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Google Fights Back

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Re: Google Fights Back

#331

Post by joshuamorton »

neuralk wrote: post #149
UncleMeat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. What else do you think search ranking does? Do you want an unsorted list of all websites that contain your keywords?

>Do you want an unsorted list of all websites that contain your keywords? Yes, because then I could apply my own ranking. More realistically, it would be useful as various web services could select from among various forms of ranking as desired by their users. Right now, the internet as a collective is at the whim of the particular ranking Google elects to use. If they don't like you, too bad, you lose. What's more,…

> Yes, because then I could apply my own ranking. More realistically, it would be useful as various web services could select from among various forms of ranking as desired by their users. Right now, the internet as a collective is at the whim of the particular ranking Google elects to use. If they don't like you, too bad, you lose.

Not without more compute than you could afford.

Re: Google Fights Back

#332

Post by aerique »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #254
_bxg1 wrote: post #131

Say what you will about Google, they're really good at PR. They and Facebook share the most indefensible tech business model in today's political climate (at least in the west), but Google does such a better job of obscuring and re-framing that fact than Facebook does.

I think there's also a distinction about what you get in return. When I let Google track my location, I get useful hyper relevant results for searches. When I let it track my emails, I get useful flight reminders and package delivery notifications. But Facebook doesn't really need to track my location to offer the service I want from it, the extra privacy invasion very specifically only helps advertisers. By giving i…

Flight reminders and package delivery notifications... seriously?

This is what we let Google ruin the internet for?

For all the things people have mentioned here: maps, e-mail, search, docs, etc. there are alternatives. Sure, they're not (yet) as good or convenient but put some effort into this guys.

Re: Google Fights Back

#333

Post by esoterica »

Retra wrote: post #293
esoterica wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a philosophically incoherent model of privacy. The singularity notwithstanding, computers cannot “comprehend” anything. Spam filtering and credit statement parsing are no different. It’s all just ones and zeros being shuffled around.

Everything is just bits of energy being shuffled around. There is no value in seeing computers as being unable to comprehend things, when comprehension is little more than maintaining an internal model of some processes. And computers do that.

Plaintext is also an internal model. The bare fact that they have your emails means they already have an “internal model” of your financial statements before any parsing is done.

Re: Google Fights Back

#334

Post by Roboprog »

chaostheory wrote: post #173
pdimitar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017. I realised in the next months that the perceived "freedom to tinker" on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app. Many Android users also lament the lack of a visib…

> Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes. iCloud is accessible as a "filesystem" on iOS. It's a decent compromise that doubles as a dropbox replacement

And the file browser app lets me get just about everything I need to in and out of music production apps. E.g samples and rendered songs.

Re: Google Fights Back

#335

Post by throwaway99blns »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #70
areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore. The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ug…

And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.

This came many times before and it is incorrect. If you delete your data from google, it is deleted permanently. Deletion of multiple backups takes longer, but eventually it is gone, forever.

Disclaimer: Googler.

Re: Google Fights Back

#336

Post by cr0sh »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #70
areoform wrote: post #7

Google owns my soul. Their boxes know when I sleep, when I wake, how much I exercise, what I listen to, my innermost thoughts, my chats with loved ones, what I watched on Netflix last night, what my company does, the flu I have at the moment, what the hypochondriac in me looks up in the middle of the night, what I buy, whom I call, what I spend money on, where I spend it... I nominally pay for these services, but I s…

Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore. The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ug…

> But my next phone will be an iPhone.

I'm seriously considering my next phone to be one I build.

The hardware is available - cheap 4G LTE modules that plug right into a Raspberry Pi Zero exist; that and a cheap touchscreen will get you around 90% of the functionality most of us need, hardware-wise. You won't have a camera, or motion sensors. You will have GPS, voice, data, a screen, storage...

Basically everything you need for most purposes. And adding a camera and an IMU isn't that difficult, either.

The difficult part is - as always - the software. But people out there are building those pieces. Quite a bit can be done using plain-old Raspbian and Python on top, because the cellular module is essentially a virtual serial port device, and everything else has simple drivers or is otherwise easy to interface to.

