Yes I also use DuckDuckGo, just a pity that it's not as well known
What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
71–80 of 324 posts
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#72It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously
Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my friends. It's almost impossible to leave.
I empathize. It's the same situation in reverse for many people. The social networks I'm on is where my friends and/or fam are at. It becomes very hard to leave once you've imprinted your social network onto a social network platform. A very common situation.
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#73It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously
>It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp.
The public probably is not able or willing to pay for extremely valuable instant global communications service that handles audio, video, photo, text, and other data. Regardless of who owns it, I know that my network of people across 4 continents derives great value from the free service.
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#74Google is relatively straight forward to replace. Inexpensive 80% solutions exist for most of their services. Maps is a notable exception. As for Facebook you're fighting against the greatest network effects in the history of mankind.
Openstreetmaps is pretty good. The transition has gotten much better than it used to be.
Last time I tried any of the OSM apps for search for random thing + navigate there flow, the results were a joke compared to the Google experience. Has it improved by an order of magnitude over the past couple years? I think this might be one of the cases where Google just has way more data for their algorithms.
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#75I'm actually building an alternative to Facebook for people fed up with Facebook and just want to stay in touch with people and not much more. I would go as far as calling it a glorified address book with some extra features for having up-to-date contact details for everyone that has granted you the privilege of having them and a very cut down version of the feed. Which brings me to the question of monetisation. I do…
Hey, we're exploring the problem of monetization too! That's one of the things we're discussing right now in VC3 (https://vc3.club)- if you're interested, we'd love to have you join the conversation!
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#76DuckDuckGo is really changing my world. It’s like I’m seeing a whole other internet I was missing before with Google search results. I get much more relevant answers and less SEO targeted garbage that says all the right words usually while saying nothing at all. I was skeptical, but I encourage you to give it a try if you haven’t before.
So I need a 1m long C7-C8 extension cord. Not a 30cm, not a 50cm, not a 1.8m, I need 1m long. Let's search:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=c7+c8+extension+cord+%221m%22&t=h_...
let's force the titles:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=intitle%3Ac7+intitle%3Ac8+extensio...
That's completely broken, the titles contain none of the three things asked for.
yeah, I am not hopeful with duckduckgo either. I mean, Google is just as bad but I am pretty dismayed by the results these days.
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#77It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously
Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my friends. It's almost impossible to leave.
I've converted most of my friends to Signal. Easy switch.
[edit] The native desktop app is even better than WhatsApp's (doesn't stream data from your phone).
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#78A better question is how you use or create an alternative to X without becoming X in the long run.
Facebook is kings because of its market share which is why people use it.
There are ways of communicating with a close group of friends that don’t involve social media but for people who want to keep in touch with a large social circle there is really no alternative.
And far as the gmail replacement goes then it’s by far the easiest thing to find an alternative for and also probably the least important one.
I have a feeling that people who rely heavily on emails to stay in touch also probably don’t use social media so Facebook isn’t an issue for them.
However the problem is that due social pressure it’s a most impossible to drop from a platform without having it affecting your relationships.
Sure people switch as groups and slowly migrate from one platform to another but overall trying to drop X for Y tends result in you using both or quickly switching back.
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#79He mentions Brave browser, but Vivaldi browser combined with uBlock Origin (and uMatrix if you're savvy enough) works best for me as I want nothing to do with ads. Telegram is another fantastic messenger.
Concerning social media, you don't really need it: https://www.quitfacebook.org.
Re: What can you use instead of Google and Facebook?
#80I’m excited by the https://planetary.social/ announcement this week.
“We’re building an open and humane alternative to Facebook”
https://mobile.twitter.com/rabble/status/1220075601337315328