Don't be evil: Moving everything off of Google

https://blog.samwhited.com/2013/07/dont-be-evil/

by SamWhited • 13 years ago

442 300 13 years ago

blog.samwhited.com

babuskov• 13 years ago

The site uses Google hosted jQuery. Guess being tracked by Google is not an issue for them. ;)

hnha• 13 years ago

if Google was nice and concerned with people's privacy they would not log anything on those hosted files but a simple integer hit counter.

rednukleus• 13 years ago

Its a shame that they put such a ridiculous linkbait title on an otherwise good article.

dmytton• 13 years ago

http://dbpmail.net/essays/2013-06-29-hackers-replacement-for... is a good tutorial on replacing GMail.

GMail is excellent at search and spam filtering, everything else is just a standard e-mail service. The tutorial points out how you can at least try and match the level of spam filtering with the community based Pyzor.

skriticos2• 13 years ago

Don't underestimate search though. Being able to quickly find information (content, contacts, etc.) from years of unstructured eMail communication with a simple search box is very powerful. At work I have to use Lotus Notes and Outlook and compared to Gmail they really seem stone age when it comes to find information in the archive.

ekianjo8• 13 years ago

Very true. Gmail does that very well, but that's not something you cannot solve if you are very disciplined on how you use, store and archive emails. Gmail makes it frictionless, and that's probably one of its biggest assets, but in some workplaces, as you mentioned, people are forced to use Notes or Outlook and you learn to live with it. It's not always as frustrating as you might think. For example, I am certainly much more "messy" in the way i use email with Gmail since I know I can find things easily, but that may be a disservice to act this way in the end. You form bad habits.

Rustan3• 13 years ago

Use Autistici/Inventati: http://www.autistici.org

takluyver2• 13 years ago

I may be an outlier, but I like GMail first and foremost for its interface. Ever since I started using conversation view, it's just seemed like the obvious way to show e-mail. Nothing else really matches it, although Geary is trying now.

dochtman• 13 years ago

I've found Fastmail to be really good (although I haven't been able to figure out some of the anti-spam stuff so far).

moreentropy• 13 years ago

You can't call it "everything" if you keep Gmail.

Personal email would be the most important service to get under your own control, and it's the hardest of all problems to solve.

robotmay5• 13 years ago

ZoHo Mail isn't bad, I've been using that instead of Google Apps at the moment. Ideally I want to switch to my own server but I never relish the thought of setting one up.

nkorth• 13 years ago

I recently switched from my own server to Zoho.

RexRollman2• 13 years ago

I use Hushmail and I like it. I have also had good experiences with Fastmail.

nilved• 13 years ago

lavabit + GPG

neya• 13 years ago

Isn't this something like pre-mature optimization? Most services (like Blogger for example) haven't shut down yet and probably won't. So, just because Google didn't support some open source protocol, doesn't mean we should suddenly decide to move away from a service that's really been good so far.

If the service is good enough, then why bother switching providers? At the end of the day all businesses want to profit . Also, it's a matter of personal preference - Some like Gmail and some like Hotmail. But moving away from a really good provider because it doesn't provide a 'feature X' (unless it impacts you in anyway and makes it unusable) then I see no point in moving away at all.

ekianjo8• 13 years ago

Because you see the trend coming. I just logged in my Picasa web albums a few days ago after a long time and now it defaults into Google + photos BS. The problem is, there are no more RSS feeds in Google + Photos. So I Have to use Google + to get access to these pictures, unless I revert to Picasa Web Albums. But it's clear Google will kill off Picasa Web Albums down the road and the RSS feeds for your pictures as well. It goes against my interest as a user, so I will actively be looking for ways out of Google as well. It's not a "win-win" situation anymore.

cromwellian3• 13 years ago

And what online service are you going to find that a) stays up forever and b) never radically changes the UI? Let's say you find a photo hosting service to does RSS feeds, what guarantees to you have it'll last longer than Google? For christsakes, Reader lasted 8 years for a free service, there are many non-advertising/pay-fee services that have not lasted that long.

Mikeb85• 13 years ago

This seems silly. Google has been consistently less evil than Microsoft, Apple, and even Amazon, and has the best services.

I'm all for alternatives (especially open source and non-US based alternatives), but if Google is still the most convenient service provider at the moment, I'll continue using them.

kryten6• 13 years ago

Evil is boolean if you ask me.

Corporations don't deserve a second chance either.

rustynails77• 13 years ago

I have been somewhat of a Google fanboy (alright, too strong-a-term, but you get the idea). I encourage people to leave Google - because you know what? If enough people leave, Google will fight EVEN harder to stop blanket monitoring. When I hear Google scream from the top of their lungs "innocent until proven guilty" and "burden of proof required" then I will believe they are doing enough. Maybe Google should change it's background color to black? Until then, I fully support anyone who looks for alternatives.

eonil2• 13 years ago

It's surprise still there are people think in this way.

popee• 13 years ago

Yet, at the end you can find them in the same category. How can that be? :-)

hitchhiker9992• 13 years ago

That may not be true - it's just that Google have been a lot smarter at hiding their 'dodgyness' than Apple, and certainly than Microsoft.

If you have time: https://medium.com/surveillance-state/32ba2b38c219 - this is part of an overall move towards 'a bit more evil' than the general public is aware of.

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

This had very little to do with Google being `evil', the NSA, or any of that (despite the title, I realize now it's a bit misleading).

Rather, it has to do with me not keeping all of my services in the same basket and not being dependant on the integrations between services run by the same company. I would have happily switched my services to Microsoft or Amazon if they provided something better and am still happy to go back to Google for things that I can't find a good alternative too (I still search with Google on occasion, still use Google Books, Google Patent search, etc.)

Joeboy2• 13 years ago

Paper calendar suggestion seems kind of defeatist. I just switched to http://radicale.org/ (from my old nokia phone calendar, not from google) and it seems fine so far.

mirkules2• 13 years ago

Not really defeatist, but impractical. There are functions like reminders and invitations you just can't get with paper calendars easily.

kryten6• 13 years ago

You don't always hear reminders and invitations don't always work properly.

I'd rather have neither than any that aren't trustworthy.

kryten6• 13 years ago

I spent several years using outlook, apple ical and windows live calendar. I then ended up having to write a backend for icalendar protocol and saw what a shit crock everything is. It's a miracle any of it works.

Last year I moved back to a paper diary and a mechanical pencil. It is considerably more flexible, readable and editable. I hit several brick walls with computer based calendars particularly with having to add complex events like "every third Friday but not the 25th because I'm on holiday then".

Free form is sometimes better than structure.

Its like going from a relational database to a document store.

icebraining• 13 years ago

If you want a flexible calendar application that can handle rules like that, you need Remind[1].

