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> > Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook > We are treating these companies as if they are sports teams. No, we don't have to choose

> > Choosing between evils, Google seems a better bet then Facebook > We are treating these companies as if they are sports teams. No, we don't have to choose between evils. This is very very slightly OT but I've asked this exact question within HN comments before and never really received any satisfactory answers... Yes, I fully agree that it shouldn't and doesn't need to be a choice between the two sports teams, but even in a hypothetical world where it was, how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook?

chriswarbo 9y ago
> how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook? The only way to "opt out" of either is to avoid Javascript and try blocking as many of their ad/beacon/tracker domains as possible; although that's a bit of a Hydra. Yes, you can opt out from getting an account and using their applications; the worse part is all of the "shadow profiles" and third-party tracking which is pretty much everywhere these days :(
- lucideer 9y ago
  Using most content blockers with default settings will block all Facebook tracking you'll encounter without visiting the site itself. In contrast, opting out of Google is a largely unviable feat for most.
dageshi 9y ago
Facebooks core service is a walled garden, Googles core service is a gateway into the open web. More to the point, as someone who was using the web before Google existed, Google Search specifically has helped me immeasurably over the years far more than anything Facebook has ever done.
- lucideer 9y ago
  I think you're confusing value and virtue. Everything you've said is true, but not really relevant to this particular discussion I think?
  - dageshi 9y ago
    I don't think I am, if we're forced to choose between "Evils" then I will choose the "evil" more aligned with my best interests. You didn't originally ask which of those companies was more virtuous merely why one would choose Google over Facebook, I would choose Google because its core business model revolves around helping me, Facebooks core business model revolves around entertaining me. Not that I think either company is actually evil obviously.
    - lucideer 9y ago
      I was thinking of evil and virtuous as bring antonymous I guess. i.e. I might choose evil that offers me value if I thought the trade off was worthwhile.
Vinnl 9y ago
I've found it's easier to opt out of Google than of Facebook. The former is difficult because their products are relatively good (I consciously use a different browser, search engine, etc, but at the same time there's eg no competition in the field of mail clients), whereas the latter (including WhatsApp) is difficult due to the immense social pressure. I appreciate that far less.
- bad_user 9y ago
  Gmail is good, but for personal email at least FastMail is better. For example like many people here I have multiple acquired domains — for personal projects, plus I also devised a scheme for my online safety — I prefer for each online account I make to have its own email address. FastMail does sub-domain aliasing by default, so if you have domain.com, you can make an email alias like me@domain.com and then you can use facebook@me.domain.com, google@me.domain.com, etc. For one this allows you to keep spam in check and track its source. People say that Gmail's spam filters are really good, but that's not true. Gmail's spam filters are at the same time overly aggressive, with legitimate email ending up in the Spam folder far too often and doesn't do a good job at detecting optimized spam. E.g. when I was on Google Apps, my address was bombarded with email from "SEO specialists" that wanted to "optimize my website for HTML5" or other such crap. This is because I made the mistake of not protecting my domain with PrivacyGuard. Another reason for unique email addresses are that they make the accounts more secure. If you find the email address that I use for Twitter, you won't necessarily know the email address I use for Facebook. It's like with passwords, the emails I use being in my 1Password (although due to the scheme used I remember them). FastMail makes this very easy and natural. You can't do it with free Gmail obviously (it does plus aliasing, but that's shit). You can do it by configuring GSuite with complex email routing rules. But then the Gmail client itself will fight you, because you cannot configure a dynamic "From" address. Also Gmail on mobile is polished and good, but not their website. If you ever find yourself on a device without a configured client on it, then FastMail's web client on mobile actually works and is very good. And on iOS FastMail has been doing push notifications for some time. Don't know what deal they did with Apple, but you can use iOS's Mail client with push notifications via FastMail. I heard a rumor that iOS 11 finally fixed the Gmail integration to do push notifications. I have two work Gmail accounts on my phone and have seen no such evidence. --- Don't get me wrong, I like Google's products, but their superiority is overblown. I like FastMail more than I like Gmail and I use them both on a daily basis. And Dropbox is superior to Google Drive. Google Drive is simply shit that doesn't work and that I cannot trust with my files. A lot of people here use Chrome. Well, I'm using Firefox and I think Firefox Quantum is now the superior browser. I've been an Android user for a long time and I like Android's openness. However Android is really bad at privacy. I simply don't trust applications on Android, unless they are open source or from a very well known brand. Android also doesn't do Caldav and Carddav by default, you have to install apps from the Play store for it. But I find that to be unacceptable. Google Docs is really good for collaborative editing, the best actually, however their spreadsheets quickly show their limits with big documents. Google Hangouts is shit, nobody uses it and I'll never forgive them for killing their XMPP service in preference for the current Hangouts. Google Maps is good, but don't go through Bulgaria with it because the coverage there is piss poor and you'll find yourself on really bad roads in the middle of nowhere. I noticed OpenStreetMaps is better in many parts of Europe. Overall they fare well in quality, but superior they are not. Except for their search engine.
bad_user 9y ago
You're making the mistake of thinking that Facebook's dominion ends when you close the facebook.com tab. - Facebook is tracking you over the whole web, building shadow profiles on everybody [1] - Facebook is known to have conducted illegal and unethical experiments on manipulating people's emotions via the timeline. Let that sink in for a moment [2] - Facebook is known to have had a partnership with Disqus for tracking users [3] - Facebook is buying and aggregating user data from data brokers [4] - Facebook now harvests the data of WhatsApp users as well, in spite of the app's original privacy policy [5] - Facebook already knows your friends because it knows their address book [6] - Facebook's tracking through Like buttons all across the web is violating EU law [7] - Any of your friends can give Facebook access to your data [8] We can go on btw, the web is filled with details of their past transgressions. I have no doubts about this — Facebook is one of the most immoral companies to have ever existed and time will prove me right. And yes, Google has a lot of potential for abuse, but they haven't fucked up so badly yet. We don't need to guess how they compare, the evidence is right there. [1] https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-profile-of-you-that-you-never-created/ https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-pr... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/06/we-shouldnt-expect-facebook-to-behave-ethically https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/06/we-should... [3] https://blog.dantup.com/2017/01/visiting-a-site-that-uses-disqus-comments-when-not-logged-in-sends-the-url-to-facebook/ https://blog.dantup.com/2017/01/visiting-a-site-that-uses-di... [4] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user... [5] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/whatsapp-backlash-facebook-data-privacy-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/whatsapp-... [6] http://users.livejournal.com/joshua-/61105.html http://users.livejournal.com/joshua-/61105.html [7] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-... [8] https://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/internet/stalking-on-facebook-is-easier-than-you-think https://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/internet/stalking-...
- lucideer 9y ago
  I'm aware of all of this, but my point was that Google does exactly what you described, but on a much much more pervasive level that's almost impossible to opt out of. Again, I'm not defending Facebook. I'm only stating that Google is worse terms of pervasive unavoidable tracking. What each of them do with that data (e.g. emotional manipulation) is an important, but slightly separate topic. To address some of your references: 3 and 4 are real problems and probably the only thing you can never really opt out of with any provider. 8 is actually an old article on a feature since (thankfully) removed. However, even when it was there, it still only involved sharing data you had already volunteered to Facebook. 6 is aggregating data on who you are but not explicitly tracking, unless/until it's actually cross-referenced with 3 and 4, so isn't a problem in isolation The rest are trivially blockable with any content blocker (some of which even come built in to some browsers these days)

