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Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

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Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#411

Post by bluecatswim »

bb88 wrote: post #268
kevingrahl wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here’s an analogy I like to use for people who don’t care about privacy; Its similar to not caring about free speech just because you have nothing to say. It’s not just about you the regular joe who is of no particular interest to companies/governments but about those people who absolutely need it. You not caring about what they do with your data is totally fine but in my opinion you should care that they (in this ca…

> You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. Right, so, has Google done this? Asking because from what I remember the answer has been largely no, but I remember FB selling data to Cambridge Analytica in 2016.

I'm assuming you hadn't heard about this.

https://www.projectveritas.com/news/insider-blows-whistle-ex...

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#412

Post by brigandish »

njacobs5074 wrote: post #305
pydry wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>People have been raising flags about this for literally decades now and the other shoe has yet to drop in any kind of meaningful way. The threat model I work off is "fascist government seizes power in the United States and sequesters all data for all citizens from the top 15 large corporations". Then they get to work weeding out undesirables. This would happen, I'd estimate, in the space of about a month although if…

If the fascists deem you undesirable, they won’t need your email history. If history is any kind of guide, your neighbors are more likely to identify you to the new regime.

I thought the point of the internet is that it removes, to an extent, the friction of distance, meaning that the circles you move in may not be local to you. In the past, if I wanted to chat about politics I would have to do it with someone local or someone face to face. The postal service removed some of that friction, and now there is far less friction than that.

I doubt your neighbours will know much about your politics unless they're your Facebook friends too, and why would you add your neighbours to Facebook when you can speak to them face to face? (and do you?)

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#413

Post by manigandham »

commoner wrote: post #362
manigandham wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome profiles avoids having to create another (Firefox) account to manage the sync and data. Also Chrome has an easy menu for switching profiles and creates desktop/taskbar shortcuts for them. Firefox requires going to the about:profiles settings page to manage them. Also chrome profiles are integrated with G-Suite including security and organization settings. Overall Chrome's version is just smoother and easier to…

Unlike Chrome profiles, multiple Firefox containers can be used in the same window. Containers are different from profiles: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/multi-account... Containers are also extensible through add-ons. For example, the following two add-ons automatically isolate Facebook and Google into separate containers to reduce the impact of their tracking: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firef…

I don't want to mix usages in the same window though. The container features are nice, but they don't make up for the fact that Firefox profiles are still harder to use in general.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#414

Post by EugeneOZ »

asdsadxcxcxcz wrote: post #405
nickelpro wrote: post #61

Genuinely, why should I care? What harm is likely to happen to my life by sticking with Google, a service provider I find convenient? EDIT: I don't want to be accused of fan-boying or astro-turfing. I just see "Avoid Big Company X because they collect your data" a lot and I just can't give a damn about companies collecting my data. Be my guest, if it means I get free stuff. My data is boring tech nerd data, use it to…

Would you say the same if you lived in China?

Please provide an example when Google did something harmful to some person in China.

Global censorship is not an example - Google doesn't need to collect someone’s data to implement it.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#415

Post by throwaway936482 »

ekianjo wrote: post #401
throwmeaway2344 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are worried about American intelligence don't use anything based in the US.

You can say the same thing for anything based outside of the US. You think China-based services don't have the CCP spy on their users, like TikTok?

Yeah but if you're an American you probably have more to worry about if American intelligence agencies and law enforcement are spying on you than if it's the Chinese and vice versa

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#416

Post by Whatarethese »

bluecatswim wrote: post #411
bb88 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. Right, so, has Google done this? Asking because from what I remember the answer has been largely no, but I remember FB selling data to Cambridge Analytica in 2016.

I'm assuming you hadn't heard about this. https://www.projectveritas.com/news/insider-blows-whistle-ex...

Also Project Veritas so I'd be quite skeptical. They have history of doctoring footage and overall other sketchy practices.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#418

Post by EugeneOZ »

raspyberr wrote: post #154
nickelpro wrote: post #61

Genuinely, why should I care? What harm is likely to happen to my life by sticking with Google, a service provider I find convenient? EDIT: I don't want to be accused of fan-boying or astro-turfing. I just see "Avoid Big Company X because they collect your data" a lot and I just can't give a damn about companies collecting my data. Be my guest, if it means I get free stuff. My data is boring tech nerd data, use it to…

Accepting this is setting a precedent that you're happy for companies with a lot of power to have efficient systemic influence. This has already (it's barely been 10/20 years) started to influence the outcome of elections. Literally the cornerstone of a functioning democracy. And you're saying you don't care.

They don't need to know about your habits to have such influence.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#419

Post by hombre_fatal »

brongondwana wrote: post #336
nowa1000 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail also wants a phone number. I no longer know what mail service to use apart from setting it all up myself.

Unfortunately we still need some kind of signal that you're a unique person at signup to avoid infinite fraud (as it is we still get waves of thousands of accounts at a time who have worked out a way to get their hands on a pile of numbers and are finessing an attack on someone else via us). You can delete the number once you've signed up, though of course that means that if you forget your password is reduces the ch…

Those people can also stop paying you and just wait until you recycle their email address. No password recovery needed when it's up for anyone to grab.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#420

Post by brongondwana »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #419
brongondwana wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately we still need some kind of signal that you're a unique person at signup to avoid infinite fraud (as it is we still get waves of thousands of accounts at a time who have worked out a way to get their hands on a pile of numbers and are finessing an attack on someone else via us). You can delete the number once you've signed up, though of course that means that if you forget your password is reduces the ch…

Those people can also stop paying you and just wait until you recycle their email address. No password recovery needed when it's up for anyone to grab.

Apart from that we're no longer recycling email addresses as fast as we used to (except for trials that never paid, they only get prescribed for a short time) that doesn't work so well for getting access to your existing email!
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