> For the most part, I'm now Google free. I don't despise Google as a company but I believe that their core business model is incompatible with privacy.
I like that closing line. It's something I can relate with. I appreciate Google's products, use a Pixel 3 which is a sin I probably shouldn't admit on HN, and I'd love to use their whole ecosystem - Google suite, the Chromebook, Google Home etc - for all my tech needs. The issue is, Google in my eyes is a data analytics company first and foremost. No matter how much I like the design and functionality of their products, if I want to maintain even a small semblance of privacy I can't in good faith support them.
Only problem I have now is that their phone is too damn good to ditch...
Have you found any inconveniences in day to day life? Google provides so much information in everyday life (weather, restaurant reviews, calendar, who was the president in 1936, etc) that I would be significantly slower living my life.
The weather problem has been a surprising one. It seems that most weather websites are really terrible. All I ever want to know is the hourly temperature, and hourly precipitation. Google does this easily with a query against "weather [zipcode]". Other services do technically provide this information, but it always seems to be obfuscated, or otherwise hard to obtain.
[edit]
Here is a very amateurish graphic depicting the difference.
I'm not sure what the problem is as DDG does that as well.
I just tried searching "weather [zipcode]" on DDG and the first result is a card with current weather info for that zipcode from DarkSky. The feature is very similar to Google's weather card.
You can bookmark that weather.gov page and once you start glancing at it regularly you know what to look for quickly. For instance the Google precip graph and the green graph towards the bottom are the exact same, google's is just cuter. You can also turn on and off graph elements and bookmark that version of the page if you didn't care about sky cover or whatever.
For mobile I use darksky. Gives you hourly precip chance as well as a detailed look at the hour ahead (specifically, the intensity of the rain not whether or not it will happen), but importantly it will push a notification if it's going to rain in x minutes. There are a couple other handy features, and since it's paid it's free of ads. Pretty nice if you bike or walk regularly for commuting. It's scary accurate in my experience; if it says it's going to rain in 8 minutes and stop 13 minutes later, that's exactly what's going to happen.
And, I concede all your points about bookmarking after turning off all the configs. I just wish the pretty, simple, and easy to retrieve version were more common.
Not anything significant to be honest. There are alternative applications and hardware for almost everything nowadays. Convincing people that we need devices all running in the same ecosystem was one of the lasting legacy's of Steve Jobs that I realised wasn't really true in reality.
For searches I occasionally might have to check Google for a niche search term, but Duck.com returns the right thing for 95% of my queries. In terms of hardware, a Pixel phone, Fire tablet, Surface Book laptop, and Windows desktop fulfil all my needs, with only important docs synched with Dropbox and the rest stored on a couple of flash drives I have on me 24/7. For home automation I made my own using a Raspberry Pi and a bunch of ESP8266's, which does basically everything that big brand alternatives do and more (I can water my plants from my bed!) For software I use Outlook for emails and calendar, OpenOffice for word processing, Prezi for presentations, and admittedly mainly Google Sheets for that kind of data handling, as it's good for collaborating which is the only thing I ever use it for. Trip Advisor is great for reviews. BBC weather is all I use for checking that.
Nothing is slower I've found. I just had to experiment with what worked for me, and get the right 'flow' of using them, which I suppose took a few weeks to iron out. The great thing is that doing it this way means I can adapt to my needs, not be forced into using a suite that might not cater to them. It also means most importantly that, for the most part, I don't get snooped on!
Honestly, I wonder if that slight delay in finding out who was President in 1963 would have a material negative impact on my life. I suspect not. At the same time, I have a feeling that slowness may have an actual measurable positive impact on my life. A lot of what I do now is frankly pointless and jt may help me focus on more useful things.
If Google shut down operations tomorrow, do you really think you would be unable to find information on the weather, restaurant reviews, use a calendar, or find out who the president was in 1936? Other than the calendar, it's not like they actually keep this information anywhere. Just links to it. I'm guessing that three years or so later you'd be hard-pressed to remember why you thought Google was the only choice for this.
phone is basically a choice between google (any android phone unless you jailbreak and de-goog it, which is a PITA) and apple. Who is less offensive surveilling you? Can you really predict that will still be true in 5 years?
Dumb phone is a valid choice. And it works just fine, there is absolutely nothing that a smart phone offers that I can not do without, and not having a continuous distraction makes me a lot more productive than I would be otherwise. It's bad enough with the web and 'always on' internet, to have that in my pocket would completely kill my productivity.
I appreciate the sentiment but my phone now does so many things that I would really miss if I'd have to get rid of it. GPS and navigation, Mobile Banking, IM because nobody sends text messages anymore, Calendar and quick web searches and a decent camera I'll always carry.
I look at a map before I leave when on foot and in the car I have a navigator.
- Mobile Banking
Nothing that can't wait until I'm behind a desk.
- IM because nobody sends text messages anymore
Nobody sends me IM messages because I never used it in the first place.
- Calendar
Could be useful, once every month or so, but on the whole it is easy enough to do this stuff once I'm back behind my desk, worst case the other side has access and they can send me an invite. This really only comes up when someone on the phone wants to book some kind of appointment when I'm on the road, and in that case I'm actually really happy I am not going to be tempted to look at my phone, it is annoying enough that people expect your phone to be answered at all hours.
- quick web searches
I do a ton of those, but not when I'm out of the office or meeting people, I've had a case come up once or twice but usually I just make a mental note to check up on something.
- a decent camera I'll always carry
That's a good one, another one which would work for me would be to have something good to read wherever I go.
But those two can be solved quite easily: my dumb phone has a reasonably good camera and there's always a book in my bag.
Good for you. How is your FTP file synchronisation going? Sarcasm aside, surely you know how much of an outlier you are. Your comment sounds pretty limited on empathy for other lifestyles.
> Your comment sounds pretty limited on empathy for other lifestyles.
That problem is on your end I'm afraid, no judgment call on other lifestyles was implied or intended, I merely documented how I do stuff without commenting on how you do stuff or how I feel you should do stuff.
In a nutshell: I'm susceptible to being distracted with an ease that makes toddlers jealous and because of that I have to seriously restrict the kind of effect my environment has on me or I'll happily burn up my whole life without achieving anything. In order to do that I've decided that smartphones - besides being a security risk and a tracking device - are not for me.
A shocking number of dumb devices play music, including most dumbphones.
Not the parent, but in my personal case I only listen to music in my car, and have my MP3 library synced to a device in my car. It doesn't cost me data and works in the middle of nowhere.
In my experience, unless I do an inordinate amount of prior planning (printing out map directions, itineraries, hotel reservations, etc.) it is very easy to have navigation difficulties in unfamiliar cities with street signs in foreign languages....or no street signs at all. Where do you get an accurate map when you are trying to meet people at a newly-opened cafe in Hanoi's old French Quarter?
Nobody can send you an IM? So if you strike up a conversation with a Shenzhen entrepreneur, he wants to stay in contact to talk business and suggests WeChat, your only response is [US phone number] or [email]?
No web searches when out of the office? So if your next course of action is contingent upon a piece of information you don't currently have access to, you can't proceed with a decision on-the-spot because you possess no ability to access remote data while you are mobile?
I dunno, seems like a lot of potential inefficiencies and lost opportunities compared to dropping $150 on a dual-SIM rugged Android phone from China, and then installing a few apps on it. But hey, if it works for you.....
I took a family trip back to America recently and my jaw dropped watching my (74yo) father and his wife use a paper map to navigate to DisneyWorld. They complained that Google was giving them "bad directions". My older brother and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. PICNIC (Problem in chair, not in computer).
Do you have a dumb phone recommendation, or would any do just fine? I've been seriously considering making the switch to a dumb phone that could just cover calls/texts/work emails.
I used to hold this view, until I went and bought myself a dumb device and ended up ditching it a month later. Some apps are just too integral to modern life to lose, and many unavoidable places only function using apps now (my library, parking, bike rental, work access and expenses claims etc).
