zorrolovsky

> was I supposed to think up the skepticism when I discovered the product?

It's always good to be a bit skeptic. But please don't put too much pressure on yourself.

The reason why I see red flags is because I spent a lot of time learning about what makes a good privacy product and created my own framework to evaluate services. But most people don't have the time to do that, and need to trust what they're being told.

In other words, I don't think the problem is your lack of skepticism or technical knowledge about privacy. That's perfectly reasonable and normal. The problem is that companies blatantly lie, exploit users and do shady businesses, and they get away with it with repugnant impunity. If they were sevely punished and scrutinized when they do shady business of feed lies to people we would have a more trustable ecosystem.

In my ideal world, when a company like Neeva launches with such grandiose statements, they would get analyzed and scrutinized by experts, who will publish findings in a simple English format. If their statements were incorrect, they would be held accountable and punished. For example they would have to remove the 'privacy-oriented' crap from their website and just position themselves as another search engine.

Your comment really resonates with me, many thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings.

There are two sides of the coin: you as an individual, and society.

As an individual, you're doing the right things by focussing on playing your cards well. Running is much better in the long term than getting drunk or high, no question about that :)

In regards to society, the reality is that consumerism have intentionally promoted narcissism, 'use and throw away' mentality, disloyalty and other character traits that lead to anxiety, perpetual insatisfaction and disconnection with others. No wonder why a large part of the population suffers from stress, anxiety, loneliness, etc. Most people over 40 I know are on some sort of mood-control drugs.

We live in a world where companies are allowed to bombard people to a point where it's inevitable to live without seeing ads everywhere. It's not only the prevalence of ads which is problematic, it's the fact that those ads exploit brain weaknesses to make people unsatisfied with their life. Always desiring new things. Always thinking what they have is not enough, what they do is not enough because company ads and social media project images of people that are both false and unrealistic. All this for their own profit.

Technology just made things worse by blending ads with information, and making us lose focus on the important stuff by requiring attention all the time.

I find the ad-age repugnant and highly damaging to people. We're no longer able to connect with others at a deep level. We're no longer able to think with focus and perspective. We have 100 things in our mind that require urgent attention, so there's no time to be happy. People are now sitting in front of each other and not being able to really listen because their brain has other things in their mind. More than 90% of the people I know are unable to have a healthy level empathy and connect with others. Their noses are buried too deep in their belly buttons.

For the 10% who listens and care, this world is a very frustrating and sad place. So they stop listening and caring, thus perpetuating the toxic cycle.

The way I deal with this problem is by focussing on my own expectations. I no longer expect people to listen or care. I know humans are highly unloyal and unreliable these days, so I rather seek happiness elsewhere (philosophy, arts, knowledge, etc.). From a society's standpoint I became the misanthrope, anti-social hermit that no one wants to be around. And I couldn't be happier :) The moment I dropped desire and expectations to be 'normal', 'social', etc. my sadness and unhapiness went away.

I hope you also find your own path, my friend.

I agree with others that a new business model for search is refreshing. But... for a privacy-oriented service, Neeva is doing a poor job in earning my trust.

I spent some minutes in their website and all I could find are vague promises and grandiose marketing-speak. Where's the evidence and the technical detail? Where are the privacy experts, data experts and engineers impressing me with the robustness, openness and cleverness of their system?

Mullvad, for example, excels at explaining how their privacy service works. They transparently explain how they designed a systen with privacy at the core and they're open in their processes and code. They're also independently audited. That's why I trust them.

Neeva, on the other hand, focusses on promises and not evidence. Also, when you scratch the surface they no longer seem so privacy-friendly.

Just compare the privacy policies of both companies and make your own judgement about who is truly privacy-oriented or not:

https://neeva.com/privacy https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#numbered https://mullvad.net/en/help/privacy-policy/

In regards to Neeva's positioning as 'private search', I don't think they have their architecture right. The best privacy-oriented services are keen on NOT knowing users. Neeva seems keen on getting their hands on all sorts of data. For users: Create an account, send payment data, sync with documents, email, calendars, etc. For users and non-users: automatic hoarding of IP, user settings, location, etc.

Very well articulated. It's the digital equivalent of emotional blackmail.

I disagree it's out of line to group Reddit with the likes of Pinterest, fb, etc. The fact that they're slightly more user-friendly doesn't make up for using dark patterns and dirty tricks.

I think it's unethical to intentionally design features that confuse users and force them to take roads they don't really want to take. Reddit crossed a line with the annoying pop-up that constantly asks you to download their app, for example. I don't care that the pop-up is less persistent than let's say Instagram. It's ill-intentioned design and it shouldn't exist.

Agreed. I am a Mint user and I couldn't be happier. I switched around one year and a half ago because I was concerned about the constant data transfer (increasingly harder to deactivate) between my devices and Apple/MS. I was also sick of seeing unwanted ads and notifications both in Windows and Mac.

I agree! Linux Mint is very easy to install and to use. I tried both the ubuntu and debian flavours and I love the simplicity and elegance of cinnamon.

> I'm not aware of any Linux distros that are suitable for non-developers

This is quite a bold statement. I'm not a developer and recently installed a number of linux distros to try which is best. Some of them were actually easier to install than Windows or MacOS. For example Linux Mint was a breeze, and I used full disk encryption and other 'advanced' settings.

