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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

#651

Post by the_af »

rootsudo wrote: post #633
gurkendoktor wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This did it for me: https://www.drop-dropbox.com/ But if it hadn't, then probably this: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/... Dropbox was such a great and conceptually simple tool, having a kernel extension for smarter syncing feels like a step into Enterprise lala land.

Interesting, thanks for the link!

Of particular interest, if you're someone who's ditching Google services out of concern about privacy issues, is that Condoleezza Rice voiced support for warrantless wiretaps during Bush Jr's administration, and was also involved (to what degree is debatable) with the authorization to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" (aka torture). Whatever you personally think about these issues, if you're concerned about privacy, that she is in Dropbox's board of directors should be a big red flag.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#652

Post by tycrek »

kej wrote: post #11

I like the irony of hosting this site on a Google-operated TLD.

Repo owner here. The jmoore.dev domain is for my personal website. degoogle.jmoore.dev is linked as the website in my repo (https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle) but it is not the primary site I wish people to view it from.

As noted in https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle/blob/master/MIRRORS.md for GitHub Pages: "I am using my personal domain as some firewalls block GitHub"

To be quite honest I would prefer to not use GitHub either, but in the interest of easy collaboration GitHub is the optimal platform to manage the project from.

Don't get me wrong: I totally agree with the irony of using a Google TLD. But as @franksvalli said, I do not use AMP, Angular, or Google Cloud. Any tracking done on that page is from GitHub Pages that I do not have control over, unless I make my own auto mirror for that domain.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#653

Post by woofie11 »

LegitShady wrote: post #602
woofie11 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Office has more functionality, without a doubt. File compatibility, privacy/compliance/security, and functionality are key reasons to use it. Google Docs, on the other hand, the things it does, it does well: 1) Works reliably and without bugs. Last Word document I worked with began crashing Word at some point. 2) Works collaboratively. Google Docs keeps docs in sync in realtime. Office 365 has enough lag to suck at c…

Excel is not word, but ok. If you need to edit plain text, sure. That's not a particularly interesting use case. I don't collaboratively edit documents with people - I'd rather send them a version, take comments/revision, go through the comments and decide, instead of having them change the document text without my knowledge. As for my use case I use spreadsheets. I make spreadsheets that query databases and perform…

I would argue collaboratively editing documents is by far the most common and interesting use case, followed by presentations.

You seem to have an odd, complex workflow which is representative of 0.001% of the population. I'm glad Excel works for you. Microsoft does well with a number of complex oddball legacy workflows, full of VBA macros and what-not.

Your style of working collaboratively isn't very collaborative. Google Docs does allow that (you can share with suggesting changes), but for the most part, there's a gap between getting feedback on a document, and working together on one. I find version control to be super-helpful too; it's not like I don't see the changes after someone makes them.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#654

Post by dang »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #638
dang wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yikes, please don't post like this here. We ban accounts that do personal attacks, regardless of how wrong the other person is or how right you are. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: please don't post flamewar comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24250511 either. It's really not what this site is for.

Thank you dang message received and my apologies. You are right.

Appreciated!

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#655

Post by tgvaughan »

afro88 wrote: post #200
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.

There's no need for a list. To de-Apple, in the context of those 3 examples, is to not buy or use Apple hardware. That's it. Apple is saintly by comparison.

Apologies for running slightly off topic, but there's another way to look at this. The fact that Apple services like FaceTime and iMessage are restricted to Apple hardware means that those of us who haven't bought into this ecosystem encounter a fair amount of pressure to do so. So I think Apple's "saintly" behaviour is also self-serving.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#656

Post by cbolton »

freediver wrote: post #574

I genuinly wonder - what does go through the heads of those 100,000 very smart people that work at Google, many of them reading this forum, when they read a thread like this? Do they think 'oh it is HN again', do they discard this as irrelevant noise, do they know something that all the people posting here don't, do they still strongly believe in their mission, or do they get a gut-wrenching feeling that one day it m…

Not working at Google, but I guess many Google employees share my perspective:

1. I find most criticism of Google on HN either wrong or overblown. To clarify this point, I suggest you name the 5 worst things that come to mind about Google; I'll be happy to explain how I feel about them.

There is one significant moral issue I see with Google: they like to collect and hoard massive amounts of user data, and they have a lot of users so the resulting centralization of data creates a big risk. Note that the issue I see is "only" a risk. I'm not even sure what the concrete bad scenarios are that would make Google specially bad when the risk is realized, but I'm sure they exist.

2. I think they do a lot of good, which far outweighs the issue mentioned in point 1. Here are the 5 best things that come to mind right now:

- They do amazing good for open source. I have seen Google criticized for "paying lip service to open source" or worst, which I find laughable. They have published 3 open source operating systems (Chromium OS, AOSP, Fuchsia). They have created a huge number of very useful open source libraries I have been using for personal and professional project, from big ones like Flutter and gRPC to small ones like libyuv.

- Related: they do a lot of good for open standards. Case in point: their work on open, royalty-free video codecs, which has been a boon for open source. I have seen Google called evil on HN for this, which again harms the credibility of their detractors in my eyes. Even for Google Chat / Hangout / whatever, for which they got criticized a lot, I think it's fair to say they tried harder than all the other big players to make it work with an open standard before giving up.

- They have been a driving force for a more secure Internet: early use of https for webmail, 2-factor authentication, lately ubiquitous https...

- They have been leaders in giving users access to all their data, with the Data Liberation Front / Takeout.

- They are the most transparent when it comes to the privacy policies and collected data (for example I get prompts to check the policy whenever I do something in Incognito mode). And relaed to the previous point: the My Activity page is awesome! It helps realize what they collect on me, and it makes the collected data actually useful to the user. For example I used it to find a place I knew I had visited on a given day, though I had forgotten the name and location.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#657

Post by cbolton »

fsflover wrote: post #616
stingrae wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no. everyone is trying to do the right thing for the users and do what it takes to make the best experiences.

Are tracking and ad targeting based on it (i.e. manipulation) also considered “the right thing for users”?

It's how they fund the products, and their users choose to use them knowing that they are being tracked to be shown ads. So yes.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#658

Post by rootsudo »

the_af wrote: post #651
rootsudo wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, thanks for the link!

Of particular interest, if you're someone who's ditching Google services out of concern about privacy issues, is that Condoleezza Rice voiced support for warrantless wiretaps during Bush Jr's administration, and was also involved (to what degree is debatable) with the authorization to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" (aka torture). Whatever you personally think about these issues, if you're concerned about pri…

Agreed, 100%.

I also wondered why she dropped out of public for a while, for current events.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#659

Post by Razengan »

hu3 wrote: post #627
Razengan wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 MacBo…

Bad analogy. Destroying MacBooks that could be repaired is detrimental to the environment. Manufacturing a new laptop uses rare metals, petrol, all sorts of chemicals, tons of water and generates pollution.

Take a look at the links.

Apple has done a lot of good for users and has amazing products, and they have yet to annoy me as much as Microsoft did and Google do, so I will continue to be a user and a developer for their platforms.

Re: Degoogle: Cutting Google out of your life

#660

Post by nedt »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #226

If only Google were my 10th biggest problem. Try to get Exxon, Shell, et al out of your life who aren't violating abstract principles but are literally killing the planet. Then let me get unethically farmed or raised foods out of my life (which, thanks to the US preoccupation with corn and the nitrogen it requires, are frequently overlapping with petroleum). Then let me get Oracle and Microsoft out of my life. Then l…

For Exxon, Shell, … do it correctly. Don’t replace them. Less oil, car driving, plastic, …
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