To counter this issue of distraction, I managed to get my app selection down to about 10-12 essentials, all heavily curated so there's nothing that will 'keep me scrolling'. It basically consists of Email, Messaging, Duolingo, edx, Instagram (only following about 200 close friends so my feed is at most 5-8 pictures a day), Uber, Spotify, MyFitnessPal, Audible, and the apps for the aforementioned uses.
After removing the "continuous distraction" apps from my phone it's gone from a procrastination machine, back to being the worlds most valuable tool.
I currently use a dumb phone that I got in early 2011. I really wouldn't mind upgrading, but the only dumb phones that are Verizon compatible seem to be flip phones, and I really don't want a flip phone. I honestly rarely use the thing anymore other than to text my mom good morning and call someone maybe once a month to verify plans.
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I was a dumb phone user for years. I carried a refurbished LG 105c for about the last six years. The battery was great. I could go an entire week without charging it. MMS messages started crashing the LG in the past few years and this increasingly got worse. So I got a cheap Samsung smart phone (J35) just this year. MMS messages were the only compelling reason for me to switch (literally the phone would crash every time someone sent me an MMS). I love the smart phone now too. I'm not sure how I got by without one for the last decade, but had my old LG handled MMS messages, I would have never switched.
P.S. People often made fun of me for carrying the dumb phone. I'd always quip, "I'm too smart to use a smart phone." Feel free to use that quote when defending yourself ;)
I don't see any need to defend myself. My choices are mine and this is my life, that's all the defense I'll ever need. Other people are free to do whatever they want to but to position things as though 'apple or android' are the only choices available to me does simply not seem correct. Yes, I'm sure the percentage of tech people without a smartphone is low but outside the tech scene there are still plenty of people without smartphones.
More than "linux winning the desktop", i really, really, really hope and dream that more linux phones become available - including LineageOS stuff becoming easier to install on legacy android phones.
Android is using Linux, but calling it Linux is entirely wrong.
It tries very hard to hide any non-portable components from you. The base platform is a virtual machine where you have zero access to any Linux API. They even indent their own API for things Linux already has! (Binder, ashmem, power management...)
About the one Linux API you have access to is sockets, if you're writing native code, and there mostly a POSIX subset. (No, you do not really have access to file system directly.)
It could run on Minix or Windows or Darwin for all Google cares about - but hardware manufacturers preferred Linux for the price.
I have a Gemini and have been very pleased with it and have supported the Cosmo too because I want to support them. I'm hoping that if they continue to make sales they'll continue to develop newer devices.
These projects aren't quite delivering your complete feature set but they're making the best go of it out of anyone I've seen.
The n900 was amazing. The hardware, the OS all really good. Nokia could have kept that going and won a huge market share. No login, no account, no tracking, no surveillance. Just your phone. But Microsoft execs ran then into the ground then sold the corpse to Microsoft. The non-surveillance, open phone was lost.
Is this question a trap? Isn't it rather obvious that Apple, a company that has never really had a business model built on surveillence, is less offensive than Google in this regard?
Yes, but fast forward 5 years, everybody has switched to Apple, and shareholders are getting worried that they might not see any growth this quarter ...
Another risk to Apple would be that the regulatory machine of government more or less brings the Google/FB data vacuum under control in the next 5 years and consumers stop paying super high prices for Apple hardware and ecosystem membership. Because they trust Google/FB again.
Ok, on second thought, that's an infinitesimally small risk.
This is always a possibility. At least Apple has a business model based on selling devices and services. Unlike Google (or Facebook, for example), monetizing users / analytics / tracking isn't the only option available to them.
So you're right - Apple could always go down a bad path. But because of their respective business models, I'm more confident in Apple than Google.
I know this reason is often cited as why Apple are the privacy-focused company, but I guess its interesting that Google seem to be focussing more on products lately as well (in comparison to earlier, not in comparison to data-collection). They have their own phone line, tablets, smart speakers (data collection king), headphones etc. So if Google made something out of that market then I guess this distinction could over time diminish?
If Apple has a bad quarter with iPhone sales, every shareholder takes notice and a lot of verbiage is written to shareholders to explain why that may have been the case and what if anything is being done to correct sales projections for the next quarter.
Google doesn't have any products that are similar. Google mostly only answers similarly to shareholders if ad revenue is down. It would potentially take a lot to change in the world for any product to rival Google's ad revenue in prominence on shareholder reports.
Apple, a company that hasn't yet had a business model...
Or has it? They say not, I don't believe a word they say on the principle of not trusting liars. But maybe they're better than google in some dimension or other today. Wouldn't like to bet on it. Definitely wouldn't bet on what they'll do with their collected data in 5 years time. I want to trust the company that doesn't lie and doesn't collect data. Open Whisper Systems seem to do pretty well in that regard. Compared to apple? Apple will sell you up the river as soon as it makes business sense to do it. The question is when, not if.
I agree. But that model makes sense, given that they (at least based on their press) don't receive (any? as much?) money from selling user data.
I'm kind of surprised that such an option exists at all in the marketplace, given the amount of cash Google and FB suck in. At least consumers have some choice.
"hasn't yet had a business model... built on surveillance."
It's a change in wording of the parent, I thought it was obvious with the ellipses I was doing s/has never really had/hasn't yet/ on that comment.
Apple will sell you up the river as soon as it suits them to do it, assuming they haven't already which you can't know. I really think it's terribly naive to come to a different opinion on that but some people just love Apple and strongly believe they can do no wrong. Even around here...
Remember how apple were "nicer" than microsoft because they had no market share, then got it and became far, far worse immediately? 30% of your revenues taxed by apple for writing software running on the OS they wrote. Microsoft had wet dreams about being so evil. And so it is with their data collection, if they're nice only because they haven't yet worked out how to monetise it effectively with the opportunity cost of pretending they care about your privacy for marketing purposes, which they OBVIOUSLY don't. I mean seriously does anyone believe Apple give a flying hoot about your privacy? I struggle to see how such an opinion is tenable beyond "oh but they're not as bad as Google or Kim Jong Un yet"
You seem to think an institution the size of Apple is able to turn on a dime and change their entire modus operandi. That is some kind of supervillain logic, and I don’t think it’s true at all of real world institutions their size.
Their recent focus on “privacy” is a happy accident of how they make money. They are uniquely positioned to brag about how little data they collect, because they make money off luxury hardware and service fees, not data hoarding. Ultimately that’s why it’s trustworthy - the entire way they run their business happens to be aligned with privacy as a value, so we don’t just have to judge their character to believe it.
It’s the exact opposite of Google, whose business has always run on targeted advertisement, and thus is fundamentally at odds with privacy.
For this to change substantially even in 5 years, both of the companies would have to go through fundamental and opposing transformations. I find that extremely unlikely.
This is a response I find odd. Do you think that apple are completely incapable of selling the data they have collected on you literally tomorrow if they choose to today? It's hardly turning on a dime to provide someone with database access for a fee. Or they could start a secret project to do it themselves next year. It's a crapload easier than building a new phone. Relying on your trust of apple for things you don't want to happen being prevented is just a mistake.
You don't actually think they haven't collected the data and stored it, do you? I mean you really can't be thinking that, right?
> Relying on your trust of apple for things you don't want to happen being prevented is just a mistake.
Again, my trust of Apple (relative to Google) in this regard fundamentally does not come from a moral judgement of some kind. Google is built on hoarding and monetizing user data, so they are likely to do it at a larger scale, more efficiently, etc. Of course Apple has all sorts of information about me as a user, but because of the business they’re in, they’re going to be less hungry for it than Google.
You can say the opposite about the “walled garden” discussion. That’s Apple’s game. Even though Google can play it too, they’re likely to do it to a lesser extent, because it’s not quite as valuable for their business.
They collect the information. All of it. Everything they can. And no doubt some things they aren't allowed to. Do you doubt it? They absolutely will f&^k you over with it. Do you doubt it?