You're right, the behaviour of the footer clearly creates a major usability issue. I personally dislike infinite scrolling with a passion. I can't see any big advantages and there are a lot of cons. I keep my hopes high that one day I will see it die... like Adobe Flash :)

Many thanks for the insight. I am now going on a rabbit hole to discover what that solution implies, how it works, etc. :)

Are you serious? My debian and ubuntu computers can play 4k streaming without problems! (youtube, twitch, etc). I don't see a reason why linux can't play 4K. Could you please elaborate?

For some experiences, content needs to be updated in page 1 (google is a good example). How would you then share page 7? that requirement could only be met if content was static (no updates) or the ordering of results was old to new. Am I missing something?

> but when it can be one of several apps, and the sole purpose of the app is retain a cryptographic key and run some hashes on it... I lose most of my sympathy.

I can't see how having a choice of apps changes anything.

An employer shouldn't be able to demand an employee to use personal property for work purposes against the employee's will. That's unreasonable, unacceptable and ethically wrong in my opinion.

> if they wanted to steal your data, then they'd ask you about it?

Because if they don't meet a bare minimum of decency and regulatory requirements, they will be fined a substantial % of their revenue.

They ask questions because if they didn't they wouldn't have a defense in court.

Are you talking about any particular individuals or organizations? Who are they? Is this just a general observation? In which case... what evidence do we have to support your statement? Are you suggesting 100% of individuals who support piracy also support privacy? Or is it more like 1%?

Great advice and thanks for sharing. However, the risk of these programs is that they don't last forever. Microsoft can disable what they do, find alternative ways of stealing data, etc.

Your example is valid for a user familiar with the installation process. OP mentioned is a new user.

Also, even if you toggle "everything off" there is stolen data going through which you don't even have an option to disable.

Yes, and that's the issue with most computers today: there's no way to opt out to Windows. Whether you like it or not, licensing cost is blended into the computer and even if you don't use Windows you're somehow supporting a company that you might not want to support.

I undertand in 99.9% of cases people just want to buy a laptop, turn it on and have it working. But I also think there should be an easy way to opt out of Windows enforced by law so that MS don't bang up numbers due to shady commercial practices.

Looking at the evidence, I would say this is a pure UX/UI issue at root: three people got confused about what they needed to do, and they all thought they completed their task successfully when they didn't.

The first UI issue is the obvious lack of intuitiveness. There is ancient software that is resonably intuitive to use, because the people who led development took responsibility to do the right thing: invest in UX/UI so that their software is a success. Others however cut corners to get more short-term profits, or dismiss design as if it was decoration (it's not, good design is form + function and most serious designers pay more attention to the latter than the former).

The second UI issue is (an assumed) lack of feedback in the output of the transaction. After doing the transaction, if there was a feedback screen confirming to the user what they've done, the error could be caught much more easily. For example, before actually sending any transaction there could be a screen saying: - Summary of transaction - X$ will be sent to account XYZ - X$ will be sent to account ABC

This looks like obvious stuff, but is often obvious stuff and small details what turn a problematic user experience into a succesful one.

To me, the overarching topic here is trust. Who do you trust with you private stuff?

On the left corner, Whatsapp. Owned by a company who has been caught red-handed with plenty of shady stuff. From accepting money to manipulate democracies, to exploiting the human brain (young and old) to catapult their product FB is a live testament of what being a greedy, evil corporation really means.

On right corner, Telegram. As far as I know, they have been caught in zero shady enterprises. Their discourse seem a bit cocky and preachy, but honestly I couldn't agree more with their principles and their responses to criticism seem logic.

My choice is Telegram, thank you very much!

There is still Signal, but less than a quarter of my contacts are there. To me it smells a bit of G+... great idea and features, but low adoption which makes the product irrelevant.

I agree with @epc. in the mid to long term, it’s best to drop clients that constantly put pressure on you.

Receiving pressure on a constant basis takes a toll on mental health, and health is our most precious asset. Don’t waste it with people who are not worth it!

Here’s an argument to convince you: your client is not creating the kind of environment where you will produce high quality work or grow much as a professional. He’s creating the kind of environment where you will just ‘get stuff done’, lose your passion and be miserable in the long term.

If you'd like to fix the relationship rather than to break it, my recommendation is to learn negotiation skills. They're very useful for life in general, so it's worth investing time in learning them.

There are reams of books, webs, podcasts, videos, etc. about the art of negotiation so you can start by the type of content that suits you best.

After you learn sufficient negotiation skills, I suggest you use them with your difficult client and see what comes out. Maybe he or she stops being a bully. You know, sometimes people are abusive just because they can get away with it. The moment they see strong pushback or confrontation they typically flee to find the next (poor) victim.

To your examples, I would reply something like:

"I need your help to wrap this up ASAP" Sure, let me have a look at my to-do list and I'll get back to you with a delivery date ASAP (then, calculate a date that already includes a safety buffer and negotiate with the client)

"I am under a lot of pressure and time constraint" I understand and I empathise with you, but I also have a lot going on and I don't want to promise you something I can't deliver. Can we please go over the scope and activities together to put realistic timings on them?

Tactics: - show the other person you're on his/her camp - explain that it's not reasonable to commit to dates that can't be met. Bonus points if done with confidence. - expose the risk they're creating by committing to something that is not reasonable - position the discussion as win / win... you need to review dates for your client's own good (what would his or her boss say after deadlines are not met?)

Same here... really well built products that just work!.