Given his reference to downloading apps from the Play store and Amazon store... it sure sounds like he's still using an Android device.
So what?
Android is a Google product.
My divorce from Google - One year later
51–60 of 66 posts
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#52I've been pleasantly surprised with Fastmail.fm's new webmail interface, and am currently in the process of switching away from Google. The one thing I can't seem to find is a good replacement for Google Contacts or Google Calendar. I'm currently set up with an account at fruux.com, which does hosted carddav + caldav, but finding good clients for Linux has been more challenging than I expected.
| finding good clients for Linux has been | more challenging than I expected What are you looking for a potential client to do? Like a Linux version of Apple's iCal.app / AddressBook.app (i.e. standalone, more or less single-purpose apps)?
More or less. It looks like my only options are Evolution or Thunderbird with a pair of extensions (Lightning + SOGo Connector).
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#53I find the number of Google "so-what" apologists rather striking in this thread. Not saying the OP did it right or did the right thing, but as a life experiment, it seems honorable. Personally, I find Google's omni-presence a bit scary as well. I never adopted gmail (except as a throw-away address to sign up with HN and other websites :-). The other service OP didn't mention is Google Analytics: so I tell Google everything about my site, then I expect it to broker ads for me honestly?
In addition to the personal tracking, I really agree with the following quote from the OP:
"I find that Google and SEO and tracking have soiled the web in unbelievable ways. Google has imposed a constraint on content through its ad business that I can't get away from, because content is trying to adapt to Google so it can be found, but especially because content becomes monetized in doing so-- to the detriment of us all."
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#54I'm more curious what the author uses for his self-hosted email. None of the IMAP servers I've seen so far are particularly stellar.
Third comment, but it bears repeating. Dovecot. I use it with Postfix, using Dovecot's virtual domain support to host various domains/mailboxes. Dovecot with sieve sorts mail server side. It's fast and works incredibly well.
I like sieve. A lot.
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#55My additional recommendations: Gmail -> business hushmail Google Maps -> Bing Maps GPS -> Use an actual GPS device or one of the iOS/Android maps that download to your phone. GChat -> This one is tricky due to being subject to network effects. Without getting into hyper nerdy jabber or private IRC nonsense, I'd say just use OTR and be done with it if the point is privacy. Google+ -> meet people for lunch Docs -> Zoho…
I'd replace gmail and gchat with fastmail.fm (owned by Opera, although if Facebook ever buys Opera...). You can run XMPP through fastmail's servers, which lets you IM all of your gchat friends (for now at least). As has been pointed out elsewhere, GChat's OTR is not the OTR protocol, so I wouldn't count on it giving you any extra privacy. And it should go without saying that you get your own domain name for the accou…
Is there any indication that FB plans to buy Opera in the (near) future?
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#56So you've traded one big company for a bunch of other big companies? I trust google with my data more than I trust Facebook or LinkedIn or Microsoft. Google runs their own ad network (and it's generally an honest and upstanding ad network, unlike some others). All that data they collect on you is for their own internal consumption. If they ever sell their data, they are giving their competitive advantage to their com…
> So you've traded one big company for a bunch of other big companies?
That's neither fair nor accurate. Tom's running his own email server, which is a huge chunk of privacy right there.
Distributing your identity across multiple companies means, at the very least, they've got to do more work to create a unified profile of you. One of my major beefs against Google, and a reason why I separate my own use of the company's products among different (or no) identities and browsers is that its usage profile is drawn across such a wide range of products. Google knows my search, my social, my video viewing, my maps usage, my email reading habits, and more. That's ... fine until the regime changes ... or gets pissed off at me.
I've started thinking of ways in which the FreedomBox (plug-based cheap computers running Debian and largely self-configuring software tools) could take the place of most of the present generation of cloud computing. The compute power and raw storage are effectively trivial requirements to meet. Distributed storage for redundancy slightly harder, but still very doable. The real key is bringing down the configuration and management elements to the level that Joe and Jane Average Internet User can just plug and play. And I suspect it's not too far off. A few years, but not much more.
Whether or not people will buy into it is another matter, but as with Linux, if enough do, it won't matter, and even if this means that small hosted services exist, the idea of separating out and federalizing people's data would be an advantage over the present regime.
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#57Reading his service-by-service comments paints a much less favorable picture of his Google "divorce": Search: Push (possible win with DuckDuckGo booleans, possible loss with Craigslist search) Mail: Push (mainly using own server, Yahoo vs Gmail not an issue). Maps: Acceptable, but significant loss. ("Mapquest is ok. Yahoo! Maps are my go-to" and "Yahoo! Maps UI isn't very good, but the maps are quite usable"). Music…
I find Here.com to be better than Google Maps FWIW. Outlook.com to be better than Gmail.
It's weird because product-for-product, Google has great web services but their issue is that so much of the UI is dedicated to advertising that it makes the overall experience worse. Here.com is owned by Nokia but there is no indication of that apart from a tiny copyright notice in the bottom left of the page.
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd replace gmail and gchat with fastmail.fm (owned by Opera, although if Facebook ever buys Opera...). You can run XMPP through fastmail's servers, which lets you IM all of your gchat friends (for now at least). As has been pointed out elsewhere, GChat's OTR is not the OTR protocol, so I wouldn't count on it giving you any extra privacy. And it should go without saying that you get your own domain name for the accou…
Is there any indication that FB plans to buy Opera in the (near) future?
There were rumors last year that never materialized, I assume that's what the parent is referring to.
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd replace gmail and gchat with fastmail.fm (owned by Opera, although if Facebook ever buys Opera...). You can run XMPP through fastmail's servers, which lets you IM all of your gchat friends (for now at least). As has been pointed out elsewhere, GChat's OTR is not the OTR protocol, so I wouldn't count on it giving you any extra privacy. And it should go without saying that you get your own domain name for the accou…
Is there any indication that FB plans to buy Opera in the (near) future?
It's been rumored repeatedly, but I'm not aware of anything firm.
Re: My divorce from Google - One year later
#60Email, Google search, I understand but Youtube, seriously? what can be so bad about it?
Google knowing that you're one of the 5 million ppl that viewed psy video clip?
Suggestions to what to watch next based on whay you've seen recently?, yes that can be so annoying, I like to browse the entire video library watching 500 videos I don't want to watch to find the right one.
IMHO That is just being too paranoid ...