5 ms·
This was surprisingly weak. Security cameras? Who cares? Here's what we really should be worried about: Google. They know everything. Our browsing history. Prob
by mherrmann 8y ago
This was surprisingly weak. Security cameras? Who cares? Here's what we really should be worried about: Google. They know everything. Our browsing history. Probably which porn sites we visit. Our emails. Which services we use. Our passwords (if stored in Chrome). Our schedule. Where we are and where we're going (Maps). Security cameras? Laughable. Google (and to some extent FB, Microsoft and Amazon) is where the danger lies.
- StavrosK 8y agoSo switch off them. Fastmail is better than Gmail, Firefox is better than Chrome, DuckDuckGo is pretty good, etc. Even switching some stuff is better than not switching any of it.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIndeed, I've recently switched from Chrome to Firefox and from Google search to DDG for this very reason. Every little helps.
- toasterlovin 8y agoSeriously people, Duck Duck Go is fine for most work-a-day search. I occasionally use Google search for some obscure technical stuff, but that's it.
- WalterSear 8y agoIME, Duck Duck Go is not a usable alternative - for any 'kind' of searching. And not because it knows less about me: I would copy text directly from a web page and not have it show up. It's particularly bad for academic journal searches. Since those pages change so infrequently, this points to further shortcomings in the breadth of their search methods. Ostensibly, they are polling 'many' sources, but whatever their strategy, it's not working.
- cmroanirgo 8y agoIs there a reason why startpage never gets a look in, but it's always ddg? I get better results with sp.
- toasterlovin 8y agoIt's probably just that people have heard of DuckDuckGo and it's good enough to not make it necessary to search for a better performing alternative.
- prophesi 8y agoOne does not simply switch off Google. https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-screwed-up-everything-1830565500 https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-screwed-u...
- brentadamson 8y agoI run Jive Search so I might be biased: How is DuckDuckGo any more private than Google? They are similarly closed source and just as opaque.
- mherrmann 8y agoI can do all those things. But what about the 99.9% of internet users who are not tech-savvy enough?
- StavrosK 8y agoAre you suggesting that Firefox is harder to download than Chrome, Fastmail is harder to sign up for than Gmail, and DDG is harder to visit than Google?
- mherrmann 8y agoYes. Google is the default search engine in most browsers. So changing to DDG (i.e. so that queries you type into the address bar use DDG) in fact is harder. And that's not even talking about blocking Google's tracking, not using them for single sign-on, etc.
- cmroanirgo 8y agoHeads up. Fastmail is an Australian company under Australian laws. maybe you could try a range of privacy aware email systems (protonmail, tutanota, ...) or roll your own server.
- StavrosK 8y agoYeah, it's too bad, because they're otherwise an excellent company.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago> Google (and to some extent FB, Microsoft and Amazon) is where the danger lies. Not that it excuses the behaviour of the others of course but Facebook is by far the worst offender in this list. They've been repeatedly and consistently caught misusing the data they collect. At least Google are only using it to sell better targeted advertising (for now). Facebook is also the easiest to avoid.
- JohnFen 8y ago> Facebook is by far the worst offender in this list Eh, it's six of one, a half-dozen of the other.
- maxxxxx 8y agoDon't get into wondering which one is better than others. Any large entity that can vacuum up large amounts of data is a problem. Be it Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon or whoever. Maybe one does better than the other at the moment but the simple fact that they have data gives them the ability to abuse the day later. Nobody should have that much data.
- pmiller2 8y agoYou can avoid interacting directly with Facebook pretty easily, but how do you stop them from tracking you on third party sites and maintaining a shadow profile for you? They are at least as evil as Google, even if you don’t have an account with them.
- qnsi 8y agoFor me personaly its hard to avoid FB. All my friends talk via messenger and they invite me to events using FB. I can use DDG, Fastmail and Firefox, but I cant so easily ditch FB
- Infernal 8y agoAll that /plus/ security cameras. My neighbor just got a Nest outdoor camera that necessarily captures part of my driveway and front yard. That felt kinda creepy but, hey, security is good? (they had gotten burgled recently) And then a few days later he off-handedly commented about the time I left for work that morning.... what a gross feeling.
- yoz 8y ago> Google (and to some extent FB, Microsoft and Amazon) is where the danger lies. You can't point to any single company and blame them for this mess, because the problem is in the interactions /between/ companies. There are hundreds of companies you've never heard of whose entire business is the gathering and merging of data, then trading it with others. This isn't a surveillance state, it's a surveillance market, and that's a much harder thing to track. Sure, it would be good and valuable to make the Big Names less dangerous. But it's important to understand: if you just cut G, F, A & M out of your life, you won't be much safer. Most of the data about you is being gathered from sources with which you have no easily-manageable relationship.
- neuralRiot 8y agoYou can't blame a business for doing what they're meant to, making money, as long as something is legal and profitable they will do it, the problem is the lack of regulations and the failure of government to keep pace with technology.