"But they aren't so good at f&^king me over as someone else, yet."
This is just an astoundingly hideous support of apple but yes, it's about the only one that isn't totally and completely false. Good luck with that, to us all. This is where we're up to. Needs to be said out loud often.
Degrees of disgusting, awful, hideousness beyond totally unacceptable are really only of academic interest to ghouls.
It's sad that blackberry had to kill off the last hurrah of BBOS before switching to android. I had a Q5 fully capable of just sideloading whatever android apps I needed that weren't in blackberrys own appstore. That is until google play services weaseled their way into everything.
> unless you jailbreak and de-goog it, which is a PITA
I've wiped my phone and put LineageOS on it a few weeks ago and I've had no problems whatsoever. (To be fair I should say that my device was officially supported and I don't use any apps that depend on the GSF.)
You don't need to. Just use apps that do not need Google Play Services. F-Droid helps out with that. I don't miss anything since almost all services I need to use have very good mobile websites. I'm glad I'm not unknowingly sharing a bunch of my data with them.
If I could survive with just apps that don't need Google Play Services I would have seriously considered staying on Windows Phone despite security support ending in November.
We've lost the App War. I need multiple Apps that "need" Location Services and Push Notifications just to get what used to be hole punches or stamps on business cards for buy 10 get 1 free sandwiches in 2019.
Options like LineageOS and going without Google Play Services might as well be a "dumb phone" in current culture. It's an hilarious joke. Google realized all the real control in Android was in controlling Google Play Services, and as soon as that got locked down people should have been worried. Google wouldn't have had as much power to "kill" Windows Phone that they had if apps didn't matter.
(Fwiw, I went back to Apple as that unfortunately seemed the only sane choice to have Apps and some semblance of maybe Privacy.)
I don't use any apps that require the Services Framework. (I really just use my phone for HN, Twitter, messaging, basic browsing and public transport.) I know that this isn't applicable to everyone though.
Actually, since I've ditched WhatsApp a few days ago, I'm running 100% FOSS (sans some proprietary blobs and all the network services) on my phone.
Buy Chinese brands like Oppo, Meizu or Xiaomi (mix 3 is awesome). If you get the one with the Chinese rom Google has been removed to an extent that is not possible by end users or are least without switching ROMs which is generally a PIA. The issue then becomes installing something like ApkPure as a replacement for Google play unless you enjoy your Firefox in Chinese. TouchPal is a terrific keyboard as well if you manage to get rid of their ads.
I'm pretty much in the Apple/Microsoft camp, but I've went with Amazon on the Echo side of things because their offering is more reliable (and more devices support it).
What I am getting at is that a lot of us probably make a concession here or there but as long as you're happy/comfortable with it, go for it.
The last vestige of Google I voluntarily find myself with is Gmail, but I have a strong feeling once Apple comes with these burner email forwarder things, I'm probably going to switch to Proton or something similar.
If you use email, google basically have it. A big enough proportion of your mail counter-parties use google that running your own mail-server doesn't buy you much. The gesture is a good one and everyone should do it until google are just another tech company, I guess. But doing it now doesn't really de-google your email, sadly.
Though there are some other benefits to changing your own email provider even if Google still has copies of all your email. The big one is that Google has no support, and if you ever have a problem your only recourse is knowing someone who works there and can get your issue in front of an actual person.
Other email providers (especially ones where you pay them money for the service) have actual support employees.
The majority of my emails are between myself and a business, currently letting google track my purchases, holidays, event booking etc by reading the responses I get.
If I stopped using gmail, how would they track that kind of stuff?
Few businesses are going to be using consumer level gmail.
There have actually been times recently where I've had what I consider 'iffy' results from DDG for very domain-specific queries, but when I've double checked with !g, the DDG results were far more on-topic, and google was giving much much worse results.
That said, google's image results are still significantly better than DDG or Bing, but that's such a small part of my queries that it's pretty much a non-issue.
Why are people so paranoid about privacy? We want better services, well those services need to know what you like. It's just a bunch of computers trying to figure out what's trending and what you need. There's no human driven analytics team out there reading and sifting through your e-mails trying to figure out who you are.
I much rather be concerned about security than privacy.
I think, with regards to Google, it's all about their business model. Allowing a company to collect data for the sole purpose of personalizing the products you bought from them and recommending content is not an unreasonable choice. Google offers personalized services as a vehicle for data collection to fuel a business model where they sell targeted access to you to their other group of customers.
Not everyone considers a "better service" to be a service that is more efficient. For a lot of people, privacy is more valuable than being handed a personalized ad for a product I didn't know I wanted.
It's not "just a bunch of computers". It's potentially putting a lot of leverage in the same hands. Here are 3 examples.
As a woman, it's nearly impossible to get a job when you're pregnant, so it's better not to let anyone know during the job search. If you have HIV and people find out, they freak out thinking you'll infect them right away. If you're chronically sick, do you want insurance companies to know that ? No you don't, because the price of the insurance policy will "magically" be higher for you. Privacy has it good sides.
If a company violates your privacy and they are hacked then you have a double problem. So your focus on security is correct but security only really matters when companies have your data in the first place. And given the general state of security the very best way to ensure that your data does not end up in the wrong hands is by not giving it out in the first place, hence privacy ends up - for practical reasons - trumping security.
Not a week goes by without a major hack of some sort hitting the media, a much larger amount goes unreported. And even if the data isn't hacked it could easily be lifted using some legal instrument.
- Gmail: I'm still undecided if I will switch from this. I don't actually use email for communicating with anyone; it's really just for notifications and receipts and stuff. Beyond knowing what I'm buying, there's not much I care about in here anyway
- Search: Also iffy on this one. It's just leaps and bounds better than any other service provided. I think I might give DDG a chance just to see, but I don't worry about it too much.
- Chrome: I already dumped this thanks to their decisions with ad blockers. Even if I was not using ad blockers, they are forcing Chromium (not just Chrome!) users to conform to a standard that is in the best interest of their business and absolutely no one else. I can't support that.
- Hangouts: this is shutting down in a few months with no clear replacement plan. My friends and I are still trying to figure out where we will go, but you cannot trust Google to run a messaging service without shutting it down these days so it will not be one they provide
- Google Play Music: Already switched to a self-hosted Plex server. Other than the horrible bluetooth support in their Android phone, it's a superior experience in my opinion
- Nest: I may switch my thermostat away with them deprecating their APIs. A few IFTTT integrations I use are going to stop working and that is extremely frustrating.
- Home/Assistant: This is the one where privacy may make me toss them in the trash. I was satisfied initially with the security and the third parties supporting that it's only recording the keyword and anything said after, but this one is admittedly bugging me.
- Calendar: I only use this to remember birthdays and for keeping track of when TV shows are airing. There's no reason to get rid of this unless I am truly removing Google entirely
- Android: This is another privacy sore spot and one where I want to switch but I would greatly miss the customization options (Nova for example) and Relay for Reddit specifically (I've yet to find an iOS Reddit app worth using). For now, I've just locked it down the best I can and turned off things like GPS and bluetooth to limit what tracking can be done.
A lot of my sore points with Google are coming from how many of their services they are killing off and preparing for them to ultimately kill off the others that I am using, honestly. So while privacy is certainly on my mind, that is the ultimate factor for me.
Once companies gather enough data about you, they begin to fluidly cross the line from providing "better services" into "psychological manipulation".
Informative advertising, better UX, and more desirable features are positives and can be implemented with only a modest amount of data gathering. Intrusive manipulative ads, dark patterns, and addictive "stickiness" are negatives enabled by excessive collection of data.
I have mostly removed Google from my life. I still have a few stragglers (like Single Sign on stuff that for many sites are a pain in the ass to change) but it has been nice.
However my biggest annoyance is still the amount of data that Google can find out about me where I have no control over it.
