Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

degoogle.jmoore.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 665 posts

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#451

Post by petjuh »

Am I the only one left in the world who actually likes Google and has a positive opinion of them?

I remember switching from AltaVista to Google and thinking they're much better. I remember a friend forwarding me an invitation to join GMail on its first beta day and how impressed I was with the 2.2 GB storage. I remember switching to Google Chrome when I read about its beta release on Slashdot. It was much faster than Firefox.

Personally, the company I loved to hate was Microsoft, and for me Google was the good guy.

Question to those who hate Google - are you old or young? Have you used the Internet in the 90s, before Google came? Have you used email where you lose your emails once you exceed the 20MB capacity, and you need to pay money to increase it? Have you used Internet Explorer because it was everywhere?

Have you seen what Google replaced?

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#452

Post by jeromenerf »

jeffbee wrote: post #355
chris_f wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It may be because they don't have a profile on me, but they have years of data on him..." That might be true, but I'm not sure. Outside of local searching I am skeptical of the benefits of filter bubbling. I think it is just as likely that you and your brother have different opinions of relevance (even if you were both returned the same exact results unrelated to past activity), and the relevance decisions Google ma…

You can use a pejorative if you want, but context is quality. Context-free searching is dumb and the results are bad. An example: if I search for "2020 Honda Insight EX" on Google, I see some mixed bag of stuff about my car. If I then search for "tires" -- no other terms, just tires -- Google shows me shopping results for 195 50/16 car tires, the right size for my car. There are important inputs to my search result t…

However, when you change car, or happen to have many, or switch interest from buying a car for your family to learn about tires manufacturing process, then madness is ensured.

I bought a large refurb iPad Pro and pencil this spring. Presumably a high value segment, since YouTube, amazon and google keep on pushing me iPad related ads and content for months now, for things I have already bought, out of my own research.

I guess I’ll have to fake some baby related purchases to have their focus changed.

I have yet to find a case where "profiling" benefits me, as a user.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#453

Post by LOVV »

prophesi wrote: post #127
ashtonkem wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG works well enough for me on anything but programming. The moment I need to search for anything programming related, Google works much better for me.

I'd recommend StartPage; essentially a proxy for Google.

Unfortunately they started blocking lots of tor exit nodes after they were bought by the advertising company.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#454

Post by erklik »

petjuh wrote: post #451

Am I the only one left in the world who actually likes Google and has a positive opinion of them? I remember switching from AltaVista to Google and thinking they're much better. I remember a friend forwarding me an invitation to join GMail on its first beta day and how impressed I was with the 2.2 GB storage. I remember switching to Google Chrome when I read about its beta release on Slashdot. It was much faster than…

I am young. I don't hate Google. I honestly don't see what is that horrible thing that I must hate them about?

Advertisements? Are we gonna pay for Gmail and Youtube?

Is it them treating certain search results as preferable? Yes, that's the point of a search engine.

The worst thing that Google does is just shut down good services too quickly but that's not really something to hate them that much for.

Maybe I am just ignorant.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#455

Post by RonanTheGrey »

nickelpro wrote: post #358
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder - Do you wear your COVID mask? Why? How do you feel when others don't - or openly refuse to?

I do, and think people who don't are morons. COVID represents a clear and present danger, what's the clear and present danger of Google is the nature of my question.

So you already accept the premise that caring about more than yourself is an appropriate goal, based on information you trust from others who you take to know better than you.

And yet here we are in a different industry, and simply for the sake of your convenience you decide you want to ignore people who know more than you, who are telling you that what Google is doing can be abused and because it can be, eventually will be (because please, point me to ONE example in human history where we have not abused a power we have created).

In that case, how about this? COVID isn't personally affecting me, and I don't like wearing the mask, so screw you I refuse to. Do you accept that reasoning?

Then why do you accept it here?

Physical danger CANNOT be the only measure because that forces physical violence, war, death and destruction to be the only means by which the human race can ever measure progress. And that basically demonstrates that we've learned absolutely nothing.

And yet let me be blunt, you already know all that, you're just here trolling, am I right?

Go ahead and downvote, it's beyond hilarious to me that you people think your fake internet points mean dick.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#456

Post by patd »

petjuh wrote: post #451

Am I the only one left in the world who actually likes Google and has a positive opinion of them? I remember switching from AltaVista to Google and thinking they're much better. I remember a friend forwarding me an invitation to join GMail on its first beta day and how impressed I was with the 2.2 GB storage. I remember switching to Google Chrome when I read about its beta release on Slashdot. It was much faster than…

Most of your positives are more than 10 years old. In the meantime they've remove the "Don't be evil" motto, their Android/Chromebook support is very short lived, they've killed countless services people relied on, ...

I don't think Google is evil like Microsoft was in the 90s but I don't blindly trust them as I might have done in the past.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#457

Post by EugeneOZ »

asdsadxcxcxcz wrote: post #429
EugeneOZ wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not about Google. It’s to demonstrate that in certain situations you wouldn’t say that so confidently, and that your assumptions are based on something very fragile, something that large-scale needle-nudging could have an influence on in your lifetime.

Article is about Google.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#458

Post by RonanTheGrey »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #322
tibyat wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question is obviously irrelevant. Whether or not they have flagrantly abused the power is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they could , how easy it would be to do so, how damaging it could be, and what protections we would have once they have done so. This is the threat presented by internet monopolies and their fetish for violating our privacy. Also consider that no company has managed to stay on…

"What do all men with power want? More power." "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I feel like we have to re-learn the lessons of history every few decades. These things have never worked out well for us in the past and yet despite thousand of historical examples, in every generation or three, a not-small group of people arises swearing that this time is different. Literally the only way to prot…

Go ahead and downvote folks, the bug is in your head and now you can't get it out. You know you can't ignore it, as much as you want to.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#460

Post by asdsadxcxcxcz »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #457
asdsadxcxcxcz wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about Google. It’s to demonstrate that in certain situations you wouldn’t say that so confidently, and that your assumptions are based on something very fragile, something that large-scale needle-nudging could have an influence on in your lifetime.

Article is about Google.

The article is, but the discussion isn’t, as any pragmatic discussion about privacy concerns the biggest players within that domain.
Post reply on HN