chriswarbo 9y ago

> how on earth is anyone presuming that the infinitely pervasive Google is somehow more ok than the very opt-outable facebook? The only way to "opt out" of either is to avoid Javascript and try blocking as many of their ad/beacon/tracker domains as possible; although that's a bit of a Hydra. Yes, you can opt out from getting an account and using their applications; the worse part is all of the "shadow profiles" and third-party tracking which is pretty much everywhere these days :(

lucideer 9y ago
Using most content blockers with default settings will block all Facebook tracking you'll encounter without visiting the site itself. In contrast, opting out of Google is a largely unviable feat for most.

dageshi 9y ago

Facebooks core service is a walled garden, Googles core service is a gateway into the open web. More to the point, as someone who was using the web before Google existed, Google Search specifically has helped me immeasurably over the years far more than anything Facebook has ever done.

lucideer 9y ago
I think you're confusing value and virtue. Everything you've said is true, but not really relevant to this particular discussion I think?
- dageshi 9y ago
  I don't think I am, if we're forced to choose between "Evils" then I will choose the "evil" more aligned with my best interests. You didn't originally ask which of those companies was more virtuous merely why one would choose Google over Facebook, I would choose Google because its core business model revolves around helping me, Facebooks core business model revolves around entertaining me. Not that I think either company is actually evil obviously.
  - lucideer 9y ago
    I was thinking of evil and virtuous as bring antonymous I guess. i.e. I might choose evil that offers me value if I thought the trade off was worthwhile.

Vinnl 9y ago

I've found it's easier to opt out of Google than of Facebook. The former is difficult because their products are relatively good (I consciously use a different browser, search engine, etc, but at the same time there's eg no competition in the field of mail clients), whereas the latter (including WhatsApp) is difficult due to the immense social pressure. I appreciate that far less.

