6 ms·

Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and fee

by caslon 5y ago

Google-avoider checking in! It's actually really easy to avoid it. DuckDuckGo's search quality is better, Firefox is deteriorating daily but still looks and feels better than Chrome does, email should really be avoided but there are dozens of really good email services, and their ad service doesn't need a replacement for obvious reasons (just block it).

neuronflux 5y ago
I imagine you avoid Google because you don't want to get locked into their centralized closed source ecosystem and don't want them to track your entire online presence. So I'm surprised to see you say email should be avoided, as a completely open decentralized communication protocol. Your stances on these two topics just seem to be in contrast with each other, would you care to elaborate?
- caslon 5y ago
  I don't care about centralization or their tracking particularly much on their own. I don't like to use bad software. It bothers me, fundamentally. I naturally ended up far away from Google by virtue of not liking things that waste computational resources, which all of their software does, and has for years. This is the same reason I stopped using Windows and OS X. I like to use software that makes me feel good, and megabytes being wasted by tracking scripts and terrible Javascript frameworks does not make me feel good, so I avoid their standalone services and block their parasitic services. However, email isn't really a good decentralized protocol. All federation fails at being meaningfully decentralized given enough time. There are great decentralized protocols; email is not one of them.
  - seanp2k2 5y ago
    It’s insane how fast a barebones linux desktop system feels these days. Even an rPi 4 can be really snappy with the right desktop environment and window manager. It makes one realize how slow and inefficient all these modern web technologies have become in practice. It’s been happening for decades, but while computers get orders of magnitude faster, software gets slower at a faster rate, consuming all of the gains and then some. Edit: here’s an interesting example just looking at input latency: https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ if you take the browser into account as part of the system as well, I’m sure it’s much, much worse.
balls187 5y ago
Have you tried the new chromium based Edge?
- caslon 5y ago
  Using a proprietary web browser would be like using a blowtorch that claimed to be powered by "magic." While I might use, say, a "magic" recipe, or a toy that claimed to be magic, I certainly wouldn't use a real, combustive tool that claimed to be magic.
ccity88 5y ago
Except it's actually not that easy. Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website. Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post). Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at. Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor. If you have an android phone (most of the world does) you're forced to use google play services. In today's world, they're unavoidable. That being said, making them a public utility is a bit forward...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- caslon 5y ago
  "Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website." I actually mentioned that. Just shim GA connections; this happens with most ad-blocking software, and I believe happens in Firefox's "strict" mode by default. It's really trivial. "Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post)." Only true if the majority of people you converse with over email are boring. "Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at." Again, why would you ever look at an ad? That's a ludicrous idea. "Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent. "If you have an android phone you're forced to use google play services." Completely false. Android works fine without Google Play Services. EDIT: Made words better.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    >""Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent." I should avoid Google's monopoly by becoming a criminal?
BMorearty 5y ago
I’m disappointed to hear Firefox is deteriorating daily. I disagree about DDG’s search quality. I tried it for six months and that was not my experience. Eventually went back to Google.
- caslon 5y ago
  Yeah, it's certainly unfortunate. It gets just a little worse with every single update. The last one removed compact mode, which was the only thing making the UI somewhat bearable on-screen. It is now terribly large and unappealing. What do you use a search engine for? Depending on your set of interests, turning off or on localization might have helped.
  - dmitrygr 5y ago
    In the current build, there is an about:config setting to re-enable compact mode.
    - caslon 5y ago
      Yes, but they've expressed a desire to get rid of it in an upcoming update.
- loup-vaillant 5y ago
  I believe it depends on people. For some DuckDuckGo works perfectly, and they rarely go back to Google, if at all. For others it just does not work. This reminds me of the dream of displacing Microsoft Word. Can we make a better product? No we can't. Only Microsoft can, through upgrades. The competition is stuck with making the same thing, and therefore not better, or something different, which is always "worse" because people are used to Word. Also note that DuckDuckGo has a fundamental disadvantage: by not tailoring its searches to your history, it cannot possibly guess what you want to see as well as Google. Sure you're not trapped in your own search bubble, but you don't feel that. You only feel that the damn search engine can't find that website you are searching for for the fifth time already. Pro tip: to get back to a web site, type its URL, or use bookmarks. Somehow I've seen many professional programmers fail to do that. I give them a URL, and they type it on the freaking search bar. (The more modern version is failing to type or auto-complete an actual URL in the omni bar.)