For example, if you want to be reminded every third Friday of the month, except on 19th of July because you're on holiday, you can write:

  OMIT 19 July MSG Holiday
  REM Fri 15 SKIP MSG My Event

Now you ask it to print the events for the next six months:

  $ remind -s6 test.rem
  2013/07/19 * * * * Holiday
  2013/08/16 * * * * My Event
  2013/09/20 * * * * My Event
  2013/10/18 * * * * My Event
  2013/11/15 * * * * My Event
  2013/12/20 * * * * My Event

As you see, it skipped "My Event" on the July 19th, because it was an Holiday.

[1] http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind

xwei• 13 years ago

Move from one evil to another. Wasting the time. This is real world please!

eonil2• 13 years ago

No. Real world is full of various DNA, and we can breed less evil by choosing.

Moving from one to another is never wasting the time.

MoreConsiderate• 13 years ago

I am reminded of this cartoon, http://pbfcomics.com/111/

phxql2• 13 years ago

https://mail.opera.com/ is not that bad.

robotmay5• 13 years ago

Still waiting for the Linux client, but once that's about I'm going to give it a proper go.

phxql2• 13 years ago

I didn't ment the desktop client, i wanted to point to their email services.

brongondwana2• 13 years ago

Basically fastmail with a different skin and without most of the power features.

edem• 13 years ago

As for music I think that for Linux (I guess you probably use Linux since Windows is just as evil as Chrome or Facebook) XMMS is still the best player. I use it for years now and I never had problems with it. It also comes with a Winamp-like interface and functionality.

robotmay5• 13 years ago

I've been using 'cmus' recently, which is pretty decent. Far less issues with pulseaudio than with a lot of the other players.

zxcdw• 13 years ago

A fellow cmus user here, I can only second the awesomeness of it and encougrage everyone interested in client-side music playback to try it out.

pedromorgan• 13 years ago

Maybe Google should create GoogleEurope, a seperate comany.. The already got one offshore from the USA.. and it would bypass the USA also.. ;-)

WA• 13 years ago

What difference would that make? They'd probably set up a big cable to transfer data from Europe to the States anyways.

Recently, I asked an email newsletter service provider in Germany (like Mailchimp) where they store all the people's email addresses. They use some Amazon service with company HQ in Ireland. However, does that guarantee me that Amazon doesn't transfer any of the data to US data centers?

gordaco• 13 years ago

"When you’re paying for your social network, it makes you a customer instead of a product".

Wrong, you're still a product. The "consumer vs. product" dilemma is a false one.

ekianjo8• 13 years ago

Please explain. Are you saying that App.net is using your data anyway to sell ads or something else?

robryan• 13 years ago

Well, not sure what the OP is suggesting but your content is definitely a product that is attract other users to also pay.

Kiro2• 13 years ago

Yes.

benastan• 13 years ago

I think you mean "dichotomy", not "dilemma."

asafh• 13 years ago

He means that in the sense of the either-or fallacy[1]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

belorn• 13 years ago

If there is an transaction between the user and the company, i.e. data in exchange for service, I do find it a bit strange that the tax office has not started to extract sales tax on it.

Might be a bit evil/selfish, but I somewhat hope that services that user need to pay for with personal data gets taxed, just so that truly "free" services can get an competitive edge on the market.

takluyver2• 13 years ago

Well, when you pay with money, the government takes a percentage of that money. And when you pay with data, the government takes a percentage of that.

finnw• 13 years ago

Eventually (e.g. via targeted advertising) they convert that data to cash. If they weren't going to make cash from it, they would not be collecting it in the first place. And when they do convert it to cash, that cash will be taxed.

muyuu3• 13 years ago

If you're paying for it, then there is an incentive for the company to give you the service other than profiteering on your data.

Obviously it's still not a guarantee.

vog• 13 years ago

Where should this incentive come from?

There are lots of companies that simply sell you the serive and at the same time profiteering on your data.

Unless, of course, privacy is part of that service, but even then the company isn't trustworth unless it actively encourages use of end-to-end encryption wherever feasible.

olegp2• 13 years ago

I agree that it seems a little premature, but it's a good thought experiment: could you move off Google if you wanted to?

At StartHQ we provide a list of automatically generated alternatives, in case anyone wants to give it a go: https://starthq.com/apps/?q=google

kasbah• 13 years ago

I just took a look at Google Reader and the suggested alternatives are:

- Google Voice

- Google Contacts

- SugarSync

- Otixo

- Dropbox

Not very helpful.

olegp2• 13 years ago

The automatic alternative detection kind of failed there. I'll update the list manually.

In the meantime, you can find all the Reader alternatives just by searching: https://starthq.com/apps/?q=reader

tn134• 13 years ago

Most people are ignoring the biggest problem that Google is causing. Gmail's virtual dominance in email field is going to be extremely hurtful for the rest of the hacker and startup community.

At the end of the email marketing remains the numero uno method of user acquisition and retention. With the new features such as priority inbox and automated classification of personal emails/promotion emails it is going to make it impossible for new consumer web startups to succeed.

kryten6• 13 years ago

This is where Microsoft was 6 years ago. Before that, IBM/Lotus.

Times will change again.

zem• 13 years ago

sorry, no, i would be thrilled to have promotional email automatically separated from my personal email. it may make your job of user acquisition (isn't "user acquisition by email marketing" just a euphemism for spam?) and retention harder, but this is my inbox, not an extension of your ad campaign.

tn134• 13 years ago

True. But the idea is that "you" should decide that and not google. For example google might chose to block 99% of the marketing emails which might make you happy but at the same time Google will decide which 1% of them will succeed.

h2s• 13 years ago

If GMail kills email marketing, I will walk all the way around the world to Palo Alto and personally shake Larry & Sergey by the hand. Nobody likes email marketing, not even the people building their livelihoods on top of it.

If Google managed to snuff out such a widely reviled marketing channel, it would be an enormously disruptive force in the tech industry. And disruptive forces aren't hurtful for the startup community at all. Disruption makes room for innovation.

Sure, it'd be bad news for SendGrid, but it'd be awesome news for some lucky group of people in the 2015 YC batch.

tn134• 13 years ago

Absolutely. As users we would all love if we get "no promotional" emails in our inbox. But this is going to give power to Google to decide which email get delivered and which does not giving an bias towards which company makes more money than others. Which is not good.

I would rather see a more distributed and open system that helps people get rid of the promotional emails or not.

OGC• 13 years ago

Email marketing... you mean spam?

haukilup• 13 years ago

There are many people who actually read the emails they receive from companies, even promotional emails. The fact is that not all email marketing is spam.

Some people like being informed about the products/services they use - in this case, the email marketing they opt into is a periodic newsletter of sorts. When a new feature or improvement is released, some people like receiving an email notifying them of the release. Again, such an email is marketing. For larger companies, there's a marketing team who designed the email and wrote the copy for it.

Don't confuse email marketing with spam. Some marketing is spam, much of it is not.

conformal• 13 years ago

i did this several years ago, feels good knowing that google has to work hard to spy on me versus me just giving them all kinds of info about myself via search, etc.

the only thing i use is a throwaway gmail address that is mostly a spam magnet.

microtonal• 13 years ago

Whenever I read such posts (moving everything off Google/FaceBook/...), whatever the rationale, I feel like I am living in a parallel universe.