Where I'll probably start, though, is with the idea of a custom "cyberdeck"; I already have most if not all of the parts, I just need to find the time to do it. It's form factor will be close to what the TRS-80 Model 100 was, though the screen will be...well, different. I'm considering a few options; probably a standard 800x600 HDMI screen along with a secondary 128x64 monochrome serial GLCD.

The ultimate thing about the whole project is independence (well, as independent as I can get - still have to pay some piper - aka T-Mobile - but maybe voip over wifi could be done in the future?) - and customization.

I may not have everything I want in the beginning, but what I want may only be a bit of extra coding, a tad bit of soldering, or likely a bit (or a bunch!) of both. I'm honestly tired of the games Google and pals are playing; kicking them to the curb may be the best thing to do.

Re: Google Fights Back

#337

Post by britch »

busymom0 wrote: post #295
britch wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible for most people to live their lives without Facebook's Apps. It is not possible for most people to live their lives without some form of Google, whether it's search, email, drive, maps, docs, or calendar. It's almost impossible to function today without using Google or interfacing with someone who is using Google. People are more OK with Google because there is no alternative.

Don't forget YouTube! I sort of agree but I think this is changing for better as competition improves. If I were to rate google services in order of importance and lack of decent competition, it would be: 0. YouTube 1. Maps 2. Search 3. Email 4. Docs 5. Drive 6. Calendar I put YouTube as 0 as it is at the very top of the list. There's virtually no comparable competition for YouTube and that's why Google is also getti…

I totally forgot about YouTube, but that is a great point.

There is no good alternative to Google maps on Android IMO. I've tried

- HERE: the app is not great and I'm not sure it's any more private than Google.

- OsmAndroid: as a map it is fine. It doesn't do address searches very well which makes it useless when you need to get somewhere you haven't been before.

If anyone has a suggestion I'd greatly appreciate it.

Re: Google Fights Back

#338

Post by lern_too_spel »

aerique wrote: post #332
OkGoDoIt wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's also a distinction about what you get in return. When I let Google track my location, I get useful hyper relevant results for searches. When I let it track my emails, I get useful flight reminders and package delivery notifications. But Facebook doesn't really need to track my location to offer the service I want from it, the extra privacy invasion very specifically only helps advertisers. By giving i…

Flight reminders and package delivery notifications... seriously? This is what we let Google ruin the internet for? For all the things people have mentioned here: maps, e-mail, search, docs, etc. there are alternatives. Sure, they're not (yet) as good or convenient but put some effort into this guys.

> Flight reminders and package delivery notifications... seriously?

> This is what we let Google ruin the internet for?

If you use any other searchable email service, you have exactly the same loss in privacy. The only difference is they don't give you these value adds from the data they already have about you.

Re: Google Fights Back

#339

Post by pdimitar »

taneq wrote: post #291
amf12 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone has the Google keyboard in the app store. I use Swype keyboard though.

Does it upload everything you type to Google? "For your convenience" and "to improve our services", of course. It'd be ironic to switch to iPhone for privacy but keylog yourself in the process.

No, it doesn't. Third party keyboards have two levels of access and they come pre-installed with the much more limited one (no access to internet whatsoever, no matter if you're on WiFi or 3G/4G).

Doesn't stop Google's keyboard to periodically pester you to give it full access "to get the full experience" (or something along the lines) but if you don't, it will never get or send a single byte to Google's servers.

Trust me, I researched. I too didn't want the huge irony you mentioned to hit me. And it doesn't.

Re: Google Fights Back

#340

Post by chess_buster »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #239
amf12 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone has the Google keyboard in the app store. I use Swype keyboard though.

On iOS, 3rd party keyboards block access to the voice typing function which is a dealbreaker for me. At least on my iPhone SE, it takes so long to switch between a 3rd party keyboard and the iOS keyboard to use voice typing that it's too painful to be worth it.

On iPhone X it is still there.
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