Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life • Hacker News Board

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#521

Post by Razengan » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:07 PM UTC

7tsfmCAusrQ wrote: post #147

I would love to see a similar list for de-Apple-ing. Apple's anticompetitive and monopolistic practices with the App Store, the terrible direction MacBooks have taken, its price gouging on hardware... the list goes on. Google is saintly by comparison.

> Google is saintly by comparison.

jackiechan.jpg

You can avoid Apple by not using anything from Apple. Done.

That's how I lived for most of life when I still used Windows. Not one encounter with Apple. Now, I haven't used anything from Microsoft for 10 years until they bought GitHub.

But you'll always be feeding Google just by visiting completely unrelated third-party websites.

Google (like Facebook) fits most definitions of cancer, creeping into places where it doesn't belong.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#522

Post by stiray » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:07 PM UTC

genghizkhan wrote: post #498

stiray wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also another alternative for search... Use search agregator ( https://asciimoo.github.io/searx/ ) and do the search on all those sites (and more) at once. I am self hosting it and it works great. One more search engine to try is qwant.com. For phone just use microg lineage ( https://lineage.microg.org/ ) and use aurora store instead of play store ( https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/ ) for apps…

LineageOS tends to disable a lot of security baked into android, so itmight not be a good recommendation. According to Daniel Micay: "It significantly weakens the SELinux policies, rolls back mitigations for device porting / compatibility, disables verified boot, lacks proper update security including rollback protection, adds substantial attack surface like FFmpeg alongside libstagefright, etc. They merge in huge am…

Security is always weighting between danger and benefits. It means something different for everyone of us, i consider my phone with microg, netguard and xprivacylua and without google or any 3d party application beeing able to connect to the internet unless faking the data as secure (or, if you want - private), while I am not only flashing but also building my roms until I get full linux support for my second phone when I will depart from android world.

For now, lineage is as good as it gets, sure, I would love to have patched OS, withoug google etc., but for now there is really not much of alternatives available for various models of phones, and quite frankly - probably more than half of android phones are vulnerable, unpatched etc. let me just mention latest DSP vulnerabilities. At least attack surface isnt that big :D

Its on the eyes of beholder.

--- update ---

Looks like I am moving away from android today.

https://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/Cosmo_Linux_Mobile...

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#523

Post by mav3rick » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:08 PM UTC

patd wrote: post #456

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.

Chromebooks have 6.5 years of updates. How is that short lived ?

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#524

Post by henearkr » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:09 PM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #206

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…

Sure, but if that happens... I think we're fucked either way? I think any providers would be just as susceptible (maybe more so; Google ostensibly has the means to protect data, legally and technologically), and your data would already be on Google's servers unless you only emailed or chatted with other non-Google users.

There are providers (not free, though), like ProtonMail, who store your data encrypted, in a fashion that would prevent this threat model.

I bet that Google would sooner gladily erase itself all of its data rather than give them to a fascist gov (seems that they cooperated mildly in the past, but not with a fascist government, with a normal one). They already took tough decisions like to ditch Chinese market, under pressure of the employees. Yes Google is clearly leftist, ecolo, all you want, as they are just the sum of their engineers. Great minds.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#525

Post by Razengan » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:11 PM UTC

hu3 wrote: post #308

Razengan wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a well known, documented fact that Apple hardware is hostile towards the environment. Source? Apple is 100% green in some areas and they have good EPA ratings. https://www.apple.com/environment/

I like that your source is from Apple. Is that a joke? Took me 5 seconds on first Google page to confirm what is common sense: "Apple's horrid repair policies are forcing shops to destroy stacks of MacBook Pros" https://www.inputmag.com/culture/apples-repair-policies-are-...

> I like that your source is from Apple.

Did you read the claims made in it and check whether they're false?

https://gigaom.com/2013/11/18/apple-solar-farm-fuel-cell-far...

http://www.macrumors.com/2015/05/12/apple-tops-2015-greenpea...

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/07/25/apple-leads-us-solar-en...

There are primary sources in those links.

> Apple's horrid repair policies are forcing shops to destroy stacks of MacBook Pros

"None of that affects me negatively" — As you said about Google's privacy intrusions.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#526

Post by rwha » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:17 PM UTC

lioeters wrote: post #463

actuator wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if business model is what you are worried about. If people are fine with paying for email services, you can even pay for Gsuite and then no ads on even Gmail and even custom domain support. I am not sure on this but I doubt they would be mining any paid Gsuite user's data. Also, even in free you can turn off personalized ads and they would no longer be related to your data. The thing is as you mentioned, with s…

> I doubt they would be mining any paid Gsuite user's data I use G Suite at work, and I wondered about this. From Google's modus operandi, I assumed they are mining data, for example, of all work emails to and from the accounts - and probably connected to my personal email addresses somehow, as part of a profile to target ads. Is there a confirmation that this is not (or is) being done? I suppose, from a security/pri…

This is entirely anecdotal.

I have two chromium profiles, one for work using a G Suite account and one using my personal gmail account. I've noticed the browsing history and search from my work profile impacting my personal search results.

I don't believe they use G Suite email/docs to mine data, but the rest is likely fair game.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#527

Post by texasbigdata » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:17 PM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #339

texasbigdata wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conceptually, using what the SEO community feels google does every time google does an algorithm change that muddles SEM / organic after a revenue drop (source: mozcom 2019), you would have to assume they would keep marginally pushing incremental borders to ameliorate any drop or “lower than wall street expected growth” in ad revenue. So the OPs approach to fully migrate is consistent with that world view.

Texasbigdata -> texasbigsentence? ;) I think I even agree w you, but whoa cowboy, is that some stream-of-consciousness you've laid down there!

Haha...dammit. You win! :)

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#528

Post by playpause » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:19 PM UTC

lowkeyokay wrote: post #514

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 re…

I’m not making any argument. I’m stating my personal needs and asking if anyone has any recommendations so I can move off Gmail.

Edit: I’m OK to sacrifice some UX quality btw, just not as much of a sacrifice as ProtonMail and Mailfence. And my love of Gmail’s UX has little to do with any creepy features that rely on data or fancy algorithms. It’s mostly stuff that any competitor could offer. Coherent design language across platforms, and generally well designed features that don’t compromise between flexibility and ease of use.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#529

Post by ploika » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:24 PM UTC

torgian wrote: post #499

throwaway936482 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’d argue the opposite. I’m China they can just kidnap you. In America, at least there are rules.

Extraordinary rendition wasn't all that different from just kidnapping people.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#530

Post by henearkr » Sun, Aug 23, 2020, 12:29 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #425

strangescript wrote: post #129

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. Everyone is tracking you online, but for some reason we only care about it when its companies that make good products that we like to use. Would you rather they not target you with ads and sell google searches for a nickel each? Meanwhile, I had an ad in my gmail yesterday for Google F…

Ads can be contextual, served based on the content you view, and Google's own Ad Words does in fact just that, as they serve ads based on your search keywords, and that's their biggest revenue source. People have issues with user profiling , tracking users to gather their interests, and follow them with ads on certain topics across the web. Which is now illegal to do without explicit opt-in consent in the EU. Google…

In this case you don't need to ditch Gmail, they don't use anymore this data to custom ads. However each time you visit any website, your enemies are not only Google Ads but also Criteo, Facebook, etc (and they are much much less conscientious than Google about how they use and distribute the fruits of this harvest).