A Synology NAS + https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/feature/active_backup_g_s... is an easy way to back up mail and drive.
Google users locked out after 15 years' use
601–610 of 720 posts
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#602This is one reason Apple is better, they can't delete all your content because it's actually stored on the device instead of some amorphous cloud.
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#603Happened to me too after 10 years of Gmail use. Exactly the same story. No explanation. As I remember at that time I checked Google servers data as to uptime—the data was public, not sure about now—and it appeared that there was a serious problem with servers right before I was blocked. It looked like Google just completely lost data in some server cluster. Anyway, there was no way to get any response from Google or…
How are you doing full android backups? I recently discovered this is basically impossible without either using Google's cloud or rooting (which has it's own inconveniences..)
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have been managing my own mail server for 6 years now, and enabling and configuring all the mail security features (DKIM, SPF, etc), and keeping up with them, is indeed the most difficult part. I regularly check my mail server against tools like this: https://mxtoolbox.com/diagnostic.aspx . If you just do one thing wrong, you will end up on some black list from which it is very difficult to get off. So far, I did n…
This. So many people don't take the 10 minutes to configure DMARC, DKIM and SPF. I've been hosting my own domains since 1996 and I haven't ever had a problem with any of them sending mail to any of the big hosters. If your DMARC passes and you actually have a policy set to REJECT you're almost guaranteed to not have a problem as long as your domain isn't a few days old. The first thing I do for any new domain I plan…
> So many people don't take the 10 minutes to configure DMARC, DKIM and SPF.
Considering I've actually never heard of any of those things despite multiple people telling me to set up a mail server. I'm not sure why you're surprised.
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a “customer”. How many people pay for google services? I know it’s kind of jerky but I still agree that if you aren’t paying for the service, you have no leg to complain about it.
We do not pay for a home address, and yet people can still reach us there. Email is just as important as physical mail -- the problem is that the economic model changed. This means there is no incentive to maintain service, even though (in my mind) in the modern era an email address is possibly more important to a person for day-to-day communication.
Email should be something provided by the government, like the postal service. So should your Internet.
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#606Tip: Get your own domain from a non-google registrar, then connect to Gmail if you prefer. If you ever are locked out, you can just move the address to another email-provider. Another trick is to use always have forwarding enabled in Gmail, to Outlook.com or another provider. All email will be forwarded despite your account being locked, so you will not miss out on important info. And use Google Takeout for backing u…
I do a takeout every time I see one of these Hacker News posts :(
Check the archive, a lot of times Takeout has given me junk data, and I was spooked enough to manually back up a lot of messages with a web scraper...
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#607Not completely related to personal accounts being banned, but something that happened to me recently: I started a side business with some friends during lockdown. We created an online store selling some hard-to-get long tail items, and almost instantly got some traction and growth thanks to Google Shopping. A month ago we received one of these generic automated mails that our account is banned and we were misrepresen…
A good business will ALWAYS try to diversify their acquisition channels. I've analyzed/interviewed 400+ founders and what channels they use to get to (paying) customers [1] and this is a pattern I've noticed across successful founders. Google Shopping is just 1 channel through which you could get customers. Since you're in Africa, my guess is that SEO is WAY easier than US/Canada, so that's a viable channel. Lack of…
Yes, we're doing all obvious advertising channels, and have some cash to put behind it. Dominating SERPS with very little effort since we're doing long tail. Our particular long tail means people are searching for very particular terms and buying the single item they are looking for, with this behaviour the business seems very viable(and exciting) by the growth google shopping gives. All other channels combined are very slow in comparison. We're continuing trying to optimise those in the meantime. But we've learnt the newish(around here, at least) advantage Google shopping (and amazon search, probably) gives in insane compared to the typical alternatives.
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#608Good lord, it's stories like this that make me absolutely afraid to take their cloud offerings seriously. Yes I know it's a separate business arm, but it's the same people calling the shots and trying to stick an algorithm in where Customer Service should be. AWS / DigitalOcean / Linode all the way.
Agreed. I really wanted to try Google Cloud, but having my servers disappear overnight is a different ballpark from having my email history deleted.
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#609Being locked out from google account is one of my biggest fears in practical computer usage. Over the years I can't even tell how much I'm sunk into using tiny pieces of google's services, even though for most crucial things I tend to omit google and look for alternatives that are easier to handle in problematic situation. Mail is one of the things I'm most worried about.
As one who's never trusted my data to Google I really am curious why so many actually do so. Is the convenience truly that great that people are even prepared to gamble the loss of their data? Alternatively, why is it that some of us have always been mistrustful of Big Tech and most others not? They're completely opposite worldviews.
I switched to gmail in the early '00s when I was a kid after previously having an email on a friend's private server that he decided to take down. That was back when Google only offered POP email. That was back when Google was only an email service and search site. Luckily I was an Apple user however and haven't migrated my personal photos, data storage, and many other things to Google.
Re: Google users locked out after 15 years' use
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
As one who's never trusted my data to Google I really am curious why so many actually do so. Is the convenience truly that great that people are even prepared to gamble the loss of their data? Alternatively, why is it that some of us have always been mistrustful of Big Tech and most others not? They're completely opposite worldviews.
I really am curious why so many actually do so There was a time, maybe up until 10 years ago, when Google was cool . Everyone wanted a GMail address, it started out as invite only, like Facebook. "Do no evil" was the motto. And they ramped it up slowly like boiling a frog. The evil, I mean. And here we are today.
I remember when I first got my Gmail address, what... 18? 19? years ago. Google was hot shit and everyone was like "Well if Google makes it it's got to be good!"
I don't think people actually believe that anymore they just feel they have no other alternative. Google had this wellspring of good will that they have simply burned over the last 10 years or so.
It was developers who originally made Google what it was - first to search, first to Chrome.
We can unmake it as well and I think it's about time we do.