All my friends are on Facebook and as much as I dislike Facebook's piracy invasion, it's an excellent tool to keep in touch with people.

I could drop Google Talk, but as much as federation is a good thing, ironically I wouldn't have many people to talk to, since they use Google Talk/Hangouts.

Perhaps a decentralised file sharing tool is better. But everyone is using Dropbox and Bittorrent Sync will be too outworldish for colleagues/family/friends.

antocv4• 13 years ago

Come on now, "everyone is using" may have something to it, but its also a marketing/mind-trick of keeping people locked in to these services.

I remember in 2004, 2005 when Gmail began, why would anyone use gmail, everyone is using hotmail (shared experience). Why would anyone begin using skype, everyone is using msn? Why would anyone begin using Facebook everyone is on MySpace?

Someone has to be the first, take the step. Its us geeks that have to take the lead, do it. Just imagine if 5% of hn people would all begin using alternative software, improving it in the process. Free software at its best. Just a dream?

Time to jump of the trainwreck of these "cloudy" "services".

adrianN• 13 years ago

People could start using gmail because emails work independently from the provider. If gmail provides the nicer user experience you lose nothing from switching.

People started using Facebook because it was exclusive for a group of students. They were friends in reallife already and Facebook made it easier to coordinate.

People started using Skype because it allowed calling real phones cheaply, msn doesn't.

A large fraction of HN readers probably use Linux and free software. A fraction of them probably even improves the software they use. That doesn't mean that the average person wants to switch too.

dschiptsov• 13 years ago

gmail won because it filtered spam out and didn't show you flashy ads.

ekianjo8• 13 years ago

So you didn't have friends before Facebook and Google? :) I feel that people who put so much emphasis on Facebook live in a parallel universe, too.

Let's not forget these are just tools. Most of the relationship people have on Facebook are as shallow as they get because it's easy to shoot a message on such systems. But do you really care about EVERYONE you have in your networks ? Would you really miss something crucial in your life if you didn't have it ?

Before people used to bond because they had things in common (Usenet, IRC with specific topics of interest), the "new" social networks are just about gathering numbers and bonding with people you have just met once or twice in your life and with you have little in common. At least, that's how I see most people around me using Facebook.

Semaphor• 13 years ago

I use FB to organize stuff in my local circle of friends, I use it to keep in contact with people who I met who went back to their home country, I use it for people I meet once a year when going to a festival so we can meet up again, I use it for people I might want to contact again (ordered into acquaintances so they don't show up on my newsfeed) and I think I have 3-6 people I've never met before, those are the ones that should have pages but use accounts ;)

Doing all that w/o facebook would be a giant PITA.

jancborchardt4• 13 years ago

»Facebook and Twitter are not social networks, they are just platforms. _We_ are the social network.«

– Amr Gharbeia (https://twitter.com/gharbeia ), a few years ago at a conference, commenting on their activism in Egypt and coping with overload and unavailability of Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Also fully agree with your other points. I don’t use Facebook (Twitter though) and just email people whom I care about. Works fine, and those who really care have no problem with you not being on Facebook.

Mordor• 13 years ago

I've stopped using Facebook and behold - all my best friends are still here. If a friendship can't exist without Facebook, then they probably aren't your friend at all...

mathrawka• 13 years ago

It's a bit different when friends are spread out all over the globe. If I want to message someone 13 hours away it is either Facebook or email, and facebook has been replacing those short messages that email or IM used to be used for.

antimagic• 13 years ago

Here's the thing. My friends and I use Facebook to organise evenings out and other outings. We have one friend that refuses to use Facebook, so now we post an event in Facebook, and then someone has to go to the effort of keeping the outcast informed. It's actually quite a pain for your friends if you refuse to use the tool that they are using to organise themselves. It makes your friends do extra work to accomodate you...

eyeareque• 13 years ago

After quitting facebook I realized that my true friends would still be my friends. Two months have passed and (in my case anyway) I feel like I am building better friendships with my friends because of using email/sms/voice calls more often instead of facebook.

Ziomislaw• 13 years ago

all flies eat shit, do you eat shit too?

coldtea• 13 years ago

All my friends are on Facebook and as much as I dislike Facebook's piracy invasion, it's an excellent tool to keep in touch with people.

Ever tried mail and the ocassional phone call or meeting?

Do you really have to keep in touch with people seeing what they did on their vacations, bs inspirational quotes and baby photos?

Nursie• 13 years ago

> Do you really have to keep in touch with people seeing what they did on their vacations, bs inspirational quotes and baby photos?

You may mock, but keeping involved in the minutiae of each others' lives does enable the maintenance of friendships over longer distance and time spans. Minutiae that we wouldn't necessarily make the effort to email or chat about.

As I get older my friends (and myself) have dispersed all over the globe, and even the ones not so far off have less time to give (and possibly less inclination) to spend time just hanging out.

That said, it doesn't have to be FB, or a centralised service at all.

hosay123• 13 years ago

It's worth remembering how so many came to use these services in the first place – as a tech 'front liner' I too was once guilty of unconditionally mocking others and saying "you should be on Gmail!".

Now the tech front is reversing its position, and hopefully the rest of society will eventually follow. Unfortunately the scene isn't set just now, because there simply aren't good alternatives to Gmail – nothing free or self hosted comes remotely close to its clean UI.

When such a thing exists, selling regular users on moving away from Google will be a much easier proposition

[If you're reading this and thinking of cloning Gmail – for fuck's sake don't waste your time "innovating" on the UI and getting it horribly wrong! (This was really the biggest tragedy of the Reader transition). Do a pixel perfect conversion. Except for artwork, cloning a UI is perfectly legal as demonstrated by case law going back 20+ years in the EU and USA.]

mjn• 13 years ago

I agree that everyone uses Facebook, but for Google products other than search uses seems much more scattered. I personally know only techies on Google Talk/Hangouts, no "regular people", and many of those techies are thinking of moving away from it. The "regular people" I know all use Skype, with a minority using AIM for text-chat. Skype would be harder for me to drop (unfortunately, because the client is incredibly annoying), but Google Talk is easy.

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

mjn: That's actually suprising to me; among my friends most of the non-techi people use Google Talk (a few on AIM and Skype as well, but not many). Most of my techi friends used Google Talk as well but started moving away after federation was killed off. Now many of them use a mix of other XMPP providers (DuckDuckGo, Jabber.org both being popular) and direct messaging on IRC.

RexRollman2• 13 years ago

I am not on Facebook because I feel that they are an untrustworthy company. That said, if I felt I needed it, I would have to set up a web browser dedicated to it, or always be in Incognito mode while using it.

jalada• 13 years ago

All good suggestions, but heavily focused on non-collaborative solutions. For example a paper calendar is no good if you regularly use your colleagues calendars to schedule events and know what is going on.

ekianjo8• 13 years ago

Well, people have been living with paper calendars for dozens of years and were still able to launch rockets and stuff. I think we overestimate the usefulness of some digital tools. Making it easy to schedule meetings often results in tons of unnecessary meetings - it's better to have some friction there. But I guess it really depends what you do - there are certain use cases for digital calendars, but in my experience the way they are used is unproductive.

reeses• 13 years ago

I hate working with people who send me a note after they've already sent me a meeting request, telling me that they saw an opening on my calendar and have set up an hour-long meeting with no agenda.

