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Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

degoogle.jmoore.dev

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Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#511

Post by rorykoehler »

ekianjo wrote: post #400
switch11 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kudos absolutely great to see you do this I moved off Google after they started doing some strange things with our adwords accounts Anyways Agree with you on this -> The only google service that is really relevant and hard to replace is YouTube. Google's earnings from ads went down last quarter. First quarter that has ever happened They are definitely at risk of becoming Yahoo 2.0. The only thing is the immense amoun…

> Agree with you on this -> The only google service that is really relevant and hard to replace is YouTube. Agree. It would become a little easier if all major broadcasters would at least mirror their youtube content on other networks like Peertube. That would not solve the recommendation problem to discover new videos, but at least the hosting itself would be taken care off this way.

YouTube recommendations are really annoying. I don’t want to see 50 million variations of the same video. Impossible to discover new concepts etc

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#512

Post by stingraycharles »

pineaux wrote: post #500
switch11 wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kudos absolutely great to see you do this I moved off Google after they started doing some strange things with our adwords accounts Anyways Agree with you on this -> The only google service that is really relevant and hard to replace is YouTube. Google's earnings from ads went down last quarter. First quarter that has ever happened They are definitely at risk of becoming Yahoo 2.0. The only thing is the immense amoun…

Why use epic and edge when you can haves Firefox? My experience with Mozilla has always been great. It might be marginally slower than chrome, but I don't notice and they have great features and it's open source

Even more so when you know that Edge uses Chromium under the hood, which would defeat the purpose of this exercise.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#513

Post by neop1x »

neilv wrote: post #303

That's what I'd consider way too many extensions. For one reason, browser extensions with user bases sometimes get sold to malware/spyware companies, so even if they started out as good for you, they can become very bad for you, without you knowing. (There's a few browser extensions I'd be surprised if ever got sold, like uBlock Origin, but I don't know as much about most of the rest of them.) Another thign to be awa…

It is pretty bad that they started Degoogle page with largely Google-unrelated privacy-focused extensions which break websites and sometimes do more harm than good. For example ClearURLs by default disables ETag header which is very important for caches to work. Yes, ETag can be used for tracking but there are many many more ways to "track" people and many definitions of tracking, installing such extensions won't fully protect them from all kinds of tracking. Instead, by installing extensions like this people end up with lots of websites broken and slow browsing experience and blame Firefox for lagging and unresponsiveness. How do I know? I have gone through all this. And I ended with only a few extensions - uBlock Origin, Neat URL, I don't care about cookies, ViolentMonkey, Stylus, Cookiebro, User agent switcher.

I especially don't recommend ClearURLs, Privacy Badger, Decentralays. Users or these are begging for problems [1]. Look at how bloated their code is. Prefer smaller extensions focusing on one thing only.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/g2dett/firefox_75_...

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#514

Post by lowkeyokay »

playpause wrote: post #505

I switched from Gmail to using my own domain via ProtonMail. I persisted about 6 months with its terrible UX. Tried Mailfence next, same problem, lived with piss-poor UX for a few months before giving up. (I used Mailfence mainly with Apple Mail via IMAP, which was OK, but I frequently had to log in to their web interface to tweak settings etc, and it’s awful.) Looked at a few others, but my need for a reasonable UX…

So the argument here seems to be: ‘I want to ditch google because of privacy concerns but, I will not compromise on usability’. Bad UI should not be that hard but google has many popular feature because they can analyse user data.

I hear the same argument with search and maps. Yes, DDG and Apple maps is not quite as good as Google’s. But, if you want privacy you will have to sacrifice something. Google has so many resources to put into their core product. Off course they will be better. And they use user data for some features which privacy focused companies just can’t provide. You just can’t have it all.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#515

Post by einpoklum »

My biggest problem cutting out Google from my life is with Maps.

Now, I can do just fine with OpenStreetMap (and such) as a physical or even a road map; but there are just so many venues and businesses that are listed on Google Maps... with their opening hours and links to websites.

Also, a lot of municipalities transfer public transport data to Google, which you can't quite get anywhere else (ignoring Google-reliant apps).

Search, browser, email - I don't use them.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#516

Post by vmception »

SahAssar wrote: post #215
vmception wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn’t. There was a time period where people were trying to use/put services in Iceland or Switzerland because they weren’t part of a known default sharing arrangement and people completely relied on poor interpretations of laws acting like the government took a completely hands off approach to data. The reality is that absent a treaty, these places can all choose respond to foreign warrants and often times d…

> The reality is that absent a treaty, these places can all choose respond to foreign warrants and often times do. The question shouldn't be if they "can" the question should be if they "can be forced to and be legally required not to disclose it". There is a reason American companies have tried to hack around the law with warrant canaries.

In your mind, how was the last paragraph relevant to the other country thing?

But the answer is yes they can be forced, absolutely. All countries have more to lose with the US (not that there is an ideological line in the sand, countries willingly cooperate with FBI, which is instructed by Congress to handle foreign investigations as well) and this is exactly what has played out in case after case after case.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#517

Post by nickelpro »

LockAndLol wrote: post #399
nickelpro wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how those things as connected to Google. If AskJeeves had won the search wars the all of those things would still happen. Your problem seems to be with capitalism not with Google.

I've read a few of your responses and you've already made up your mind. There's no way you'll budge. At this point, I don't know why people are still trying to win you back. If you can, just edit your original comment and say "and I won't change my mind".

Maybe I should have asked, "Why do you care?" Absolutely I made the comment with the intention to debate. The points we're discussing here are all moral and speculative, there is no cut and dry right answer.

In those cases I find good faith debate to be the best way to expand my view on the subject, even if I don't end up "budging", at least I understand all the positions a little better.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#518

Post by emteycz »

stingraycharles wrote: post #512
pineaux wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use epic and edge when you can haves Firefox? My experience with Mozilla has always been great. It might be marginally slower than chrome, but I don't notice and they have great features and it's open source

Even more so when you know that Edge uses Chromium under the hood, which would defeat the purpose of this exercise.

I don't think Microsoft left any Google tracking, and Chromium is an open source project

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#519

Post by chalst »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #502
chalst wrote: post #494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Google's invasion of privacy can be regarded as a kind of "symbiotic parasitism" - they are able to leverage the information they harvest from you to improve search quality. A proxy won't give as good results as letting Google spy on you.

They show you results more like those they think you'll want. Woe betide you if you search political things; you'll be trapped in a partisan political filter bubble.

It is true that what Google judges to be best search quality is not the best for the world.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#520

Post by mav3rick »

volongoto wrote: post #473
Crash0v3rid3 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be evil was never removed from their code of conduct, it's literally the last line: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct/ Why does this keep getting spread?

I stand corrected. Wikipedia says "In April 2018, the motto was removed from the code of conduct's preface and retained in its last sentence." Thank you. But I think my point remains valid. Google's "attitude" changed dramatically in the recent years and we are just responding to that.

Clearly shows you bought false information on HN without making your own opinion.
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