I actually mentioned that. Just shim GA connections; this happens with most ad-blocking software, and I believe happens in Firefox's "strict" mode by default. It's really trivial.
"Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post)."
Only true if the majority of people you converse with over email are boring.
"Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at."
Again, why would you ever look at an ad? That's a ludicrous idea.
"Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor."
Bittorrent.
"If you have an android phone you're forced to use google play services."
Completely false. Android works fine without Google Play Services.
EDIT: Made words better.
Bittorrent."
I should avoid Google's monopoly by becoming a criminal?
Can confirm that Android works great without Google Play Services, I don't have it. Most Play Store apps break but most of my apps are from F-Droid anyway.
Android without Google Play, unless you live in mainland China, does not "work great" the way most people want. I've done it and it was basically like not having a smartphone at all.
You cannot use banking apps, social media, games, streaming/Chromecast, maps (yes, I know OsmAnd exists; it has next to no information about businesses or landmarks and takes several minutes to plot a route that Google Maps or Waze calculates in less than 5 sedonds). Firefox is a reasonable alternative to Chrome and K-9 mail is good but that's about it. Unless MicroG suddenly became good in the past two years it's not a feasible solution even for people who are technically-minded.
OsmAnd, unlike Google Maps free tier, will always draw you an actually optimised route (though without considering traffic congestion).
There is no good competitor to YouTube - there are a lot of bad ones yes, but no good one. I'd argue this is objective fact.
I use fastmail and my own domain, but most people use gmail - I don't think that's that big of a deal though.
It's odd they'd target Google in the OP - telecom providers like Comcast and Spectrum are much worse in how they treat their customers and in those cases there really isn't another option most of the time.
The majority of people are “boring.” Not acknowledging your approach’s failure points (in this petty way) isn’t good marketing, really.
Interesting opinion... have any facts to back up such an opinion? What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business?
There are immoral ways to go about advertising, without doubt. But advertising itself is immoral?
Non-consensually forcing anyone into anything is wrong. Advertising violates the NAP.
"But advertising itself is immoral?"
Indeed.
If I say something you disagree with... I'm not violating a "Non-Aggression Principle" - unless you think that opinions make you weak (I believe diverse thought makes you stronger - can't get new ideas without communication).
And if you think communication REALLY is "aggression"... how do you pair the fact that you "forcing" your opinion on me about my opinion on advertising goes against your own principle? Isn't it kinda... a hypocritical blackhole of an opinion?
Sharing info isn't itself immoral... it's LITERALLY the bedrock of civilization, free will, free speech, self defense, etc - all start with communication. The right to say stuff others don't like or even GASP saying stuff that make them uncomfortable - like pointing out your paradoxical opinion. (HOW you share CAN be immoral... but not sharing/communication itself)
Advertising, at it's core, is sharing information. Without freedom to communicate? without the ability to share ideas? We'd be afraid of fire. we would be monkeys in caves...
Something doesn't have to be rape to be non-consensually forced upon someone; consider slavery, or compulsory schooling, or non-free Javascript. A well-documented method of torture is obscuring a captive's vision and looping a single song on repeat.
"how do you pair the fact that you "forcing" your opinion on me about my opinion on advertising goes against your own principle? Isn't it kinda... a hypocritical blackhole of an opinion?"
You asked for me to share the opinion, and as such, have given consent. Wider, though, this is a message board. The point is to share on-topic messages. This includes opinions, but does not include ads.
Advertising at its core is manipulation, not sharing information. Most advertisements grant the viewer net-negative information.
I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.
It's not really a big deal, and I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense.
And for almost every job position. They will tell you Meet is what they use and if that doesn't work for you, they are happy to cancel the interview.
I mean, the tautological definition is that the regulators will decide whether Google is a public utility, or perhaps too big and needs to be broken up (a question separate from this particular lawsuit). All of us are just on the sidelines discussing it, and perhaps trying to influence our elected representatives.
The fact that courts and regulators are at least considering it does mean that there is some merit to the argument that it may not be practical to live Google-free these days. It's probably not just me being unwilling to talk to my friends and business partners.
Unlikely scenario; the companies that overlap with my set of skills either have their own offering or use a libre one. I will admit, this might be harder for other people (my skills hover around RTC heavily).
"Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures?"
My friends range from "Too young to be using a 'boomer' service like Google Photos" to "Too old to be doing anything technical that isn't just texting photos via SMS," and most of them in the 25-30 child-having age either also avoid Google or would just show the pictures in person. I don't live in the Valley, though, so this could be a regional thing.
"I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account."
No, I don't. It never seemed necessary to me.
Newborn's pictures could be obtained another way if you were a close relatives or friends. If you are not close enough then the desire to see them decreases anyways.
You always have the choice of creating a new google profile and disreguarding it later.
Many have
What is the reason? Are the privacy changes affecting this by using more resources or pages are requesting domains that hang for too long?
It gives rust a bad name because this is one of the bigger rust products I know.
That's not correct.
Currently, 9.5% is Rust https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
I disagree about DDG’s search quality. I tried it for six months and that was not my experience. Eventually went back to Google.
What do you use a search engine for? Depending on your set of interests, turning off or on localization might have helped.
This reminds me of the dream of displacing Microsoft Word. Can we make a better product? No we can't. Only Microsoft can, through upgrades. The competition is stuck with making the same thing, and therefore not better, or something different, which is always "worse" because people are used to Word.
Also note that DuckDuckGo has a fundamental disadvantage: by not tailoring its searches to your history, it cannot possibly guess what you want to see as well as Google. Sure you're not trapped in your own search bubble, but you don't feel that. You only feel that the damn search engine can't find that website you are searching for for the fifth time already.
Pro tip: to get back to a web site, type its URL, or use bookmarks. Somehow I've seen many professional programmers fail to do that. I give them a URL, and they type it on the freaking search bar. (The more modern version is failing to type or auto-complete an actual URL in the omni bar.)
Your stances on these two topics just seem to be in contrast with each other, would you care to elaborate?
However, email isn't really a good decentralized protocol. All federation fails at being meaningfully decentralized given enough time. There are great decentralized protocols; email is not one of them.
It’s been happening for decades, but while computers get orders of magnitude faster, software gets slower at a faster rate, consuming all of the gains and then some.
Edit: here’s an interesting example just looking at input latency: https://danluu.com/input-lag/ if you take the browser into account as part of the system as well, I’m sure it’s much, much worse.