bad_user 9y ago
Gmail is good, but for personal email at least FastMail is better. For example like many people here I have multiple acquired domains — for personal projects, plus I also devised a scheme for my online safety — I prefer for each online account I make to have its own email address. FastMail does sub-domain aliasing by default, so if you have domain.com, you can make an email alias like me@domain.com and then you can use facebook@me.domain.com, google@me.domain.com, etc. For one this allows you to keep spam in check and track its source. People say that Gmail's spam filters are really good, but that's not true. Gmail's spam filters are at the same time overly aggressive, with legitimate email ending up in the Spam folder far too often and doesn't do a good job at detecting optimized spam. E.g. when I was on Google Apps, my address was bombarded with email from "SEO specialists" that wanted to "optimize my website for HTML5" or other such crap. This is because I made the mistake of not protecting my domain with PrivacyGuard. Another reason for unique email addresses are that they make the accounts more secure. If you find the email address that I use for Twitter, you won't necessarily know the email address I use for Facebook. It's like with passwords, the emails I use being in my 1Password (although due to the scheme used I remember them). FastMail makes this very easy and natural. You can't do it with free Gmail obviously (it does plus aliasing, but that's shit). You can do it by configuring GSuite with complex email routing rules. But then the Gmail client itself will fight you, because you cannot configure a dynamic "From" address. Also Gmail on mobile is polished and good, but not their website. If you ever find yourself on a device without a configured client on it, then FastMail's web client on mobile actually works and is very good. And on iOS FastMail has been doing push notifications for some time. Don't know what deal they did with Apple, but you can use iOS's Mail client with push notifications via FastMail. I heard a rumor that iOS 11 finally fixed the Gmail integration to do push notifications. I have two work Gmail accounts on my phone and have seen no such evidence. --- Don't get me wrong, I like Google's products, but their superiority is overblown. I like FastMail more than I like Gmail and I use them both on a daily basis. And Dropbox is superior to Google Drive. Google Drive is simply shit that doesn't work and that I cannot trust with my files. A lot of people here use Chrome. Well, I'm using Firefox and I think Firefox Quantum is now the superior browser. I've been an Android user for a long time and I like Android's openness. However Android is really bad at privacy. I simply don't trust applications on Android, unless they are open source or from a very well known brand. Android also doesn't do Caldav and Carddav by default, you have to install apps from the Play store for it. But I find that to be unacceptable. Google Docs is really good for collaborative editing, the best actually, however their spreadsheets quickly show their limits with big documents. Google Hangouts is shit, nobody uses it and I'll never forgive them for killing their XMPP service in preference for the current Hangouts. Google Maps is good, but don't go through Bulgaria with it because the coverage there is piss poor and you'll find yourself on really bad roads in the middle of nowhere. I noticed OpenStreetMaps is better in many parts of Europe. Overall they fare well in quality, but superior they are not. Except for their search engine.

bad_user 9y ago

You're making the mistake of thinking that Facebook's dominion ends when you close the facebook.com tab. - Facebook is tracking you over the whole web, building shadow profiles on everybody [1] - Facebook is known to have conducted illegal and unethical experiments on manipulating people's emotions via the timeline. Let that sink in for a moment [2] - Facebook is known to have had a partnership with Disqus for tracking users [3] - Facebook is buying and aggregating user data from data brokers [4] - Facebook now harvests the data of WhatsApp users as well, in spite of the app's original privacy policy [5] - Facebook already knows your friends because it knows their address book [6] - Facebook's tracking through Like buttons all across the web is violating EU law [7] - Any of your friends can give Facebook access to your data [8] We can go on btw, the web is filled with details of their past transgressions. I have no doubts about this — Facebook is one of the most immoral companies to have ever existed and time will prove me right. And yes, Google has a lot of potential for abuse, but they haven't fucked up so badly yet. We don't need to guess how they compare, the evidence is right there. [1] https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-profile-of-you-that-you-never-created/ https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-pr... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/06/we-shouldnt-expect-facebook-to-behave-ethically https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/06/we-should... [3] https://blog.dantup.com/2017/01/visiting-a-site-that-uses-disqus-comments-when-not-logged-in-sends-the-url-to-facebook/ https://blog.dantup.com/2017/01/visiting-a-site-that-uses-di... [4] https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-users-everything-it-really-knows-about-them https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-doesnt-tell-user... [5] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/whatsapp-backlash-facebook-data-privacy-users https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/whatsapp-... [6] http://users.livejournal.com/joshua-/61105.html http://users.livejournal.com/joshua-/61105.html [7] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-tracks-all-visitors-breaching-eu-law-report https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/31/facebook-... [8] https://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/internet/stalking-on-facebook-is-easier-than-you-think https://spectrum.ieee.org/podcast/telecom/internet/stalking-...

lucideer 9y ago
I'm aware of all of this, but my point was that Google does exactly what you described, but on a much much more pervasive level that's almost impossible to opt out of. Again, I'm not defending Facebook. I'm only stating that Google is worse terms of pervasive unavoidable tracking. What each of them do with that data (e.g. emotional manipulation) is an important, but slightly separate topic. To address some of your references: 3 and 4 are real problems and probably the only thing you can never really opt out of with any provider. 8 is actually an old article on a feature since (thankfully) removed. However, even when it was there, it still only involved sharing data you had already volunteered to Facebook. 6 is aggregating data on who you are but not explicitly tracking, unless/until it's actually cross-referenced with 3 and 4, so isn't a problem in isolation The rest are trivially blockable with any content blocker (some of which even come built in to some browsers these days)