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What I use instead of Google services

gabrielweinberg.com

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Re: What I use instead of Google services

#81

Post by Semaphor »

astrocat wrote: post #75

> "Like most people, I don't like to be tracked. I also am the founder of the search engine that doesn't track you, DuckDuckGo." It pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being "tracked" as something "bad" a priori. While there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, I tend to think of most "tracking" not as "stalking" but as "relationship building." Let me explain... Google is a service provi…

> My point is: I appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first.

That's the reason I always come back to google and search logged in. Almost all my searches are computer or more generally electronic related. On other search engines I get useless results.

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#82

Post by enraged_camel »

elliottpayne wrote: post #40

I switched to fastmail and duckduckgo in lieu of google products a little over a year ago for some of the same reasons. I tried to switch to safari from chrome, and that experiment lasted about 3 months before I got annoyed by how safari handles multiple tabs. But, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. If you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using techn…

>>But, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. If you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using technology. It's not realistic.

Exactly. It's not realistic because it's a strawman, and a disingenuous one at that.

No one really wants to be a "purist" about privacy. Indeed, the only way to live a 100% private life is to have a cabin on some uncharted island and never leave it.

Rational people, on the other hand, realize that there are certain privacy costs to living in modern society. They simply want to make informed decisions about which benefits to trade off those costs for.

What the author advises against is giving all your information to one company, i.e. Google. This holds especially true since said company's core business is serving you advertisements and generally controlling your Internet experience (using the "personal filter bubble" described in the article) using the information it has about you. Instead, he is suggesting that people spread their information across multiple service providers so that no single one of them can compile it to get a wholesome picture of who you are. The point is not to avoid giving your personal information (although the less you have to give, the better). The point is to avoid putting all of it in the hands of one company.

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#83

Post by imgabe »

Carrok wrote: post #59
imgabe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, say someone has a complete database of my location sampled at 10 minute intervals over the past few years. What could they do with that information that would be harmful to me?

So you're saying you're ok with me knowing everywhere you've been for the past few years? I'm going to assume then that you don't visit strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores, the house of your drug dealer, the house of your secret lover, a proctologists office, an OBGYN, an abortion clinic, or a million other places. You may not visit these places, but many others do, and having that information publicly available c…

strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores - these are all perfectly legal and innocuous activities. Who cares?

the house of your drug dealer - being in someone's house in circumstantial at best. By your logic they would also have to arrest the drug dealer's mailman, maid, meter reader, etc.

burglaries - again, circumstantial.

Someone who wants to do me harm doesn't need a database full of comprehensive location information. They'd only have to find out where I live and wait for me there.

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#84

Post by dombili »

Oletros wrote: post #74
dombili wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously not smart to rely on one company that heavily, but I can see his reasoning behind using Apple products. I too am not using any Google services if I can help it but if I had to make a choice between giving my data to Google or Apple, I'd choose Apple. Not because I trust Apple more than I trust Google, but because I trust their source of income. Apple's business is to sell you hardware, while Google's b…

Ah, so the problem is not having your data. By the way, I think iAds pertains to Apple, not to Google.

What Apple earns from iAds is chump change compare to Google's ad revenue. I don't deny iAds exists, but read my comment carefully. That's not their main source of income. Google's almost whole business is to sell ads. Apple can survive without selling ads, Google can not.

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#85

Post by monokrome »

I think that recommending BTSync is a bit scary.

Instead of accounts and a potentially long brute-force process as provided by Dropbox, BTsync relies on a public and "secret" key having been generated. This seems fine and dandy until you realize that the concept of brute force is an applicable means of getting access to anyone's BTsync if they are using the standard tracker.

Given enough storage space and bandwidth, someone could just create any number of shared folders assigning them all a different set of keys (this doesn't need to be done one-at-a-time) and wait for data to fall into them.

Doesn't this completely sidestep the concept of the data being supposedly secure in BTsync?