It's a weird combination of laziness and an unwillingness to use other tools (email, issue tracking, typing). If they just typed up an agenda (heck, Confluence has a template ready) we could probably wrap up the whole thing while I'm goofing around on HN.

Having to go through an EA/PA to schedule meetings is one of the best ways of exchanging money for time, plus you end up having one person who never makes you cringe, unless you start worrying that they're giving notice because they're starting their own company or moving across the country.

robotmay5• 13 years ago

Thanks for the Photographer.io mention! I was about to deploy Dutch and Polish language support when I noticed the traffic rolling in, so I'll be leaving that for a few hours now in case I break it.

If anyone has any questions about privacy on Photographer.io or any other general questions then I'd be happy to answer. You can also email them over to support@photographer.io if you prefer.

Rustan3• 13 years ago

Great site! Switching over from 500px.com

robotmay5• 13 years ago

Glad you like it! Make sure to let me know of any problems you find or ideas you have; I love getting feedback on it :)

acomjean• 13 years ago

I'm going to give it a try. I tried 500px but something about it seemed off. I use instagram and just started with flickr. I have an old site that turned folders of photos into table based galleries which I coded up last century....

antonwinter• 13 years ago

i kim dotcom gets his crypto email going, we can help google be less evil by moving to that.

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

PGP and S/MIME work perfectly well. Personally, I'd be wary of any new crypto solution until it had been extensively independantly verified and burned in for several years.

unclekreepy• 13 years ago

why be a google hater? .. they arent going anywhere for a while and only the non used services get shut down.

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

As I mentiond, I'm certainly not a `Google hater.' I just don't want all of my services in one basket because I want ot be less dependant on one provider and the integrations between their services.

Kiro2• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who want the opposite? I love having everything seamlessly tied to one ecosystem. The synergy effects are worth it and I can't see a better company than Google to handle it.

markeganfuller• 13 years ago

and I can't see a better company than Google to handle it.

Google hasn't exactly been a good company recently, at the very least the whole reader issue has caused a lot of worry.

sbuk6• 13 years ago

Not to forget the alleged heavy involvement in PRISM.

sbuk6• 13 years ago

Why Google? Genuine question.

twodayslate• 13 years ago

What has a better ecosystem?

yfefyf• 13 years ago

The "ecosystem" is shutting down one service after another.

Joeboy2• 13 years ago

Am I the only one who want the opposite?

No, you're clearly in the majority of people who value their own convenience highly. I unfortunately have to include myself in that majority too, although less enthusiastically than you.

The synergy effects are worth it

To you as an individual maybe. Overall the prospect of a populace whose information and activities are all stored and logged by a small number of entities is a pretty big "it", and I don't think the (admittedly great) personal convenience is worth it.

Edit: It occurs to me that your use of the word "ecosystem" is a bit weird. Really, what you're saying is akin to saying you like the advantages of a monoculture.

rogerbinns2• 13 years ago

Everything being seamless is great for usability. But they also place you at great risk. For example if Google disable your account you lose all access. Similarly you are at their mercy for what happens in the future (eg cancelling services, requiring you to use others in certain ways, platform support). It also means that you aren't using best of breed for various parts of the solution. For some it may not matter (maybe you don't care about photos, or files, or calendars, or address books or mobile apps or group chat).

As an end user it is in your best long term interests to have open solutions. That means protocols with multiple implementations of the client and server ends. It means identity, authorization and exposure under your control. And it also means freedom for others to write new clients and servers.

VikingCoder7• 13 years ago

It also means that you aren't using best of breed for various parts of the solution.

This author admits Chrome is better. Google cannot disable his access to Chrome. If it's cancelled, then IT IS open source, and someone can run with it and make a new project (much like Cyanogen). If in the future it requires you to use other products in certain ways, then it IS open source.

There is literally no reason to not use Chrome, other than spite.

If someone else prefers another browser, that's fine. But none of the stated rationale explain why the author abandoned it.

"in the interest of free as in freedom software". Can you make any sense of that?

greyman• 13 years ago

I liked to have one ecosystem as well, but not anymore - it's too risky, because then one company has too much of your data, and there are too many various possibilities how the data can be leaked.

I now use the opposite strategy, having several various providers, preferably not free, while one company provides only one service, i.e. one for bookmarks, another one for email, etc. I found that I don't miss the synergy effect as much as I thought.

gizzlon• 13 years ago

It seems like the majority wants that, and that's very understandable. But it's very very hard to know what "it" actually is, especially when you try to account for the future. So, I don't think most people have the smallest clue if this is a good trade-off or not. Time will tell I guess..

Another point that actually bothers me more is how inflexible this is. You can't mix & match the best services when sticking to one ecosystem. And you cant take part of new development happening elsewhere. So you're actually missing out on all the cool stuff happening elsewhere, and the longer you use these services the harder it is to switch to something else.

hitchhiker9992• 13 years ago

They're a huge multi-national corporation. It's unlikely they have your long term interests, goals, safety, personal satisfaction in mind. But yes, it's convenient and a lot of people agree with you at the moment.

My guess is more will come out, and people will see that trusting private corporations with private data isn't a great idea.

stettix• 13 years ago

Another cloud file storage service worth checking out is Jottacloud (http://www.jottacloud.com). It has similar features to Google Drive and Dropbox but being based in Norway, it complies with stricter laws on privacy and data ownership. See for example the question "What does it mean for me that my files are stored in Norway?" in their FAQ (http://www.jottacloud.com/faq/).

dombili• 13 years ago

It seems like a good option. Relatively cheap as well. But are they encrypting my files? On the FAQ page they say that during uploading the data transfer is encrypted, but they don't mention if my files stay encrypted on their server.

twentyfourseven• 13 years ago

There's something sketchy about Jottacloud. I don't trust it. I installed the client a few weeks ago and it wouldn't upload my files. The program just froze. When I tried to uninstall the software it hung again (I had to manually delete it).

It's still in my start menu somehow, although I disabled it. And this is happening to a guy who religiously scans and cleans his Windows partition.

I recommend everyone stay away.

frebdel• 13 years ago

A similar service is Wuala (https://www.wuala.com/), which is owned by the French company LaCie. They say your files are encrypted using AES-256 before they leave your system and the key stays with you. Apparently the only thing their employees see is the number of your files and their size. Their servers are in Switzerland, France and Germany.

buro92• 13 years ago

I get the point of moving other services to places that are encrypted, private, secure, and cannot be reached by NSA, GCHQ, etc.

But... email?

It goes over the internet in plain text, has substantial meta-data, and even the contents are trivially small to store.

