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Comment by istillwritecode | Hacker News Reader

Another xoogler here. iPhones are quite popular among Googlers, but probably not out of proportion to their demographic. Personally I stopped using almost every Google product after I got to see what android collects. I won a Google home max in an internal contest and immediately gave it away. I have an Alexa. It's true that Google product decisions often have a vocal opposition inside the company, but product managers are adept at ignoring criticism.

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Doesn't Alexa collect the same amount of information as Google Home or other "smart products"? I'm not pro-Google or Amazon (quite the opposite actually), I just don't use any "smart" products (expect for smartphones which I can't avoid) due to the amount of tracking on all of them.

Please give us an idea what Android collects

> I won a Google home max in an internal contest and immediately gave it away. I have an Alexa.

That made me laugh :)

Well that's comforting

What does Android collect?

> I stopped using almost every Google product after I got to see what android collects.

> I have an Alexa.

You think Amazon products are any better?

I must say, I appreciate the honesty.

I'm curious.. did the fallacious argument play into your understanding of "honesty" here?

OP: I don't use Google products because Google collects a lot of data. Also OP: I use Amazon Echo instead.

Setting aside whether or not OP even works at Google, did you ask yourself: what basis does OP have to suggest that Amazon or Apple don't collect similar amounts of data?

Feel free to ignore me and not let confirmation bias get in the way of your pitchfork!

You heard it right there folks. Another reason to de-google.

I don’t know if I will take the advice of someone’s degoogling consists of getting an Alexa device…

I can degoogle except for gmail and maps.

Apple Maps in my country sucks. There are no good alternatives to Google Maps.

Gmail - I have too much stuff there to move away.

OpenStreetMap?

Could you create a new mail account and gradually stop using the old one, and keep it only as an archive of old messages?

Online directions and traffic congestion indication was not available.

Take a look at MagicEarth, which provides both, based on OpenStreetMap data: https://www.magicearth.com/

Gmail is the easiest to replace by far. You can copy everything to Fastmail in hours and be done.

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