- Emails to anyone using a Google service (I use iCloud)
- Texting anyone using Android (I have a similar frustration with Facebook and anyone that shares their contacts with them) (This is one of the key reasons I love iMessage and I always have caution when I see a green bubble.)
And similar data sharing I have absolutely no way to give consent for yet they still have, because someone else gave consent for me.
My hope is that Google cannot manage to link that data back to me somehow, but I am sure they can. But it doesn't change that they have that data.
Comments like yours imply that no one cannot exist on the internet without sharing stuff with some company, so it doesn’t really matter which one you choose.
Of course it matters. And of course one should remain vigilant to monitor the company of choice for changes in strategy or the like that might affect privacy claims.
I don’t inherently trust Apple more than Google, but I do trust (begrudgingly) that Apple’s current business model aligns their interests on privacy better with mine.
There's where the rubber hits the road, for me. Want total privacy? Stay off the internet.
Way back in the dark ages of 1996 or so, I went to a very early web security conference. At that point, it wasn't really a profession. It was junior devs like me, schoolteachers, all sorts of people who had the job of "web security" cast upon them. And we all commiserated about getting the same marching orders... our bosses wanted absolute and total security, with absolute and totally unfettered access to the internet, and without spending any money at all.
The consumer privacy discussion today reminds me so much of that era. Everyone wants unfettered access to the internet, without paying for it, and without anyone selling your data.
To a certain degree yes, Apple theoretically has access to all of that data thanks to my iCloud Drive, Mac, iPhone, etc etc.
Nearly all of my digital life happens on an Apple device. However they have shown that most of this happens on device instead of in the cloud, and they are not in the market of mining that data in order to build a profile that is used so a third party can sell me ads.
And? Have they ever sent an email to someone not on the service lying and saying, "so and so is trying to connect with you on <Apple Service>"? Have they ever harvested your contacts and then spammed them with ads for your service? Because Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. have. Backing your Contacts up to iCloud so they're on all your devices isn't remotely the same as apps like Facebook and LinkedIn slurping up your contacts for their own use and it's extremely disingenuous of you to imply it's the same thing.
Honestly I wonder about that myself, but I don't know if it has ever been challenged.
But I have no doubts that they do considering how often I see someone I recently gave my number to suddenly show as as a recommended friend on Facebook (who I do not allow that access)
> - Emails to anyone using a Google service (I use iCloud)
I found that the best thing you can do is try to convert the people you e-mail to most often (spouse, family, close friend) away from Google to some e-mail provider that values privacy. That way at least (maybe 50% of) your most private e-mails are safe from being analyzed/tracked/monetized :)
I have this hypothesis that technically minded people (like us) are completely unprofitable to Google when it comes to ads. I've never clicked on any ad or anything even remotely close to an ad ever unless it was accidental, I've ran adblockers on all my devices since I can remember. So I guess it's a bit ironic that people who are least profitable for Google are the most concerned about being tracked by it. I should mention however that I do buy their hardware products (phones, laptops) and pay for Gmail accounts for my own domain names, but that's just because they make good quality stuff which to me personally has nothing to do with ads.
Might be true but I wouldn't take the risk. It's not only about ads when they have access to your emails, location history and track what do you do on the internet.
I'm completely aware of the risks, so I try to keep my stuff they can keep track off as mundane as possible. Unfortunately when it comes to emails someone will always have access to them. My plan is eventually to get something like that Purism phone for more personal stuff. There are no perfect solutions.
If not Google then who? Fastmail? Protonmail? Someone will always read our emails, I just don't see a way around it. We kinda live in a world based on trust, maybe someday that will change, but probably not any time soon.
They don't read your email, they scan it. These things are semantically and practically different. Reading, to me, means human comprehension. It's not like some Google employee is going through my messages. Scanning is just robots putting keywords in a database to target ads. Which is annoying, but it's not really the same, privacy-wise.
Also to my understanding they don't touch the GSuite email accounts. There was actually someone here from the relevant Google team few months ago confirming that they go to great lengths to ensure that didn't happen. I can't dig up that particular comment though.
Replacing the maps app and YouTube are the hardest for me. I haven't found anything that compares to those services. And I think Waze is also owned by Google?
OpenStreetMaps is getting there. Heavily depends on the quality of maps in your area. For Youtube, you could use something like invidio.us or newpipe, which shows you only the channels that you have subscribed to.
OpenStreetMap actually seems quite excellent from a quick check. I've only glanced at it every now and then during the last few years (I used to contribute a bit back in around 2012) but now it actually seems awfully attractive compared to Google's/Apple's offerings - with all the annotations/coloring it actually looks like a real map!
Are there any good YouTube alternative front ends for Apple TV? I found a Plex plugin that might do the trick. Haven't tried it yet.
https://github.com/kolsys/YouTubeTV.bundle
With email, the deeper problem is that you can't force everyone you correspond with to leave Gmail. So your private correspondence will continue to be scanned to feed the ad-surveillance machine regardless. This is a problem common to leaving any standard protocol, especially a messaging protocol.
With Tutanota, encrypted emails sent outside of Tutanota are sent as links which the user clicks to read and reply to your email, keeping your messages off Gmail or any other insecure email server.
I have been using iOS for about 9 years now so I won't take that into it.
At certain points I had some expenses that I had to pay for (like MobileMe instead of Gmail).
But now I don't pay for anything that I could not stop paying and would loose much.
I pay for 2TB of iCloud storage for $9.99 a month (USD), but I could drop that and continue to use iCloud for Calendar, email and etc. (However you would pay google for this space anyways, but for only a TB)
I pay $10 a month for Apple News, but it is also a decent free service instead of google news.
I don't pay for Apple maps.
I don't see there being much, if any, monetary cost of transitioning unless you include the cost of moving from Android to iOS (which assuming you were going to upgrade your phone anyways may not need to be counted).
It isn't like Apple devices are that much more expensive than similar premium tier smartphones.
I wrote a very similar article back in 2007. Nice to see how the process has aged. This was the number 1 article on CenterNetworks until it's founder passed away a few years ago. (RIP Allen Stern)
I've been doing the same but I haven't quiet been able to find good replacements for gmail and hangouts. Anyone have any recommendations?
For gmail I'd like real imap and custom domain support. FastMail is the obvious choice, but I can't in good conscious trust an Australian company with my secrets.[0]
Hangouts: I'd like cross platform with a web client if possible. I would like optional chat history sync. And I'd like on by default encryption. Signal is great, but its treatment of chat history is too paranoid to be useful for everyday conversations. Whatsapp is also a strong contender, but I'd also prefer to stay off facebook services.
edit: for a hangouts replacement, I'm not looking for video/audio chats I'm looking for a direct messaging focused service that can serve as an SMS replacement along the lines of iMesseges, whatsapp or signal. And yes I know about XMPP I was a heavy user a decade ago, but I'd prefer not to replace a dying service with a dying protocol.
The hubbub about the article there is FUD, particularly when it comes to FastMail. Since FastMail isn't an end-to-end encrypted service (Gmail isn't either), laws about thwarting encryption are entirely irrelevant: Both must respond to a legal government order for your information. Google responds to many tens of thousands of these requests yearly: https://transparencyreport.google.com/user-data/overview?t=t...
If you are not Australian, the likelihood of getting your data subpoena'd from an Australian company is pretty low. If you're in the US, it's far more likely for your Gmail data to be successfully subpoena'd.
Unless you belong to a fairly narrow set of people, the risk of government access to your data is relatively low. Meanwhile, the threat of advertiser access to your data is high for everyone: Don't trust an ad company with your data, even if they currently say they won't use it for ads.
I'm not trying to compare gmail and fastmail. I'm trying get off gmail, and that is the top priority. However, changing email providers is relatively disruptive and I'd prefer to choose one that can last me 5-10 years. Fastmail was that choice but uncertainty about Australian encryption laws throws a wrench into that equation.