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#86

Post by cik »

jancborchardt wrote: post #60
cik wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I can oblige here then :) owncloud, owncloud, owncloud! It has CalDAV, CardDAV, and files support. There's even a rudimentary (though scary) online editor with support for openoffice. I use two-factor with owncloud, and happily share files, too. And... it supports an encrypted backend!. Now, if you're happy to host your own mail, you can also look at adding RoundCube. This can solve the Calendar/Contacts/Email/…

If you want to alpha-test it, we’re also working on a Mail app for ownCloud on the side: https://github.com/owncloud/mail Just clone it, install the dependencies via composer and you’re good to go. It’s just an IMAP client at the moment, but multi-account and when the IMAP server is on the same origin as ownCloud it’s quite fast. Feedback very welcome!

I'm down - happy to test it out. Now... to upgrade to OC7 :)

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#87

Post by cik »

privong wrote: post #56
cik wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I can oblige here then :) owncloud, owncloud, owncloud! It has CalDAV, CardDAV, and files support. There's even a rudimentary (though scary) online editor with support for openoffice. I use two-factor with owncloud, and happily share files, too. And... it supports an encrypted backend!. Now, if you're happy to host your own mail, you can also look at adding RoundCube. This can solve the Calendar/Contacts/Email/…

> I use two-factor with owncloud, What are you using for the two-factor?

owncloud has two-factor support via Google Authenticator, I'm happy enough there. I use Authy to sync the tokens between my devices.

Full caveat though: I never have a single device with both my tokens, and synced password database - just in case memory dumps of phones/tablets become valid. So, I dump my password database to my tablet, whereas I sync my authy tokens between two phones.

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#88

Post by imgabe »

Valseuss wrote: post #73
Carrok wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying you're ok with me knowing everywhere you've been for the past few years? I'm going to assume then that you don't visit strip clubs, bars, 'adult book' stores, the house of your drug dealer, the house of your secret lover, a proctologists office, an OBGYN, an abortion clinic, or a million other places. You may not visit these places, but many others do, and having that information publicly available c…

You don't even have to have been there at all. Once an entity holds all your personal information like that, they can just say "Oh you were here, here, here and here at these times" even if it was not true. Who would doubt them? After all they have all the information right? RIGHT? Perfect way to set up someone you don't like.

If the government has devolved to the point that we have to worry about them framing people unjustly, we have FAR, FAR bigger problems than a database of location information. Hiding the information in that scenario is, at best, a temporary band aid. The appropriate fix is limiting the power of the government and requiring strict and transparent conditions on when and why someone can be arrested.

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#89

Post by chimeracoder »

astrocat wrote: post #75

> "Like most people, I don't like to be tracked. I also am the founder of the search engine that doesn't track you, DuckDuckGo." It pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being "tracked" as something "bad" a priori. While there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, I tend to think of most "tracking" not as "stalking" but as "relationship building." Let me explain... Google is a service provi…

> appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first.

Really? For that exact query, I get the Wikipedia page for "Salt (Cryptography)", "How to Hash Passwords", and "Salt the Hash - Security tutorial"... you get the idea[0].

AFAIK, the stuff you're seeing at the top is their 'zero click' information, which Google never provided (until after DDG added it and promoted it as a selling point). That's a little hit-or-miss, sure, but the actual search results of DDG are generally just as relevant.

I've been using DDG as my primary search engine for years now - I still resort to "!g" searches sometimes, but I have to do it far less than I used to.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/qt2Xpfm.png

Re: What I use instead of Google services

#90

Post by Spearchucker »

astrocat wrote: post #75

> "Like most people, I don't like to be tracked. I also am the founder of the search engine that doesn't track you, DuckDuckGo." It pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being "tracked" as something "bad" a priori. While there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, I tend to think of most "tracking" not as "stalking" but as "relationship building." Let me explain... Google is a service provi…

Tracking is an issue in that your interests, preferences, and proclivities are being used to make others richer. Hey if that's ok with you then I'm cool with that. I'm not cool with me doing that. I run ad blockers. If you make a living from ads then offer me a paid-for alternative. I avoid everything Google. I use a Windows Phone without a Microsoft account. If an app wants access to my contacts it doesn't get installed. My blog is my own code because I own what I write so I want control. In the absolute sense. I'd rather pay than use a free service, because being a cynic I don't believe altruism in it's truest sense exists.

I interact on my terms, or not at all.

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