msbarnett 5y ago
Now try advertising your business while avoiding Google. Keep in mind that if you don't buy ads under your Company's Name from Google, Google will allow your competitors to buy those placements and make them the top results anyone searching your company on Google will see.
- caslon 5y ago
  Advertisement is immoral and totally unnecessary to have a profitable business.
  - wernercd 5y ago
    > advertisment is immoral Interesting opinion... have any facts to back up such an opinion? What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business? There are immoral ways to go about advertising, without doubt. But advertising itself is immoral?
    - caslon 5y ago
      "What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business?" Non-consensually forcing anyone into anything is wrong. Advertising violates the NAP. "But advertising itself is immoral?" Indeed.
      - wernercd 5y ago
        "non-consensually forcing anything into anyone" You have a perverveted view of "forcing" if you think sharing information is, as it sounds like you seem to be saying, the equivalent of rape. If I say something you disagree with... I'm not violating a "Non-Aggression Principle" - unless you think that opinions make you weak (I believe diverse thought makes you stronger - can't get new ideas without communication). And if you think communication REALLY is "aggression"... how do you pair the fact that you "forcing" your opinion on me about my opinion on advertising goes against your own principle? Isn't it kinda... a hypocritical blackhole of an opinion? Sharing info isn't itself immoral... it's LITERALLY the bedrock of civilization, free will, free speech, self defense, etc - all start with communication. The right to say stuff others don't like or even GASP saying stuff that make them uncomfortable - like pointing out your paradoxical opinion. (HOW you share CAN be immoral... but not sharing/communication itself) Advertising, at it's core, is sharing information. Without freedom to communicate? without the ability to share ideas? We'd be afraid of fire. we would be monkeys in caves...
quadrifoliate 5y ago
What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting? Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures? I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.
- jrockway 5y ago
  I think you can just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. I use Zoom for interviews, but if someone emailed me and was like "can we use Google Meet" I would be happy to change. Similarly, if someone texts me "I can't open that link to the photos you sent", I can just email them the photos. It's not really a big deal, and I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    >just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. And for almost every job position. They will tell you Meet is what they use and if that doesn't work for you, they are happy to cancel the interview.
  - quadrifoliate 5y ago
    > I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense I mean, the tautological definition is that the regulators will decide whether Google is a public utility, or perhaps too big and needs to be broken up (a question separate from this particular lawsuit). All of us are just on the sidelines discussing it, and perhaps trying to influence our elected representatives. The fact that courts and regulators are at least considering it does mean that there is some merit to the argument that it may not be practical to live Google-free these days. It's probably not just me being unwilling to talk to my friends and business partners.
- caslon 5y ago
  "What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting?" Unlikely scenario; the companies that overlap with my set of skills either have their own offering or use a libre one. I will admit, this might be harder for other people (my skills hover around RTC heavily). "Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures?" My friends range from "Too young to be using a 'boomer' service like Google Photos" to "Too old to be doing anything technical that isn't just texting photos via SMS," and most of them in the 25-30 child-having age either also avoid Google or would just show the pictures in person. I don't live in the Valley, though, so this could be a regional thing. "I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account." No, I don't. It never seemed necessary to me.
ipaddr 5y ago
Firefiox: I remember the first few versions since the rewrite. It was very fast. Fast forward to today and it's so slow. What is the reason? Are the privacy changes affecting this by using more resources or pages are requesting domains that hang for too long? It gives rust a bad name because this is one of the bigger rust products I know.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  Hardly any of firefox is using rust. Servo was abandoned. I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine.
  - steveklabnik 5y ago
    > I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine. That's not correct. Currently, 9.5% is Rust https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/ https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Servo was abandoned after all of the fanfaire? Was a reason ever given? I thought we were in the servo era.
    - SilverRed 5y ago
      Mozilla cut a bunch of jobs and the servo team was one of the teams cut. The servo project is not officially canceled but there is no clear future for it.

