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De-googling, so far

blog.nradk.com

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Re: De-googling, so far

#71

Post by instagib »

lawn wrote: post #15
annexrichmond wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally been watching YouTube less and less. The ads are insane. I would normally spend more time watching videos but it's become so disruptive I think most of us can agree that many videos are unnecessarily long (as it's incentivized by the creator for ad revenue), so there's far more fluff in it. With the rise of LLMs, etc for getting knowledge fast , I just can't see how this model is sustainable. I don't…

Don't everyone on HN use ublock origin? I haven't seen an ad in years.

Sideloaded the latest and greatest YouTube++/uYou/uYouPlus/(currently uYouEnhanced) on my iPhone and re-sign it weekly with AltStore, Trollstore, or use a jailbroken equivalent on a device that managed to stay jailbroken.

There’s a few other new options I’ve seen through Reddit for web viewing, iOS content blockers, or hosting your own VPS invidious/piped instance with rotating ipv6 servers (not google/aws/digital ocean as they require using a web panel).

You can leave ads on for whitelisted creators sponsored advertising content also.

Re: De-googling, so far

#72

Post by blauditore »

Although this author seems pretty reasonable with regards to actual privacy (preferring self-hosted software), I find the popular echo chamber of "avoid Google, they steal your data" quite misguided.

Yes, Google accumulates data and does stuff with it. But Google also has rigorous processes to lock down data and access to it, unlike virtually any small-to-medium cloud software provider. I've heard crazy stories like people looking up their friends' health insurance details for fun, just because almost everyone in the engineering part of that company had access to the production database.

Plus, Google is so large that it constantly receives attention by public institutions, which makes it harder to pull off shady stuff without getting caught. If sells your data to the highest bidder who will spam you with cold calls, no one's gonna bat an eye.

Re: De-googling, so far

#73

Post by the_af »

gfourfour wrote: post #9

I “de-reddited” with HN.

HN is not a replacement for Reddit in general though.

Reddit is a collection of forums/communities with wildly varying topics. HN is just one specific forum.

Some of the worst behaviors that are common in many Reddit subs are discouraged here in HN, and for that I'm thankful. But the topics aren't the same, so one cannot replace the other in general.

Re: De-googling, so far

#74

Post by jiayo »

schaefer wrote: post #18

For me the degoogling sticking point is that I have a custom domain (registered through Google domains) that i use for both for my email addresses and my small personal home page. It would be nice to find a host that offers both hosting and email through a custom domain too.

Google Domains was sold to squarespace. Your domain will be migrated soon/already has been. Check your inbox.

> Your Google domain has been migrated to your Squarespace Domains account. You can now log in at Squarespace Domains with your Google account to manage your domain, example.org. This is part of Squarespace's acquisition of all domain registrations and customer accounts from Google Domains.

Re: De-googling, so far

#75

Post by SoftTalker »

throw_pm23 wrote: post #21
annexrichmond wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally been watching YouTube less and less. The ads are insane. I would normally spend more time watching videos but it's become so disruptive I think most of us can agree that many videos are unnecessarily long (as it's incentivized by the creator for ad revenue), so there's far more fluff in it. With the rise of LLMs, etc for getting knowledge fast , I just can't see how this model is sustainable. I don't…

Where do you see ads on Youtube? I have seen maybe one or two in 10 years.

More and more content creators are just embedding them directly into their videos. Either by just mentioning sponsor names in the flow of what they are talking about, or doing little sidebars where they talk about/promote their sponsors.

I don't mind these so much because they are easy to skip, but ad-blockers don't catch them.

Re: De-googling, so far

#76

Post by colingoodman »

jiayo wrote: post #68
neilv wrote: post #19

> OpenStreetMap-based apps like Organic Maps are great and I frequently use them, but I find myself using the Google Maps website a lot, for tasks like searching for restaurants to getting an estimate of how long my commute is going to take. Agreed, as someone who walks almost everywhere, Organic Maps is great on GrapheneOS. The only things I use Google Maps for are more rare: (1) see what hours a store is open, whic…

For what it's worth, both Apple Maps and Bing Maps now have street-view like features, at least in my neck of the woods (Canada).

Just about all of Apple's alternates to Google services are fine in my experience. I recently switched from Proton Mail to Apple Mail and have been satisfied saving a few bucks a month there. I don't know how to evaluate Apple's claims to privacy though.

Re: De-googling, so far

#77

Post by extr »

For me the point of de-googling is not to literally stop using every single Google service but to disengage enough that your entire online identity isn't tied to Google such that losing your account would be catastrophic.

For example, I still have a gmail account I use for lots of random things, but critical bank/financial accounts go directly to a separate fastmail address (where I am confident I could get a human to help me if there was a serious account problem). I still use Google Docs suite, but "important" documents are stored locally as Word/Excel files. I still use Google Drive/Google Photos, but I make periodic backups to a local SSD + other online backup services (iCloud/OneDrive). Etc.

I don't understand why you would want to "ditch every Google product and service". Some of them are objectively pretty great, or inherently have low switching costs (like Google Maps).

Re: De-googling, so far

#78

Post by balderdash »

poochkoishi728 wrote: post #23

Does anyone know how private ProtonMail is? I heard admittedly crackpot-sounding rumors that it was some sort of NSA honeypot, but verifying them seems like proving the existence of a divine being.

I mean after the Crypto AG / Project rubicon came to light (let alone many of the disclosures since) I don’t think you can rule it out - but at least it’s unlikely your data is for sale /being actively used against you for commercial purposes

Re: De-googling, so far

#79

Post by lc5G »

guyzero wrote: post #37
least wrote: post #5

The only thing irreplaceable for me is Youtube. Even if it's gotten worse as a platform over time, I still consume it more than any other type of video media and there are no good alternatives for much of the content that I enjoy watching.

I find it crazy that someone will say "I still consume it more than any other type of video media" but somehow just paying for it isn't an option. You can pay to make YT ads go away. And the payments go to the video creators (eventually).

I would pay for youtube if they provided an official API to download videos and stream videos in a client of my choice.

I prefer to watch youtube with a custom player (mpv+yt-dlp on desktop, newpipe on android). I do not want to watch youtube on the youtube website or official youtube android app. The custom clients I am using are unofficial. They reverse engineer youtube to make it work. They often break when youtube changes something.

Re: De-googling, so far

#80

Post by bsder »

lawn wrote: post #15
annexrichmond wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've personally been watching YouTube less and less. The ads are insane. I would normally spend more time watching videos but it's become so disruptive I think most of us can agree that many videos are unnecessarily long (as it's incentivized by the creator for ad revenue), so there's far more fluff in it. With the rise of LLMs, etc for getting knowledge fast , I just can't see how this model is sustainable. I don't…

Don't everyone on HN use ublock origin? I haven't seen an ad in years.

YouTube seems to be doing subtle dark patterns if you use uBlock origin.

For example, I can watch videos, but I often get an "error" if I try to seek in the video.

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