When people want to come off of G+, Facebook, etc... great, that makes some sense. If they want to stop using Chrome Sync, and to use Firefox, install add blockers, anti-trackers, change their hosts file, use VPNs, enable Tor, change DNS provider... great, that makes some sense.

Email makes a lot less sense though. It's effectively public and what security exists is about effective as your front door lock. It keeps out the average person that passes by and little more than that.

There is actually some argument to be had that if most of your contacts use Gmail that you should stay on Gmail as the email wouldn't route via the public internet.

I am sticking with Gmail, but am using a Google Apps for Domains account for it as that allows you to configure the domain to fully disable other Google and related services (G+, YouTube, advertising, Drive, etc). I then access Gmail via Chrome Incognito and live the rest of my internet life in Firefox.

Effectively Google for me, starts each day afresh, sand-boxed in a private browser session, and with no permission to do anything else.

The only other Google things I used they have already shuttered or have announced they're doing so. Effectively when this happens I am one of the n% who don't move to G+ and roll off of Google services.

I do wonder if we'll ever hear what % of users didn't go to Hangouts when they re-branded and closed Talk. What % of Latitude users will vanish when G+ gets whatever location sharing capability. Maybe it's negligible to Google, but it doesn't feel negligible when I speak to friends who used to use Google a lot more.

yelnatz• 13 years ago

He said he's keeping Gmail too.

buro92• 13 years ago

Oh I realise, but the title suggested otherwise (and not everyone RTFA, though I did).

I was actually replying to others in this discussion who advocated "move your email too".

I originally composed the above as a reply to one of those, realised I was replying to several (4 at this point) other replies, and figured I'd make the point more generally that moving email provider achieves little.

j_col• 13 years ago

It's much easier to scan and correlate email data on a massive scale if it is all centralized in the one place (GMail servers).

I'm not saying that is what's happening, just saying it makes it easier.

krichman• 13 years ago

Can you not use a TLS connection?

reidrac• 13 years ago

Can you refuse sending email to servers not supporting TLS?

I don't know the penetration of TLS in SMTP servers, tried some google-fu but I didn't find anything interesting.

EDIT: chances are I misread your comment but still I really wonder how popular TLS is.

richardwhiuk• 13 years ago

You can use a TLS connection to the local email server. You can even enforce that a mail server you run uses TLS to the destination MX. There's no way of forcing that an email will use a secure connection for it's entire journey.

ekianjo8• 13 years ago

Did you read the post? He does not mention NSA or security as one of the reason to get off the Google services. Not one bit.

"The recent Google Reader shutdown and Google Hangouts disabling XMPP federation made me realize that any of my services could go at any time and I didn’t want to be so dependant on a single provider or the integrations between services."

blablabla123• 13 years ago

Good point, I didn't read it either ;)

fauigerzigerk3• 13 years ago

He also said he had stopped using Google search, which is entirely inconsistent with his "could go at any time" reasoning. Clearly there must be something else that motivates his actions.

amirmc3• 13 years ago

"It goes over the internet in plain text..."

Yes, but only because setting up proper encryption in email is a pain (but it isn't impossible). Email makes the most sense to move off centralised services if privacy/security of your data is one of your aims.

Edit: Though to be fair to the OP, that's not the threat model he's tackling. It's more the potential for service shutdown or lockout (which I think is low risk in the case of Gmail).

StavrosK• 13 years ago

I had an idea for a small SMTP/IMAP proxy, running on your own server, that connected to your actual IMAP account and called GPG to encrypt/decrypt your mail. That way, everything would be end-to-end encrypted, if your correspondent used GPG/the proxy as well. It would even be completely transparent to you and all your devices.

samweinberg2• 13 years ago

There’s no free membership, but I consider that a good thing.

You can sign up for a free App.net account with an invite. I have a few, anyone interested?

sthatipamala• 13 years ago

Yeah, I'd like one, please! Could you send it to the email in my profile? I can't figure out how to contact you.

samweinberg2• 13 years ago

Sent!

visarga• 13 years ago

I think it's a time of opportunity now. Someone could become the provider of private internet experience to uproot Google, Apple, MS and the rest.

We need a single, all in one solution for all the basic things: email, search, video, photos, social networking, calendar, sync and maps. Have I forgotten anything? Another essential app is a Tor-like browser with strong privacy support.

All of this needs to be bundled in a private cloud app capable of handling from one person to a group with thousands of people, like, for example, a university.

We need to be able to own our own data, to have access to our logs and to be the only party who has access to our logs. This whole thing needs to be open source and thoroughly tested.

znowi• 13 years ago

The recent Google Reader shutdown and Google Hangouts disabling XMPP federation made me realize that any of my services could go at any time and I didn’t want to be so dependant on a single provider or the integrations between services.

It's interesting how the recent NSA revelations didn't play a role in this decision. Providing NSA access to user data - Fine, whatever. Shutting down a service - How dare you! Evil company! Consumerism trumps the civil rights.

Rustan3• 13 years ago

I've done the same, but switched to: * Autistici/Inventati (http://www.autistici.org) for email and jabber * owncloud for files, calendar, news, contacts * cyanogenmod and f-droid instead of vanilla android and google play

_pmf_• 13 years ago

The sad thing is that one would think that these migrations away from their services should worry Google, but they are apparently offset by the benefit of being able to concentrate on serving the sheeple.

vacri• 13 years ago

any of my services could go at any time [, like] Google Reader

... a lead time of months, with daily notifications in the final month? But he's willing to go with other cloud services?

As for the total abandoment of google products, it seems petulant. 'I won't do Android, I'll do Cyanogen instead!'?

wutbrodo3• 13 years ago

Is there anything to this post but petulance?

hellcow• 13 years ago

I've been extremely happy with Fastmail.fm. It's a few bucks a month, and you can't tell the difference between it and Gmail--as long as you delete emails after you no longer need them, of course.

I also started using a pen & paper planner by moleskine rather than iCal. It's actually very nice.

puppetmaster3• 13 years ago

You can use EU based GMX.com for email in USA. I do.

tteam• 13 years ago

If you want a easy file storage, sharing and sync solution consider our Tonido product (http://www.tonido.com)

paranoiacblack• 13 years ago

Fuck it, I'm going to start writing my programs on punchcards and mailing it to Github HQ to test the results of it. Then I'll handwrite letters to my coworkers to finally switch away from the evils of email. For blogging, I'll literally stand outside of coffee shops on a soap box and talk about how boring I am. My only file storage will be a cabinet in my house. I'll hand draw my own maps. I'll do organic searching through newspaper listings. For social networking, I'll go outside and announce to the world how I'm feeling, only accepting their emotions if they like it. For photography, I'm going to buy a polaroid camera and keep the pictures in my cabinet. Fuck Android, I'm bringing back rotary phones. My feed reader will be the random clippings at starbucks.

Stay classy, HN.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

Depressing thread this....

I think this thread demonstrates why the privacy issues with the likes of google, facebook, etc are pretty much vapor complaints. Essentially, people are happy in the end to sacrifice privacy for convenience. With that mind set, we can easily see why no one really cares about NSA slurping. As far as they are concerned, all the NSA has is what facebook, gmail etc, have. So, what is the problem exactly? And you know what, I can understand the point. I disagree, but equally, I understand.