My concern with encryption law is not necessarily that FastMail will respond to warrants (though total non-compliance in a non-5 eyes country would be ideal), its how frequently and do they need to otherwise compromise the security of the product in order to do so. FastMail seems to think that the new laws will impact them negatively.[0] FastMail's response to these claims has not been exactly confidence inspiring as the Australian government could compel the company to comply not just individual coders.[1]
The real question I'm asking is, is fastmail my only real alternative to gmail?
FastMail certainly isn't the only alternative, but it's a really good one. I don't blame FastMail for criticizing the law, and it does impact them negatively: Despite not affecting their service at all from a technical standpoint, it is scaring people away from their service.
For the most part, any paid email service which has custom domain support and isn't owned by an adtech company should be, as far as privacy concerns go, likely pretty solid. You just tend to see FastMail brought up a lot because a lot of us have switched to it and are enthusiastic fans of it. ;)
There are several Ask HN posts about alternatives for Gmail. Apart from Fastmail, there are more privacy focused services. Some of them: posteo.de, runbox.com, mailbox.org and mailfence.com. These are a lot cheaper than Fastmail too, with full IMAP support. If you want a much cheaper service for many mailboxes, take a look at Migadu. For most people who need multiple mailboxes but don't send a lot of emails (but receive many), I'd find it hard to beat that pricing.
How's the imap support or using 3rd party email clients?
XMPP encryption is super janky, and the ecosystem is dying a slow death. Matrix is looking pretty appealing, but it doesn't work that great as a direct messaging platform. I've found that notifications are often delayed and and the UX is focused on the chat room case.
Can't help with hangouts but I've been starting to play around with Helm (https://thehelm.com/). You self-host a little box at your home, it sets up TLS certs via LetsEncrypt and tunnels to an AWS frontend with a clean IP that ferries your data to/from your network.
All data is secured on your device. Bring your own domain, supports IMAP/CalDav/CardDav. So far, I'm a fan but I'm still battle testing it before I start moving in earnest.
Anyone know of a good replacement for Voice? It's funny, because it seems that Google doesn't care about it much, but it's the stickiest of all their products for me. It's been incredibly convenient to have a combination of a phone # alias (under which I've changed phone service at least a dozen times) and cloud-stored web-accessible messaging history and send/receive interface. Easy setup, mobile-device independent.
Is FastMail really a good choice for privacy? I mean yeah, their feature set is awesome, they support (and develop! [1]) open standards and they sound pretty genuine. But they're based in Australia and given recent events ([2], [3]) I'm not sure if I would like to place my data in that country.
While IANAL, I'm not sure keeping email in a US company causes it to have privacy. For example, law enforcement in the US can subpoena email contents older than 180 days. No warrant required.
Google's transparency report shows they've shared a lot of data. Google's support site has details on the process.
Both Google and Fastmail have access to email. The encryption circumvention doesn't matter to Fastmail because they already complied with law enforcement just like Google does.
I'd be curious if someone has details or an argument different from this.
tl;dr: The law passed doesn't affect FastMail at all, and your data is at least as private with FastMail as it is with Gmail, which also responds to lawful government requests for your data.
Yes, I understand that. And I know that I might be spreading FUD here (which I wanna avoid).
However I'm concerned that the Australian government (given their recent authoritarian actions) might be a little too quick to request my data from FastMail.
But like... currently you're storing your data in the United States. I would argue that Australia's recent actions is more likely catching up to the status quo of other major nations than anything particularly egregious.
If you have very strong concerns about the government requesting your data, you should look at end-to-end solutions like ProtonMail.
Oh I think there was a misunderstanding here! I never intended to say FastMail was worse than Google. FastMail (IMO) is still a better choice for lots of reasons.
As for ProtonMail: Yes, I've been a ProtonMail customer for about half a year now. However I'm really dissatisfied on a number of ends:
<opinion>
- the bridge is a bad solution and it doesn't work well
- the bridge doesn't exist on Android, tying me into their own client
- their own client is proprietary and has GSF dependencies (optional, but still - privacy?)
- (this might be due to technical constraints so it might be not valid but) they generally seem to have an aversion against standards
- their technical team is slow and deadlines are (from what I've seen) meaningless
- (possibly FUD but) the recent drama [1]
</opinion>
Don't get me wrong they're doing important work. And I believe them in the sense that they can do cryptography well and they're bringing (a good amount of) privacy to the masses. But they're not less problematic than any other major provider I'm aware of.
I use Gsuite and no google doesn't monetize my data according to their privacy policy. Of course you are probably going to move the goal post how they could do it anyway and so can fastmail. In my eyes if i want privacy for sensitive emails i will use gpg.
I used Fastmail for a few years and liked it. I recently switched to ProtonMail and it is also very good. ProtonMail provides a ‘bridge’ that makes email on a laptop very convenient and I like their iOS client.
I still use gmail as a backup email, but I receive little email on it.
Anyway, if you are concerned with Fastmail and the Australian government, I think you would also like ProtonMail.
"Side note: recently duck.com was acquired by DuckDuckGo. I hope there is a plan for them to rebrand as simply "Duck" because if I recommend the search engine to someone who is not as embedded in the internet as I am (nerd), they often won't use the service based on the name alone."
Who previously controlled duck.com? It wasn't Google, was it?
It’s true, I had never heard of the children’s game of Duck, Duck, Goose until I moved to the US and had kids, so a lot of people probably see that name and think “WTF?”.
I've substantially de-Googled but there's still the huge issue of mobile operating systems.
If I choose iOS, I get a device that respects my privacy and gives me some degree of control over what apps on my device can do (e.g. GPS permissions are much more useful) but I can't install what I like on my device and I can't globally block ads and trackers.
If I choose Android with Google's apps preinstalled, I give up OS-level privacy and control but I can install what I like, including a device-wide, whitelist-based firewall, with which I can restrict ads and trackers.
If I choose Android without Google's apps, I get a much greater amount of privacy and control over my device but I can't use common applications like my local public transit app.
I've almost entirely de-Googled, with the one straggler being YouTube. There just aren't viable competitors. I pay for YouTube premium to get rid of the ads while still paying for usage (combined with all the tracker blocking I can reasonably do), but man that $12/month is crazy. I don't care about youtube music, youtube gaming, or any of their other "value"-add junk so it's an increasingly hard pill to swallow. I just want an ad-free plan. $8/month was much more tolerable in that respect. Hell, why doesn't Google offer a Google-wide tracking / ads opt-out plan? With their reach they could probably set up a plan wherein sites with google ads get a kickback of a subscription in exchange for not displaying ads. I'd be willing to bet Google would make more money off of me if they did that.
The other product I gave up recently was Fi. It was a hard thing to give up because if you can use it then it's really the best service out there for most. What ended up kicking me there was the paltry phone support (only token support for iOS, which I switched to, and only a handful of android devices). When I found out I could get a T-mobile plan through work that offers all of the functionality I want (though some things are gimped in comparison) for a price that, while high, was at least tolerable.
I don't care about seeing disclosed, paid ads so much as seeing YouTube's garbage recommendations algorithm. If they offered a paid program to entirely disable the recommendations section and get back a proper chronologic playlist of my subscriptions I'd be sorely tempted to pay for that. (I hate YouTube's Autoplay and disable it on every device.)
As it stands it is probably a lot healthier for me not to pay for YouTube Premium: the more obnoxious they try to make the ad breaks (and they have), the more it becomes a continual reminder I should not use YouTube and should encourage the people I follow to explore other less-user-hostile platforms for sharing their video content.
I'm surprised this post is so popular. I wish s/he'd mentioned other alternatives like Tutanota/ProtonMail, Startpage, or Matomo (formerly Piwik) analytics.
I also wish there was mention about how no one is truly Google-free until their contact is no longer in a friend's Gmail address book (and even then)...
Does paying for Google (G Suite) count as de-Googling to some extent? Supposedly I own any data within the Suite core services (which ironically doesn't include search, so DDG for that).