by caslon 5y ago

neuronflux 5y ago

I imagine you avoid Google because you don't want to get locked into their centralized closed source ecosystem and don't want them to track your entire online presence. So I'm surprised to see you say email should be avoided, as a completely open decentralized communication protocol. Your stances on these two topics just seem to be in contrast with each other, would you care to elaborate?

caslon 5y ago
I don't care about centralization or their tracking particularly much on their own. I don't like to use bad software. It bothers me, fundamentally. I naturally ended up far away from Google by virtue of not liking things that waste computational resources, which all of their software does, and has for years. This is the same reason I stopped using Windows and OS X. I like to use software that makes me feel good, and megabytes being wasted by tracking scripts and terrible Javascript frameworks does not make me feel good, so I avoid their standalone services and block their parasitic services. However, email isn't really a good decentralized protocol. All federation fails at being meaningfully decentralized given enough time. There are great decentralized protocols; email is not one of them.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  It’s insane how fast a barebones linux desktop system feels these days. Even an rPi 4 can be really snappy with the right desktop environment and window manager. It makes one realize how slow and inefficient all these modern web technologies have become in practice. It’s been happening for decades, but while computers get orders of magnitude faster, software gets slower at a faster rate, consuming all of the gains and then some. Edit: here’s an interesting example just looking at input latency: https://danluu.com/input-lag/ https://danluu.com/input-lag/ if you take the browser into account as part of the system as well, I’m sure it’s much, much worse.

balls187 5y ago

Have you tried the new chromium based Edge?

caslon 5y ago
Using a proprietary web browser would be like using a blowtorch that claimed to be powered by "magic." While I might use, say, a "magic" recipe, or a toy that claimed to be magic, I certainly wouldn't use a real, combustive tool that claimed to be magic.

ccity88 5y ago

Except it's actually not that easy. Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website. Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post). Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at. Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor. If you have an android phone (most of the world does) you're forced to use google play services. In today's world, they're unavoidable. That being said, making them a public utility is a bit forward...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
caslon 5y ago
"Most of the web uses google analytics, so its unavoidable when you visit a website." I actually mentioned that. Just shim GA connections; this happens with most ad-blocking software, and I believe happens in Firefox's "strict" mode by default. It's really trivial. "Most of the web's emails are routed through google; I remember reading a post about a guy who set up his own SMTP server and everything, but then realised that everyone he was contacting was using gmail anyway (can't find the post)." Only true if the majority of people you converse with over email are boring. "Every time you see an add that's served by google, that means that there's a google embed in the page your looking at." Again, why would you ever look at an ad? That's a ludicrous idea. "Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent. "If you have an android phone you're forced to use google play services." Completely false. Android works fine without Google Play Services. EDIT: Made words better.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  >""Also, what alternative is there for YouTube? there isn't a realistic competitor." Bittorrent." I should avoid Google's monopoly by becoming a criminal?

BMorearty 5y ago

I’m disappointed to hear Firefox is deteriorating daily. I disagree about DDG’s search quality. I tried it for six months and that was not my experience. Eventually went back to Google.

caslon 5y ago
Yeah, it's certainly unfortunate. It gets just a little worse with every single update. The last one removed compact mode, which was the only thing making the UI somewhat bearable on-screen. It is now terribly large and unappealing. What do you use a search engine for? Depending on your set of interests, turning off or on localization might have helped.
- dmitrygr 5y ago
  In the current build, there is an about:config setting to re-enable compact mode.
  - caslon 5y ago
    Yes, but they've expressed a desire to get rid of it in an upcoming update.
loup-vaillant 5y ago
I believe it depends on people. For some DuckDuckGo works perfectly, and they rarely go back to Google, if at all. For others it just does not work. This reminds me of the dream of displacing Microsoft Word. Can we make a better product? No we can't. Only Microsoft can, through upgrades. The competition is stuck with making the same thing, and therefore not better, or something different, which is always "worse" because people are used to Word. Also note that DuckDuckGo has a fundamental disadvantage: by not tailoring its searches to your history, it cannot possibly guess what you want to see as well as Google. Sure you're not trapped in your own search bubble, but you don't feel that. You only feel that the damn search engine can't find that website you are searching for for the fifth time already. Pro tip: to get back to a web site, type its URL, or use bookmarks. Somehow I've seen many professional programmers fail to do that. I give them a URL, and they type it on the freaking search bar. (The more modern version is failing to type or auto-complete an actual URL in the omni bar.)