Having read about how people won't move form FB because it easy to stay there, since their "friends" are there, I now realize most people really are not committed to privacy while it means some sort of inconvenience. There is even a reply here where a friend who wont use facebook is referred to as an "outcast"... Understandable, but also says it all.

Depressing.

lucisferre2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure if that's more depressing or that so many seem to feel that boy-cotting services is an effective way to address the illegal actions of governments and corporations.

I would hope that people would consider instead demanding we hold governments and organizations accountable for crimes directly and demand our rights be respected. Picking up your ball and going home is not the correct response to these things, nor will it help or fix anything.

antocv4• 13 years ago

This, online services, and not taking action is no different than not taking action over bankers/politicians stealing your future.

If somebody had told me in say 2005 or 2006 that "hey, the government will just print like several trillions of dollars, ultimately backed only by your tax money, and just like that give them to failed banks and other corporations, the CEOs of said banks will then give themselves hefty bonuses for almost killing the economy. oh and the banks will also foreclose many peoples houses because the small people cant pay their debts either." and not one beep was heard from the population, not one broken window. Its not some small money stolen from them either, its entire college-educations and pensions, standard of living lowered. But, hey, they're still better than Africa so its fine.

fredBuddemeyer• 13 years ago

exercising choice is exercising freedom. pleading for rights from entities that have seized them without your consent is truly depressing because it is hopeless.

jusben13692• 13 years ago

Is it just me or was the author's point that services can disappear (Reader) yet most of these threads assume the reason to switch are privacy concerns. Maybe we're projecting too much?

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

Definitely not just you; privacy concerns were a very (very) small part of this (when Google has all of your data, they have more than the sum of the individual parts). In general, if I want more privacy, I'll say, use PGP instead of switching email providers.

This was about not relying too heavily on any one service provider. Plain and simple.

wslh• 13 years ago

Do you know what is depressing? The gamification of society, of human kind: in the past intelligence agencies needed intelligence and resources to work. Now, they press a button and they receive all the information without much effort.

Skipping the obvious opinion against the NSA and "The Society of Likes". At least taxpayers (how I hate this word! but it is ironic in this context) should force the Government to fire a big percentage of its workforce since the work is trivial and algorithms to analyze the information are in general already published.

VikingCoder7• 13 years ago

You're presenting a false choice: It's entirely possible to care about privacy, and still use Facebook and GMail.

Simply pretend that everything you post on Facebook and GMail is in the public domain, posted in the public square.

If I never share anything I don't want public, then my privacy is guaranteed. I'd advise others with privacy concerns to do the same.

Given that you NEVER KNOW, EVER that you can 100% trust the people you're sharing with (no matter which media you use), I think people are kind of crazy to act any other way.

LoganCale3• 13 years ago

Facebook tracks your external web browsing history through the use of their embedded buttons, and links that history with your profile. So even if you don't post private information to Facebook, they're tracking your private activity unless you take measures to block such buttons across the web.

coda_• 13 years ago

I agree with you that it's a false choice.

But the part about never sharing anything private with anyone, regardless of the media used... maybe I'm misunderstanding it. That sounds like a terrible way to live. By living that way, you are not retaining your privacy... you've already lost it.

You could die when get on plane, but you still do it, because the reward is worth the risk. Someone could wire tap my house, but I don't let that stop me from having private conversations with my family. There's a risk/reward balance that each of us have to set with respect to our privacy and our ability to share and interact with other people. To say the risk always outweighs the reward seems a little extreme.

deelowe2• 13 years ago

This only considers the current state of 3rd parties, governments, and laws. The gigantic issue with all this is that everything is stored indefinitely. Also, laws and governments change. What's to stop you from suffering tomorrow for seemingly innocuous actions you performed today? And I'm not just talking about getting prosecuted for some specific crime. This data is used as a means of proactive prosecution and profiling. This means that the powers that be are actively looking for signals in the noise that indicate crime(and most likely just things they don't agree with, illegal or not). If the profile created off your various seemingly innocent actions and "meta-data" over the course of many years puts you within the error bars, you could become a false positive. With secret courts, secret prisons, and indefinite detention all possible, what's to stop you from simply disappearing? Or, at the vary least, what's to stop all of this from ruining your life even if you are never convicted of anything(e.g. months of detention and interrogation without prosecution, inability to travel, holds placed on bank accounts, calls to employer, etc...)?

That said, the focus shouldn't be on the companies that collect this data. They are simply doing the best they can to make a profit within the bounds of the law. No, the issue is government. There should be strict laws regulating how data is collected and stored(even non "PII") and even stricter laws around how 3rd parties are allowed to consume, store, and use this data, especially governments. But alas, this is asking the police to police themselves, so I guess this will never happen.

alan_cx2• 13 years ago

It is a difficult choice, not a false one. That is why you and others are trying to justify not making one. Writing it off as false is a convenient excuse.

mariuolo• 13 years ago

Given the scope and reach such services have, one ought to be parsimonious with any private information put online, because it might eventually be correlated with the former.

lupatus• 13 years ago

Better yet, pretend that everything you say/post/share will be seen on a jumbotron at a packed sporting arena.

This way, you will have data security, better grammar, and fewer embarrassing personal moments.

jancborchardt4• 13 years ago

The problem with that is that while you might be conscious of that, other people might not be. And you using Facebook and Gmail pulls these people in, for example an email sent to you by someone not using Gmail will still end up on Google’s servers.

nahname• 13 years ago

There is a really good talk (short too) from Moxie Marlinspike on privacy. His talk is very much along the same lines. Definitely worth watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qzldtKV1PY

acomar• 13 years ago

The whole talk is about 45 minutes long, but yea, it's well worth watching. Thanks for sharing that!

aw3c23• 13 years ago

It is not about convenience, it is about participating in society. I am dependent on Facebook to keep my friends. No quotation marks. They are my real friends and they moved there for a lot of important communication. Should I instead be an outcast? No, THAT would be depressing.

Please watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qzldtKV1PY , which nahname linked.

sanderjd• 13 years ago

I'm never sure if this is a generational thing or just a who-you-happen-to-know thing, but the concept of being an "outcast" because of not using Facebook just sounds ludicrous to me. Your friends wouldn't IM you or email you or text you or call you or talk to you in person if you weren't on Facebook?

unoti• 13 years ago

There are different kinds of friendships. One of the best kinds of friendships are the ones where you support each other, help each other with your hardest struggles. Spend time together, make each other feel safe, and push each other to be the best you can be. Things like this aren't really best done on Facebook. Frankly, most of what is best in life is not done on Facebook.

betterunix5• 13 years ago

So these "real friends" of yours would stop talking to you if you do not use their favorite communication service? I think you may need to reevaluate either your assumptions about your friends or perhaps whether or not they really are your friends.

I have friends all of the world. I am not on Facebook or any other social networking service. Yes, I talk to my friends.