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 187 ms ] threadI like that closing line. It's something I can relate with. I appreciate Google's products, use a Pixel 3 which is a sin I probably shouldn't admit on HN, and I'd love to use their whole ecosystem - Google suite, the Chromebook, Google Home etc - for all my tech needs. The issue is, Google in my eyes is a data analytics company first and foremost. No matter how much I like the design and functionality of their products, if I want to maintain even a small semblance of privacy I can't in good faith support them.
Only problem I have now is that their phone is too damn good to ditch...
[edit]
Here is a very amateurish graphic depicting the difference.
https://imgur.com/SofeKKN
https://i.imgur.com/NfXUOf4.png
I just tried searching "weather [zipcode]" on DDG and the first result is a card with current weather info for that zipcode from DarkSky. The feature is very similar to Google's weather card.
Simple, no frills, accurate information.
For mobile I use darksky. Gives you hourly precip chance as well as a detailed look at the hour ahead (specifically, the intensity of the rain not whether or not it will happen), but importantly it will push a notification if it's going to rain in x minutes. There are a couple other handy features, and since it's paid it's free of ads. Pretty nice if you bike or walk regularly for commuting. It's scary accurate in my experience; if it says it's going to rain in 8 minutes and stop 13 minutes later, that's exactly what's going to happen.
And, I concede all your points about bookmarking after turning off all the configs. I just wish the pretty, simple, and easy to retrieve version were more common.
For searches I occasionally might have to check Google for a niche search term, but Duck.com returns the right thing for 95% of my queries. In terms of hardware, a Pixel phone, Fire tablet, Surface Book laptop, and Windows desktop fulfil all my needs, with only important docs synched with Dropbox and the rest stored on a couple of flash drives I have on me 24/7. For home automation I made my own using a Raspberry Pi and a bunch of ESP8266's, which does basically everything that big brand alternatives do and more (I can water my plants from my bed!) For software I use Outlook for emails and calendar, OpenOffice for word processing, Prezi for presentations, and admittedly mainly Google Sheets for that kind of data handling, as it's good for collaborating which is the only thing I ever use it for. Trip Advisor is great for reviews. BBC weather is all I use for checking that.
Nothing is slower I've found. I just had to experiment with what worked for me, and get the right 'flow' of using them, which I suppose took a few weeks to iron out. The great thing is that doing it this way means I can adapt to my needs, not be forced into using a suite that might not cater to them. It also means most importantly that, for the most part, I don't get snooped on!
Is that a bad thing?
I look at a map before I leave when on foot and in the car I have a navigator.
- Mobile Banking
Nothing that can't wait until I'm behind a desk.
- IM because nobody sends text messages anymore
Nobody sends me IM messages because I never used it in the first place.
- Calendar
Could be useful, once every month or so, but on the whole it is easy enough to do this stuff once I'm back behind my desk, worst case the other side has access and they can send me an invite. This really only comes up when someone on the phone wants to book some kind of appointment when I'm on the road, and in that case I'm actually really happy I am not going to be tempted to look at my phone, it is annoying enough that people expect your phone to be answered at all hours.
- quick web searches
I do a ton of those, but not when I'm out of the office or meeting people, I've had a case come up once or twice but usually I just make a mental note to check up on something.
- a decent camera I'll always carry
That's a good one, another one which would work for me would be to have something good to read wherever I go.
But those two can be solved quite easily: my dumb phone has a reasonably good camera and there's always a book in my bag.
That problem is on your end I'm afraid, no judgment call on other lifestyles was implied or intended, I merely documented how I do stuff without commenting on how you do stuff or how I feel you should do stuff.
In a nutshell: I'm susceptible to being distracted with an ease that makes toddlers jealous and because of that I have to seriously restrict the kind of effect my environment has on me or I'll happily burn up my whole life without achieving anything. In order to do that I've decided that smartphones - besides being a security risk and a tracking device - are not for me.
Not the parent, but in my personal case I only listen to music in my car, and have my MP3 library synced to a device in my car. It doesn't cost me data and works in the middle of nowhere.
In my experience, unless I do an inordinate amount of prior planning (printing out map directions, itineraries, hotel reservations, etc.) it is very easy to have navigation difficulties in unfamiliar cities with street signs in foreign languages....or no street signs at all. Where do you get an accurate map when you are trying to meet people at a newly-opened cafe in Hanoi's old French Quarter?
Nobody can send you an IM? So if you strike up a conversation with a Shenzhen entrepreneur, he wants to stay in contact to talk business and suggests WeChat, your only response is [US phone number] or [email]?
No web searches when out of the office? So if your next course of action is contingent upon a piece of information you don't currently have access to, you can't proceed with a decision on-the-spot because you possess no ability to access remote data while you are mobile?
I dunno, seems like a lot of potential inefficiencies and lost opportunities compared to dropping $150 on a dual-SIM rugged Android phone from China, and then installing a few apps on it. But hey, if it works for you.....
I took a family trip back to America recently and my jaw dropped watching my (74yo) father and his wife use a paper map to navigate to DisneyWorld. They complained that Google was giving them "bad directions". My older brother and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. PICNIC (Problem in chair, not in computer).
To counter this issue of distraction, I managed to get my app selection down to about 10-12 essentials, all heavily curated so there's nothing that will 'keep me scrolling'. It basically consists of Email, Messaging, Duolingo, edx, Instagram (only following about 200 close friends so my feed is at most 5-8 pictures a day), Uber, Spotify, MyFitnessPal, Audible, and the apps for the aforementioned uses.
After removing the "continuous distraction" apps from my phone it's gone from a procrastination machine, back to being the worlds most valuable tool.
P.S. People often made fun of me for carrying the dumb phone. I'd always quip, "I'm too smart to use a smart phone." Feel free to use that quote when defending yourself ;)
Pinephone (should be early next year, somewhere around $150) https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/
Librem 5 (should be Q3 2019, $650) https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
What we really need though is a replacement for all Google Play Services that is free software, including push notifications.
It tries very hard to hide any non-portable components from you. The base platform is a virtual machine where you have zero access to any Linux API. They even indent their own API for things Linux already has! (Binder, ashmem, power management...) About the one Linux API you have access to is sockets, if you're writing native code, and there mostly a POSIX subset. (No, you do not really have access to file system directly.)
It could run on Minix or Windows or Darwin for all Google cares about - but hardware manufacturers preferred Linux for the price.
* Kernel, drivers and userland I can compile on my own if I want to
* 4-8 GB RAM
* 4 core Cortex A72 or better wide out-of-order core (no A53, A55 or similar crap, unless it's a big-little configuration)
* Good 64-128 GB low latency high IOPS eMMC. Too many devices penny pinch here creating a slow user experience.
* 4G (600 Mbps+) or preferably 5G
* Good OLED screen, 1080x1920 is probably enough. Although I do like S9+ 1440x2960 screen
* Stereo speakers, front and back camera, GPS (+ glonass, etc.), standard set of sensors.
* USB-C and headphone jack
* MicroSD slot that can actually read & write over 100 megabytes per second.
* NO ability for baseband to read and write memory arbitrarily; embedded USB connection or something.
* Price below $1000
I have a Gemini and have been very pleased with it and have supported the Cosmo too because I want to support them. I'm hoping that if they continue to make sales they'll continue to develop newer devices.
These projects aren't quite delivering your complete feature set but they're making the best go of it out of anyone I've seen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900
Ok, on second thought, that's an infinitesimally small risk.
So you're right - Apple could always go down a bad path. But because of their respective business models, I'm more confident in Apple than Google.
Google doesn't have any products that are similar. Google mostly only answers similarly to shareholders if ad revenue is down. It would potentially take a lot to change in the world for any product to rival Google's ad revenue in prominence on shareholder reports.
