pouët.net

I decided recently (as in since seeing their new privacy policy) to ditch google for the various things I use it for. I guess a few others here are in the same position, so some discussion of alternatives would be useful. Here's what I've switched over to so far:

Gmail: apple's iCloud. Ok, so maybe not ideal, but as an iPhone dev i'm going to have an apple account for the foreseeable future, and apple's interested in selling its products to me rather than selling me to a big list of companies. Any other suggestions would be good though, I'll need to switch various relatives to other providers. The good thing about gmail is they'll forward email to your new address while you switch over :)

Reader: newsblur. Just set this up so I can't say if it's reliable or works great, but first impressions are that it's great - actually much better than reader. It has a free iPhone app too.

Search: bing for now, simply because it's the only other serious choice on the default search provider list on my browser. So far I think it's OK, I'd say google was better but then their results have been getting worse instead of better lately so maybe it's about even. Anything better out there?

Maps: waze for navigation, bing for general look ups.

Youtube: Vimeo. I'll still put any business stuff on both though.

Then there's the stuff I haven't found an alternative for yet:

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Apps. I don't use apps as such, but I've been using the apps version of gmail with a personal domain for business email. I need to move my web hosting anyway, so I guess it's best to get a hosting + email package - any suggestions for somewhere good, cheap + reasonably reliable in the UK? My needs are pretty minimal, php + wordpress could be good, but for now I'm just using static html.

So, in the war against Google Microsoft and Apple wins. Sounds about right.

For search I've been using Duck Duck Go, which combines results from Google and Bing and maybe a few others.

Not meaning to trample on your first-world problems, but what exactly is wrong with it?

what do you suggest as alternative for paranoia?

Duck duck go looks good - just did a quick test search (demoscene) on google, bing + that one, and it had the best results :)

And yeah, it's very strange that ms + apple would win here. In fact make that just MS. It used to be that MS were well known for their market abuses and google were all about openness and freedom. Now it seems to be going the other way, and I actually have more respect for MS just now. I remember their past though and don't have that much hope it'll last ;)

Apple.. I think their strategy is simply to make stuff work as well as possible, because that sells. It also gives us huge benefits with one hand while fucking us with the other quite often ;) *Goes to set duckduckgo as default search engine on iPhone, ends up shaking fist at it instead*

i'm feeling ducky

It's definitely a first-world problem, and it's more that I just disagree with it than i'm paranoid about it.

The change is pretty simple. Before, you went on email, and adverts would be based on an automatic scan of your emails. I don't like that, but I can accept it in return for a good free service. If you went on search, adverts would be based on your search. It was all separated.

Now they'll link my web searches to the scan of my email, my contact list, my reader subscriptions and the routes I plan on maps. That means my profile now includes my location, my friends and colleagues and what i discuss with them, the sites i visit and the products i'm interested in, and even my reading list. If I used google docs it'd contain lots of my work too.

That's a bit more information that I want a company to have on me - it's no longer just a bit related to the product i'm using, it's not far off private access to my personal diary. So it's time to drop google for all this stuff and switch to a bunch of other companies - most of which will use my data in the exact same way google used to in exchange for a free service.

...and apart from that, too often now google is simply the default answer for everything. There are tons of other products out there, some of which are better (i'm really liking newsblur for example). Why not try some out? :)

Comprehensive read:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/how-i-learned-to-live-google-free/

Another one: Google alerts - the service where they email you a daily report of all new links related to a particular search term. Any replacements for that one?

Netvibes.com for reader replacement

Zavie: thanks, that's a useful one. I'd forgotten about google dashboard, just went through that and zapped about 4 services i'd forgotten i'd signed up for :) Also, this is well worth being a little paranoid about (from the same article):



My email gets downloaded to my laptop and then backed up, and that's the only service i'd really worry about, but I know a lot of people use it for a *lot* more, and I have heard of rare cases where accounts get trashed or deleted. As always, make a backup :)

rasmus: have you tried newsblur too? Is netvibes any better?

And how is that different until now?

+from

just stop putting your life on the internet and don't subscribe to anything that builds a personal profile, it's easy.

don't see the dilemma myself.

If everyone you email uses Google, there's no point.

I started getting a little paranoid a few years ago, and then I decided I was likely so pwned by then there was no point worrying.

I just try to be mindful . . .

So remember to do your backups. Don't make Archive Team have to save your ass.

Use different accounts. Using private tabs in your browser, you should even be able to be logged in using several accounts at the same time.

Use an email client and use google's pop/smtp.
+ about 50 for dudckduckgo
Log out and use google.

just like facebook logged statistics about nonusers, i suspect google does the same thing. even if you are not logged in, they might identify you using geolocation, user agent and other browser/os specific settings or simply with cookies. im just guessing, but i would believe that google didnt seperate e.g. your email and search profile before, anyway.

p01: private tabs as in opera? had to search it cause i suspected it would be a chrome feature xD

vectory: ctrl-shift-n in chrome :)

Embrace the inevitable.

(was the motto of some cracking group but I cant seem to find it).

Hail to Google! :)

Simple rule: Dont use all services by one provider, spread it around. I only use Google for searching, translating, maps (Google Earth) and YT (so mostly reading data, knowing they analyze my actions). I would never use GMail, Google+, Calendar or Docs (services I actively input private data from me onto their servers).

It's so amusing to read these posts (and similar on other sites). "use masking tabs "..."have multiple identities"..."log out and clear your catch and then log back in", "let someone else type under their account as you dictate and then redirect your information via a proxy server!!!"..."don't stay in one city for longer than two days, the satellites are watching and will trace you!!!!"

run, RUN....RUN FROM THE MACHINES!!! lol

technology is going to get you all. you can't run...it is futile :D