De-Googling My Life
nrempel.com
nrempel.com
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...
[edit]
Here is a very amateurish graphic depicting the difference.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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/
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.
Who previously controlled duck.com? It wasn't Google, was it?
https://web.archive.org/web/20070508104636/http://www.center...
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)...
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 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.