Or has it? They say not, I don't believe a word they say on the principle of not trusting liars. But maybe they're better than google in some dimension or other today. Wouldn't like to bet on it. Definitely wouldn't bet on what they'll do with their collected data in 5 years time. I want to trust the company that doesn't lie and doesn't collect data. Open Whisper Systems seem to do pretty well in that regard. Compared to apple? Apple will sell you up the river as soon as it makes business sense to do it. The question is when, not if.
I'm kind of surprised that such an option exists at all in the marketplace, given the amount of cash Google and FB suck in. At least consumers have some choice.
Their model is obviously selling items at thick margins through premium pricing.
Or are you implying that no proper business model can do without adtech?
Apple were happy to sell out Chinese citizens by allowing their government access to Apple's data center. Reason: money.
Apple are also happy to sell out everyone else's privacy by defaulting to Google as their default search engine. Reason: Money.
Apple has a reputation for being privacy focused, but just because there are worse exploiters of user data, it doesn't mean they are clean.
Is this a joke that I don't get ?
Apple had a net income north of 35B$ for 6 years, it sure looks like they found a way to run their business to me
It's a change in wording of the parent, I thought it was obvious with the ellipses I was doing s/has never really had/hasn't yet/ on that comment.
Apple will sell you up the river as soon as it suits them to do it, assuming they haven't already which you can't know. I really think it's terribly naive to come to a different opinion on that but some people just love Apple and strongly believe they can do no wrong. Even around here...
Remember how apple were "nicer" than microsoft because they had no market share, then got it and became far, far worse immediately? 30% of your revenues taxed by apple for writing software running on the OS they wrote. Microsoft had wet dreams about being so evil. And so it is with their data collection, if they're nice only because they haven't yet worked out how to monetise it effectively with the opportunity cost of pretending they care about your privacy for marketing purposes, which they OBVIOUSLY don't. I mean seriously does anyone believe Apple give a flying hoot about your privacy? I struggle to see how such an opinion is tenable beyond "oh but they're not as bad as Google or Kim Jong Un yet"
Their recent focus on “privacy” is a happy accident of how they make money. They are uniquely positioned to brag about how little data they collect, because they make money off luxury hardware and service fees, not data hoarding. Ultimately that’s why it’s trustworthy - the entire way they run their business happens to be aligned with privacy as a value, so we don’t just have to judge their character to believe it.
It’s the exact opposite of Google, whose business has always run on targeted advertisement, and thus is fundamentally at odds with privacy.
For this to change substantially even in 5 years, both of the companies would have to go through fundamental and opposing transformations. I find that extremely unlikely.
You don't actually think they haven't collected the data and stored it, do you? I mean you really can't be thinking that, right?
Again, my trust of Apple (relative to Google) in this regard fundamentally does not come from a moral judgement of some kind. Google is built on hoarding and monetizing user data, so they are likely to do it at a larger scale, more efficiently, etc. Of course Apple has all sorts of information about me as a user, but because of the business they’re in, they’re going to be less hungry for it than Google.
You can say the opposite about the “walled garden” discussion. That’s Apple’s game. Even though Google can play it too, they’re likely to do it to a lesser extent, because it’s not quite as valuable for their business.
"But they aren't so good at f&^king me over as someone else, yet."
This is just an astoundingly hideous support of apple but yes, it's about the only one that isn't totally and completely false. Good luck with that, to us all. This is where we're up to. Needs to be said out loud often.
Degrees of disgusting, awful, hideousness beyond totally unacceptable are really only of academic interest to ghouls.
I've wiped my phone and put LineageOS on it a few weeks ago and I've had no problems whatsoever. (To be fair I should say that my device was officially supported and I don't use any apps that depend on the GSF.)
We've lost the App War. I need multiple Apps that "need" Location Services and Push Notifications just to get what used to be hole punches or stamps on business cards for buy 10 get 1 free sandwiches in 2019.
Options like LineageOS and going without Google Play Services might as well be a "dumb phone" in current culture. It's an hilarious joke. Google realized all the real control in Android was in controlling Google Play Services, and as soon as that got locked down people should have been worried. Google wouldn't have had as much power to "kill" Windows Phone that they had if apps didn't matter.
(Fwiw, I went back to Apple as that unfortunately seemed the only sane choice to have Apps and some semblance of maybe Privacy.)
Actually, since I've ditched WhatsApp a few days ago, I'm running 100% FOSS (sans some proprietary blobs and all the network services) on my phone.
What I am getting at is that a lot of us probably make a concession here or there but as long as you're happy/comfortable with it, go for it.
The last vestige of Google I voluntarily find myself with is Gmail, but I have a strong feeling once Apple comes with these burner email forwarder things, I'm probably going to switch to Proton or something similar.
Other email providers (especially ones where you pay them money for the service) have actual support employees.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15989146
The majority of my emails are between myself and a business, currently letting google track my purchases, holidays, event booking etc by reading the responses I get.
If I stopped using gmail, how would they track that kind of stuff?
Few businesses are going to be using consumer level gmail.
That said, google's image results are still significantly better than DDG or Bing, but that's such a small part of my queries that it's pretty much a non-issue.
I much rather be concerned about security than privacy.
It's not "just a bunch of computers". It's potentially putting a lot of leverage in the same hands. Here are 3 examples.
As a woman, it's nearly impossible to get a job when you're pregnant, so it's better not to let anyone know during the job search. If you have HIV and people find out, they freak out thinking you'll infect them right away. If you're chronically sick, do you want insurance companies to know that ? No you don't, because the price of the insurance policy will "magically" be higher for you. Privacy has it good sides.
Not a week goes by without a major hack of some sort hitting the media, a much larger amount goes unreported. And even if the data isn't hacked it could easily be lifted using some legal instrument.
- Gmail: I'm still undecided if I will switch from this. I don't actually use email for communicating with anyone; it's really just for notifications and receipts and stuff. Beyond knowing what I'm buying, there's not much I care about in here anyway - Search: Also iffy on this one. It's just leaps and bounds better than any other service provided. I think I might give DDG a chance just to see, but I don't worry about it too much. - Chrome: I already dumped this thanks to their decisions with ad blockers. Even if I was not using ad blockers, they are forcing Chromium (not just Chrome!) users to conform to a standard that is in the best interest of their business and absolutely no one else. I can't support that. - Hangouts: this is shutting down in a few months with no clear replacement plan. My friends and I are still trying to figure out where we will go, but you cannot trust Google to run a messaging service without shutting it down these days so it will not be one they provide - Google Play Music: Already switched to a self-hosted Plex server. Other than the horrible bluetooth support in their Android phone, it's a superior experience in my opinion - Nest: I may switch my thermostat away with them deprecating their APIs. A few IFTTT integrations I use are going to stop working and that is extremely frustrating. - Home/Assistant: This is the one where privacy may make me toss them in the trash. I was satisfied initially with the security and the third parties supporting that it's only recording the keyword and anything said after, but this one is admittedly bugging me. - Calendar: I only use this to remember birthdays and for keeping track of when TV shows are airing. There's no reason to get rid of this unless I am truly removing Google entirely - Android: This is another privacy sore spot and one where I want to switch but I would greatly miss the customization options (Nova for example) and Relay for Reddit specifically (I've yet to find an iOS Reddit app worth using). For now, I've just locked it down the best I can and turned off things like GPS and bluetooth to limit what tracking can be done.
A lot of my sore points with Google are coming from how many of their services they are killing off and preparing for them to ultimately kill off the others that I am using, honestly. So while privacy is certainly on my mind, that is the ultimate factor for me.
Informative advertising, better UX, and more desirable features are positives and can be implemented with only a modest amount of data gathering. Intrusive manipulative ads, dark patterns, and addictive "stickiness" are negatives enabled by excessive collection of data.
However my biggest annoyance is still the amount of data that Google can find out about me where I have no control over it.
- Emails to anyone using a Google service (I use iCloud)
- Texting anyone using Android (I have a similar frustration with Facebook and anyone that shares their contacts with them) (This is one of the key reasons I love iMessage and I always have caution when I see a green bubble.)
