No More Google • Hacker News Board

Re: No More Google

#331

Post by RonanTheGrey » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 1:53 AM UTC

pgt wrote: post #194

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…

By shame and disgust, I suspect you mean something along the lines of virtue-signalling, but I think it's much more simple than that, it's plain old economics: Long-term reliability and excellence. If you keep shutting down products, who could risk relying on them? Not me, because switching costs are non-trivial. If you launch ten different chat products (luckily the icons match) and shut them down a few months later…

> Next up is Google Docs. Sheets is going to be tough.

Microsoft 365 is reasonably priced and you can use the web-based versions for free.

Re: No More Google

#332

Post by RonanTheGrey » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

grey_earthling wrote: post #169

avip wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd definitely fall into that box. But that website helped me understand why, other than being a lazy bum, I keep use google things. It's because: 1. Google has great products and they are "free". Airtable a drop-in for G-sheets? Count me out. 2. This is the sneaky part - zero onboarding friction. Want to try notion? Need to "sign up" or watch stupid video. Try google docs? COMMAND+L + doc.new

https://doc.new leads to a sign up page for me. Maybe Gmail was a trojan horse for Google accounts.

Gmail is the linchpin in their whole ecosystem. Break that, and it suddenly gets a lot easier to use various products without being stuck on Google.

100% the Trojan horse. I don't know that it started out that way... but it certainly is now.

Re: No More Google

#333

Post by om3n » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

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've de-Googled nearly everything:

Firefox, DDG, protonmail, BitWarden, LibreOffice, etc. I even switched to iPhone.

The only thing I haven't been able to get rid of; YouTube. There's really nothing to replace that. At least I access it without being signed in, and in a browser on both desktop and mobile.

Re: No More Google

#334

Post by RonanTheGrey » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 2:02 AM UTC

ticmasta wrote: post #325

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'm getting there, plus old enough that FB and twitter never made any impression. Google apps is hard to cut off when you have school age kids though.

> Google apps is hard to cut off when you have school age kids though.

Tell me about it, the classroom is Google's next territory to invade and they're already making solid headway. Between Classroom, hangouts/meet and School email, I can't stay away from them.

Luckily my kids' new school doesn't use these products but the outlook for avoiding them for the next 14 years doesn't look good.

Re: No More Google

#335

Post by RonanTheGrey » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 2:12 AM UTC

Hamuko wrote: post #65

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 managed to switch from Chrome to Firefox at least. But looking at this website, there's not really a whole host of apps and services that I want to switch over. For example switching Google Drive, the top suggestions are Nextcloud and Dropbox. I tried Nextcloud and it was horrible. Stopped after a few months of sync issues and slowness. And Dropbox is like six times the cost for the basic tier of service.

I use OneDrive. The price is right for 1TB of storage, they have tools for mac, windows, Android and iOS. I know using MS services is not everyone's cup of tea but it's something to look at anyway.

Re: No More Google

#336

Post by abdabab » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 2:46 AM UTC

I’m still looking for a Project Fi alternative that has 2FA. I’ll sleep lot better if I find one.

Re: No More Google

#337

Post by mastrsushi » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

I think it's great users are always attempting to break free from Google. I don't think 3 companies should control half the internet content (I'm sure my measurements are way off).

I just see it as inconvenient. Firefox has been well known to underperform Chrome in many areas. The GUI feels dated and clunky. Something about the experience feels very obviously backed by only software political activists, developers, and people who simply haven't moved to Chrome.

I also don't see how using Chromium based browser distros is non-Google. I thought part of the problem was that even with those browsers, Google can still blacklist sites it chooses to.

Re: No More Google

#338

Post by actuator » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 3:33 AM UTC

macspoofing wrote: post #320

actuator wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know anything about this but being an engineer myself I am assuming you hit a rate limiting function. I am assuming Gmail caches the images when you upload, image upload being an expensive operation per se; when you uploaded so many at once, it must have triggered a rate limiting mechanism which stopped requests from you until the cooldown window kicked in. Why would they add a rate limiting method? It makes…

I can speculate just as well as the next guy. Their system could have been been rate limiting me, or maybe it decided I was a spammer abusing the system. The point is, there was no transparency.

Well, limiting your control for some time on matching spamming heuristics is also kind of rate limiting. I am not sure I see the link between number of email attachments and spam though.

> The point is, there was no transparency.

Agreed on this and I alluded to this in my comment.

Though to play devil's advocate again, some security practices are intended to be not transparent. Like 404 instead of 401/403 on admin pages for non admin users. Not specifying what out of username,password,totp combo didn't match.

Re: No More Google

#339

Post by grep_name » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

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'm down to just gmail (that's going to be a hard one), occasional youtube use, and android. I'm keeping an eye on the pinephone, but I have a vital edge case for my pixel (NFC blood sugar monitoring) that I really can't give up. If xdrip becomes fully supported on pinephones, I'll jump ship on android that exact day.

In general I'd say not to be too pessimistic about consumer awareness. I know non-technical people who are using brave browser, do not want smart home listening devices in their houses, avoid buying from amazon, etc. A few years ago I wouldn't have expected that from them, so it feels like it's getting better (anecdotally).

Re: No More Google

#340

Post by amitheonlyone » Tue, Nov 03, 2020, 4:47 AM UTC

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 am one of those. I really want to degoogle but everything from my phone to my work depends on Google. The one thing I have done is stopped using Chrome on my laptop. But even then I have to use it occassionally because some websites won't behave properly in Firefox.