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

Yah, this argument always strikes me as hollow (or really sad). I have a lot of good friends. They are mostly on Facebook. I am not.

The worst that happens is that every now and then I get asked why I wasn't at the movies last night or something because they didn't realize that I couldn't see the invite.

chetanahuja• 13 years ago

Sorry. If you're dependent on Facebook to keep your friends, they are not your friends. They are your "facebook friends".

loginalready• 13 years ago

The fact that people are not prepared to stand alone doesn't mean they don't care about privacy.

Very few people are in a position to make a difference alone, and even fewer dare to act. There's only one Snowden.

The rest of us, we vote, support civil liberties organisations, sign petitions, and the most active amongst us lobby and demonstrate.

The notion that the way to change things is by individual sacrifice, and if we don't we obviously don't care enough, is an fundamentalist libertarian fantasy.

The real world doesn't work that way. Real people don't work that way. At least 99% of us don't.

uxp• 13 years ago

Real people don't work that way. At least 99% of us don't.

This statement rings with me quite a bit.

I'm reminded of the day the FBI released the video and photos of the Tsarnaevs just after the Boston bombing and it was discovered that they were from Chechnya. If you visited twitter and searched for their names, you could have found a few thousand tweets asking why the Czech Republic was attacking the US. Here are thousands of Americans, typing words into a computer connected to the largest distributed information storage network ever conceived by man, and they don't bother to verify that Chechnya and the Czech Republic aren't the same place.

Most people aren't stupid, they just don't care. How many times last week did knowing the difference between Chechnya and the Czech Republic come in handy for you? Likewise, knowing that the NSA is actively slurping all your phone calls and emails, what can you do that doesn't require massive lifestyle changes?

click170• 13 years ago

>The notion that the way to change things is by individual sacrifice, and if we don't we obviously don't care enough, is an fundamentalist libertarian fantasy.

Thank goodness not everyone feels the same way you do. You can't change the world if you don't at least try.

I'm glad that at least 1% does work that way. I think it's too bad there aren't more of these types of people in the world.

00rion• 13 years ago

I deleted my facebook after the NSA leak partly due to feeling uncomfortable sharing that information with the government, but more because I feel that facebook doesn't really do much for me. I'd rather have 5 great friends than 200 "friends" who passively consume information about me.

dllthomas• 13 years ago

[A]ll the NSA has is what facebook, gmail etc, have.

Facebook has what Facebook has. Google has what Google has. Verizon has what Verizon has. The NSA has what all of them have, put together. The NSA can therefore draw conclusions that Facebook and Verizon and Google can't, and therefore I lose privacy when that data is handed over even if I happen to use some subset of the services in question.

That's not my only objection, but it's a substantial one...

burntsushi2• 13 years ago

Privacy isn't just about hiding my data in general. It's also about hiding it from certain people.

I'm not sure why you haven't considered the possibility that I don't want the government to have my data from an entire collection of web sites, but might not mind any one particular web site having it. More to the point, I worry a lot more about what the government can do with my data than what Facebook can do.

joyeuse6701• 13 years ago

if someone made an sGoogle/sFacebook/s whatever that could move your info and maintain same look/functionality with one button, people would switch, because a button switch for more security (like turning the deadbolt on your door) is something people are willing to do. Otherwise the cost of switching is too high.

jpd750• 13 years ago

Good idea, I may make the switch more entirely as well. I already have started with DuckDuckGo

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

DuckDuckGo's pretty great — I started using it several months ago as an experiment and once I got used to it realized I actually preferred it to Google. The instant answers are fantastic and when they don't have what I want I can just write it and submit a pull request on GitHub. Love it. Results still aren't quite as good but they work 90% of the time (and I don't have any problem going back and trying Google during the other 10%)

ds9• 13 years ago

Lots of cheap web hosting providers offer webmail for one's own domain. Having never used Gmail I can't compare the interface, but I find it friendly enough and have no difficulty syncing the web view and Thunderbird (debranded as Icedove) at home. Even semi-technical people can do this with a little effort.

I do use the Google search sometimes, and sites that retrieve from GoogleAPIs, but frequently dumping all cookies, cache and such and changing browser details will keep you off the radar if you wish.

People speak as if it's a big hassle to avoid depending on big companies - or to avoid the tracking and wiretapping - and but it's really just a question of the relative values one attches to privacy and convenience.

emehrkay• 13 years ago

Damn, Google may have people locked in more than Microsoft of the 90s

jusben13692• 13 years ago

As we know all services are vulnerable at any time to disappearing. Startups failing, large companies sunsetting. It then appears the question becomes "What is the cost to me of this service going away?" where cost can be how long it would take to move to a comparable offering at that time. Then you way that up against "How much am I giving up each day/week/month if I use a service I want less but am doing so due to my fear of being "all in" and at the mercy of Google's whims?" So when I see an article like this (which I enjoyed) I tend to think the above is simply out of whack with a "I'm getting off every service"

ssharp• 13 years ago

Such action is extremely impotent if you still keep Gmail. Aside from chat, email is the most private service on the list and failing to give up on that exemplifies how people value convenience over privacy. This type of "activism" is almost negative if you're fighting for better privacy.

nathanb• 13 years ago

FWIW, I use Linux and am fairly happy with Amazon Cloud Player.

The lack of Linux support for their downloader is annoying, but I don't feel the need to download entire albums particularly frequently. When I do, spinning up a Windows VM is the work of but a moment (I haven't tried running the downloader under wine, but it probably works well).

I don't mean to excuse Amazon for their Windows-only mindset or suggest that lack of Linux support won't be a big deal for you, but don't let this post discourage you from trying it in case you're a Linux user who wants to give it a shot.

markshepard• 13 years ago

Interesting, I have been in this line of thinking. Google has been as cavalier about user data as the rest except that it has the holier-than-thou attitude.

Made the painful move back to firefox on all my computer after being used to Chrome. I have started using DDG in desktops but still depend on google on my mobile devices. Email, I am still stuck with gmail as the primary mail box (Which I am actively working on to move out to paid account).

cromwellian3• 13 years ago

In what way has Google been "cavalier" about user data?

lambda2• 13 years ago

One problem with moving away from Google is Google Maps. While OSM does have some fine maps, they don't have navigation or business search. I use Google Maps on my phone all the time to find "where's there a restaurant around here, and how can I get to it?"

Is there any privacy-preserving service that does anything similar?

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

Unfortunately I've never heard of such a thing. Let me know (by email) if you find anything though and I'll happily add it to the article.

brini2• 13 years ago

Have you looked into OsmAnd [1] for Android devices? You may find it not as slick as Google Maps, but it does have Points of Interest search.

[1] http://osmand.net/

lambda2• 13 years ago

I tried OsmAnd. I needed to download a bunch of map data when I first installed it; but once it had downloaded some of the maps, I still couldn't view anything, it kept telling me that it was still downloading maps (I don't know why it couldn't display the ones it had already downloaded).