And similar data sharing I have absolutely no way to give consent for yet they still have, because someone else gave consent for me.
My hope is that Google cannot manage to link that data back to me somehow, but I am sure they can. But it doesn't change that they have that data.
Of course it matters. And of course one should remain vigilant to monitor the company of choice for changes in strategy or the like that might affect privacy claims.
I don’t inherently trust Apple more than Google, but I do trust (begrudgingly) that Apple’s current business model aligns their interests on privacy better with mine.
Way back in the dark ages of 1996 or so, I went to a very early web security conference. At that point, it wasn't really a profession. It was junior devs like me, schoolteachers, all sorts of people who had the job of "web security" cast upon them. And we all commiserated about getting the same marching orders... our bosses wanted absolute and total security, with absolute and totally unfettered access to the internet, and without spending any money at all.
The consumer privacy discussion today reminds me so much of that era. Everyone wants unfettered access to the internet, without paying for it, and without anyone selling your data.
Nearly all of my digital life happens on an Apple device. However they have shown that most of this happens on device instead of in the cloud, and they are not in the market of mining that data in order to build a profile that is used so a third party can sell me ads.
But I have no doubts that they do considering how often I see someone I recently gave my number to suddenly show as as a recommended friend on Facebook (who I do not allow that access)
I found that the best thing you can do is try to convert the people you e-mail to most often (spouse, family, close friend) away from Google to some e-mail provider that values privacy. That way at least (maybe 50% of) your most private e-mails are safe from being analyzed/tracked/monetized :)
Because lots of users do have GMail a lot of your messages will end up on their servers.
However, that's not to say it's not a good idea to practice good hygiene yourself and find a provider that suits your goals.
I pay for 2TB of iCloud storage for $9.99 a month (USD), but I could drop that and continue to use iCloud for Calendar, email and etc. (However you would pay google for this space anyways, but for only a TB)
I pay $10 a month for Apple News, but it is also a decent free service instead of google news.
I don't pay for Apple maps.
I don't see there being much, if any, monetary cost of transitioning unless you include the cost of moving from Android to iOS (which assuming you were going to upgrade your phone anyways may not need to be counted).
It isn't like Apple devices are that much more expensive than similar premium tier smartphones.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070508104636/http://www.center...
For gmail I'd like real imap and custom domain support. FastMail is the obvious choice, but I can't in good conscious trust an Australian company with my secrets.[0]
Hangouts: I'd like cross platform with a web client if possible. I would like optional chat history sync. And I'd like on by default encryption. Signal is great, but its treatment of chat history is too paranoid to be useful for everyday conversations. Whatsapp is also a strong contender, but I'd also prefer to stay off facebook services.
edit: for a hangouts replacement, I'm not looking for video/audio chats I'm looking for a direct messaging focused service that can serve as an SMS replacement along the lines of iMesseges, whatsapp or signal. And yes I know about XMPP I was a heavy user a decade ago, but I'd prefer not to replace a dying service with a dying protocol.
0: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/australia-passes...
If you are not Australian, the likelihood of getting your data subpoena'd from an Australian company is pretty low. If you're in the US, it's far more likely for your Gmail data to be successfully subpoena'd.
Unless you belong to a fairly narrow set of people, the risk of government access to your data is relatively low. Meanwhile, the threat of advertiser access to your data is high for everyone: Don't trust an ad company with your data, even if they currently say they won't use it for ads.
My concern with encryption law is not necessarily that FastMail will respond to warrants (though total non-compliance in a non-5 eyes country would be ideal), its how frequently and do they need to otherwise compromise the security of the product in order to do so. FastMail seems to think that the new laws will impact them negatively.[0] FastMail's response to these claims has not been exactly confidence inspiring as the Australian government could compel the company to comply not just individual coders.[1]
The real question I'm asking is, is fastmail my only real alternative to gmail?
0: https://reclaimthenet.org/fastmail-australian-encryption-law... 1: https://fastmail.blog/2018/12/21/advocating-for-privacy-aabi...
For the most part, any paid email service which has custom domain support and isn't owned by an adtech company should be, as far as privacy concerns go, likely pretty solid. You just tend to see FastMail brought up a lot because a lot of us have switched to it and are enthusiastic fans of it. ;)
Meanwhile, it's getting rid of YouTube, Google Play Services and Captcha that is proving problematic...
How's the imap support or using 3rd party email clients?
XMPP encryption is super janky, and the ecosystem is dying a slow death. Matrix is looking pretty appealing, but it doesn't work that great as a direct messaging platform. I've found that notifications are often delayed and and the UX is focused on the chat room case.
> Google Play Services
that's the easiest, don't use android :)
All data is secured on your device. Bring your own domain, supports IMAP/CalDav/CardDav. So far, I'm a fan but I'm still battle testing it before I start moving in earnest.
I regularly use https://meet.jit.si https://appear.in/ and https://appear.in/
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19839104 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20113646 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18616303
Google's transparency report shows they've shared a lot of data. Google's support site has details on the process.
Both Google and Fastmail have access to email. The encryption circumvention doesn't matter to Fastmail because they already complied with law enforcement just like Google does.
I'd be curious if someone has details or an argument different from this.
tl;dr: The law passed doesn't affect FastMail at all, and your data is at least as private with FastMail as it is with Gmail, which also responds to lawful government requests for your data.
However I'm concerned that the Australian government (given their recent authoritarian actions) might be a little too quick to request my data from FastMail.
If you have very strong concerns about the government requesting your data, you should look at end-to-end solutions like ProtonMail.
As for ProtonMail: Yes, I've been a ProtonMail customer for about half a year now. However I'm really dissatisfied on a number of ends:
<opinion>
- the bridge is a bad solution and it doesn't work well
- the bridge doesn't exist on Android, tying me into their own client
- their own client is proprietary and has GSF dependencies (optional, but still - privacy?)
- (this might be due to technical constraints so it might be not valid but) they generally seem to have an aversion against standards
- their technical team is slow and deadlines are (from what I've seen) meaningless
- (possibly FUD but) the recent drama [1]
</opinion>
Don't get me wrong they're doing important work. And I believe them in the sense that they can do cryptography well and they're bringing (a good amount of) privacy to the masses. But they're not less problematic than any other major provider I'm aware of.
In the end it boils down to everything sucks™.
[1] https://steigerlegal.ch/2019/05/23/protonmail-real-time-surv...
My point is that the impact of storing your email with an Australian company is not in itself a problem or increased compromise in your privacy.
I still use gmail as a backup email, but I receive little email on it.
Anyway, if you are concerned with Fastmail and the Australian government, I think you would also like ProtonMail.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20166820
Who previously controlled duck.com? It wasn't Google, was it?
If I choose iOS, I get a device that respects my privacy and gives me some degree of control over what apps on my device can do (e.g. GPS permissions are much more useful) but I can't install what I like on my device and I can't globally block ads and trackers.
If I choose Android with Google's apps preinstalled, I give up OS-level privacy and control but I can install what I like, including a device-wide, whitelist-based firewall, with which I can restrict ads and trackers.
If I choose Android without Google's apps, I get a much greater amount of privacy and control over my device but I can't use common applications like my local public transit app.
The other product I gave up recently was Fi. It was a hard thing to give up because if you can use it then it's really the best service out there for most. What ended up kicking me there was the paltry phone support (only token support for iOS, which I switched to, and only a handful of android devices). When I found out I could get a T-mobile plan through work that offers all of the functionality I want (though some things are gimped in comparison) for a price that, while high, was at least tolerable.
As it stands it is probably a lot healthier for me not to pay for YouTube Premium: the more obnoxious they try to make the ad breaks (and they have), the more it becomes a continual reminder I should not use YouTube and should encourage the people I follow to explore other less-user-hostile platforms for sharing their video content.
I also wish there was mention about how no one is truly Google-free until their contact is no longer in a friend's Gmail address book (and even then)...