android has over 2 billion users. 0.01% of that is still 2 million humans.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#328

Post by stef25 »

nemothekid wrote: post #2

I'm a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy alternatives like Apple. For example, the "best" calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me (which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I'm not a fan of hooktube either - it just…

> Maps.Me

Has several useful functions like being able to pre-download specific countries or parts of specific countries.

Many mapping apps work offline but the way Maps.me lets you specifically pick & choose areas = more user friendly.

It uses Openstreetmaps which I've found to work amazingly well in areas where you wouldn't expect (it has off-road trails in remote areas of Vietnam for example)

via iTunes I can also import gpx tracks (or gpx converted to kml, I forget) for things like mountainbike routes, which works super well.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#329

Post by hueving »

shawn wrote: post #238
chime wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a moderate resistFingerprinting setting? I don't mind my date/tz/language being known. There are 150m+ people living in my timezone who use en-US. I don't want my fonts, plugins, user agent, or detailed HW/graphics features (e.g. canvas/WebGL hash) being known. Those can uniquely identify me according to https://panopticlick.eff.org .

Those can uniquely identify me So does your resolution. And that's hard to mask because JS usually needs to know it. If you're not using the browser fullscreen, chances are that you're using a unique innerWidth+innerHeight. As unsatisfying as it is, the current best solution seems to be not to care about privacy most of the time, and then take privacy seriously when you do. Whonix is excellent for this.

Your resolution alone will not likely uniquely identify you. The idea is to eliminate many of the data points that make it easy to track you across IPs. Resolution is very common if you're browsing with a maximized window so it's not in the same league as these others that quickly diverge amongst users.

Re: Alternatives to Google Products

#330

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

shawn wrote: post #238
chime wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a moderate resistFingerprinting setting? I don't mind my date/tz/language being known. There are 150m+ people living in my timezone who use en-US. I don't want my fonts, plugins, user agent, or detailed HW/graphics features (e.g. canvas/WebGL hash) being known. Those can uniquely identify me according to https://panopticlick.eff.org .

Those can uniquely identify me So does your resolution. And that's hard to mask because JS usually needs to know it. If you're not using the browser fullscreen, chances are that you're using a unique innerWidth+innerHeight. As unsatisfying as it is, the current best solution seems to be not to care about privacy most of the time, and then take privacy seriously when you do. Whonix is excellent for this.

> JS usually needs to know it

What do you mean by this?

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