Once it had downloaded all of the maps and would show me something, I tried to get it to give me directions. I could not (and still cannot) figure out how to set a destination. I scroll to a place I want to go, touch the menu button, touch "show" or "follow", and get a message "please select a destination first". I long press on where I want to go, which pops up a bubble that shows my latitude and longitude (not, say, what businesses are there like Google Maps does), and try doing directions from the menu again. Nope, "please select a destination".

There is no search by address, or anything else. If I use Google Maps, I can usually type in the name of the place I'm trying to go, and it will find the address and from there find the route. Even being able to find the route from OsmAnd has eluded me.

Ah. Just now, as I tried it again, I found that I could long-press on a location, then touch the menu, touch "use location" (at the very bottom of the menu, almost off the screen, and which apparently means "use the location that I just long-pressed", not "use the location I'm at"), touch "destination", choose to either navigate or show the route, and then get told that it can't determine the route because the location is not available as I'm indoors without good GPS signal.

It needs some substantial work before it's actually usable. For instance, it needs a prominent search that will take the name of a business or an address and route me there with a minimal number of touches and decisions, and even if I'm indoors and don't have a good GPS signal.

I use mostly free software on the desktop, for my work. When I have time to sit down and debug something and figure out how it works, I'm willing to put up with a less than ideal interface; it's worth it that I have access to the source, that I can fix bugs when I find them, that I can get in touch with the original authors and pay them to fix a bug for me.

But when I'm trying to navigate to some new location on my phone on my vacation, I need something that just works. I don't have time to fiddle around with a lousy interface. I don't have time to look up the address of my destination elsewhere, then scroll around the map until I can find that address and go through a long press and several layers of menus before I can get directions to it.

What we really need is freedom preserving software that just works. It doesn't need to have every possible option and knob. It doesn't need to offer every feature under the sun. It just needs to make it easy for me to find where I'm going and tell me how to get there, without going through endless layers of menus and making me figure out where the destination is in the first place.

aw3c23• 13 years ago

Pick one or more:

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Android#Navigating_featur...

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/IOS#Navigating_features

OSM is data. Don't judge the data by the official website. It's power is in the freedom of the data and all the services/applications other people can build with it.

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

Thanks for the comments and suggestions all; I've updated the post with some of the suggestions people have emailed to me (diff: https://github.com/SamWhited/blog.samwhited.com/commit/62f00...).

jancborchardt4• 13 years ago

ownCloud designer here, thank you for all the shout outs!

There’s also a great RSS feed reader for ownCloud since some time: http://algorithmsforthekitchen.com/blog/?p=580 – installable from the App settings, would be cool if you can add that.

superuser2• 13 years ago

Where is he hosting this stuff? What makes you think Linode/DigitalOcean et al would violate US law to protect a customer?

blacktulip• 13 years ago

OK, IMHO if you keep gmail, you have not left google. Having one service with them and having multiple services with them are essentially the same.

I am trying to do the same thing. Problem is, I used my gmail address everywhere already. My contacts know me by my gmail address. Dropbox identifies me by my gmail address .. you know what I mean.

I moved my custom domain emails to fastmail. But my @gmail account can't be moved. I really don't know what to do with it. I am stuck.

gyardley• 13 years ago

Autoforward everything you get to it to one of your custom domain emails, and set up an autoresponder that says you're no longer using GMail, points to your new email, and tells the sender you'll stop checking GMail soon?

After about a year or so of that (plus having the presence of mind to update your email address whenever you use a service), you should be able to delete your account without too much inconvenience. Yes, it's a pain, but that's how lock-in works.

chris_mahan3• 13 years ago

Give yourself 1 year to migrate off. Tell everyone, services, etc. at the 6 month mark, put that in your sig. at the 9 month mark make an autoresponder. at 12 month, close the account.

chris_mahan3• 13 years ago

Actually, don't close the account. Just let it lie dormant.

cromwellian3• 13 years ago

Any web service could "go at any time", in fact, the smaller players are more likely to fold up shop, not give advanced warning, and not offer something like Google Takeout. It's happened before. Some smaller players in the past didn't even have good backups, and simply lost user data. You could self-host, but again, unless you want to put a lot of labor and money into reliability and security, you can also lose.

I'd call the reasoning used in this article "Reader Derangement Syndrome".

dave5104• 13 years ago

I'd certainly trust Google to shut down a product more gracefully than a startup.

jthol• 13 years ago

I seriously don't understand the logic behind this whole article. Is he really afraid of the google play store disappearing? Is he aware that you can install an apk from anywhere after changing one setting? Virtually everything that's been shut down by Google has had a graceful shutdown where you could export your data in a calm manner.

It sounds like he's more concerned about the NSA stuff than having services shut down but never really says that. It's just a weird rant as far as I can tell.

efa• 13 years ago

>why do I want my calendar to be online anyways

Wow, my Gmail calendar is the one thing I can't see doing without. View from anywhere, seeing my team members schedule, adding invites to each other's calendars. It's pretty much my task (or reminder) list as well.

tomkarlo• 13 years ago

Maybe if he was using Google to host his site, it would still be up.

(Yes, I'm being glib, but with a point - there are real downsides to moving away from services like Google that have industrial-strength cloud services behind them. Just because you can move to other things or self-host to improve privacy doesn't mean there aren't major tradeoffs.)

yuhong• 13 years ago

Let's trace the problems. I don't think Larry, Sergey, Eric, or Marissa have security clearances, do they?

ikusalic• 13 years ago

Keeping GMail invalidates almost all the other efforts. That is the frist element of Google addiction that needs to go away. GMail is tying you down to Google and is unfortunately hardest to break free from. My choice (at least for now) is Fastmail.

Disclaimer: I feel strongly about this topic [1] and think that most of HNers should too.

[1] http://www.ikusalic.com/blog/2013/06/04/case-against-google/

Estragon• 13 years ago

   I had a bit of trouble adapting to the kinds of results I 
   was getting and what sort of language I used when 
   searching (I didn’t realize how tuned-in to Google’s 
   search algorithms my subconscious had become), but after 
   using it for a while I began to love it.

I'd love to read a tutorial about how to adjust search queries to suit DDG. Maybe this is why I find it to be such a pain, and always switch back.

thinkinggorilla• 13 years ago

I am a poor man using services of Google. Thanks Google. I want to know how the alternative service users are so sure that this will solve their privacy issues by not using Google services. Are they insiders in NSA, or NSA cannot track you on other alternative services. HOW DO YOU KNOW ?

SamWhited12• 13 years ago

Did another round of edits; if you sent me suggestions and they're not in there I decided not to include them for some reason (or forgot about them). Full diff here: https://github.com/SamWhited/blog.samwhited.com/compare/979c...

spoiler• 13 years ago

I am very happy with the fact that Google personalises my search results, because 99% of the time it does it right! I remember one time where it got in the way, and getting "around" it didn't require too much effort.

Also, if I need to find a replacement I will do it when necessary. I enjoy being Google's slave, because I feel treated nicely & I am happy!

Although, the fact they dropped XMPP support is a bit sad.

Don't be evil: Moving everything off of Google

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