msbarnett 5y ago

Now try advertising your business while avoiding Google. Keep in mind that if you don't buy ads under your Company's Name from Google, Google will allow your competitors to buy those placements and make them the top results anyone searching your company on Google will see.

caslon 5y ago
Advertisement is immoral and totally unnecessary to have a profitable business.
- wernercd 5y ago
  > advertisment is immoral Interesting opinion... have any facts to back up such an opinion? What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business? There are immoral ways to go about advertising, without doubt. But advertising itself is immoral?
  - caslon 5y ago
    "What's immoral about... spreading information about you and your business?" Non-consensually forcing anyone into anything is wrong. Advertising violates the NAP. "But advertising itself is immoral?" Indeed.
    - wernercd 5y ago
      "non-consensually forcing anything into anyone" You have a perverveted view of "forcing" if you think sharing information is, as it sounds like you seem to be saying, the equivalent of rape. If I say something you disagree with... I'm not violating a "Non-Aggression Principle" - unless you think that opinions make you weak (I believe diverse thought makes you stronger - can't get new ideas without communication). And if you think communication REALLY is "aggression"... how do you pair the fact that you "forcing" your opinion on me about my opinion on advertising goes against your own principle? Isn't it kinda... a hypocritical blackhole of an opinion? Sharing info isn't itself immoral... it's LITERALLY the bedrock of civilization, free will, free speech, self defense, etc - all start with communication. The right to say stuff others don't like or even GASP saying stuff that make them uncomfortable - like pointing out your paradoxical opinion. (HOW you share CAN be immoral... but not sharing/communication itself) Advertising, at it's core, is sharing information. Without freedom to communicate? without the ability to share ideas? We'd be afraid of fire. we would be monkeys in caves...

quadrifoliate 5y ago

What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting? Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures? I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account.

jrockway 5y ago
I think you can just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. I use Zoom for interviews, but if someone emailed me and was like "can we use Google Meet" I would be happy to change. Similarly, if someone texts me "I can't open that link to the photos you sent", I can just email them the photos. It's not really a big deal, and I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  >just talk to the person at the other end and ask for accomodation. And for almost every job position. They will tell you Meet is what they use and if that doesn't work for you, they are happy to cancel the interview.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > I don't think that your unwillingness to talk with your friends or business partners makes Google a public utility in a regulatory sense I mean, the tautological definition is that the regulators will decide whether Google is a public utility, or perhaps too big and needs to be broken up (a question separate from this particular lawsuit). All of us are just on the sidelines discussing it, and perhaps trying to influence our elected representatives. The fact that courts and regulators are at least considering it does mean that there is some merit to the argument that it may not be practical to live Google-free these days. It's probably not just me being unwilling to talk to my friends and business partners.
caslon 5y ago
"What do you do when you have a job interview that is scheduled as a Google Meet meeting?" Unlikely scenario; the companies that overlap with my set of skills either have their own offering or use a libre one. I will admit, this might be harder for other people (my skills hover around RTC heavily). "Or when a friend shares a Google Photos album of their newborn's pictures?" My friends range from "Too young to be using a 'boomer' service like Google Photos" to "Too old to be doing anything technical that isn't just texting photos via SMS," and most of them in the 25-30 child-having age either also avoid Google or would just show the pictures in person. I don't live in the Valley, though, so this could be a regional thing. "I guess you are a Google-avoider, so presumably you still have an actual Google account." No, I don't. It never seemed necessary to me.

ipaddr 5y ago

Firefiox: I remember the first few versions since the rewrite. It was very fast. Fast forward to today and it's so slow. What is the reason? Are the privacy changes affecting this by using more resources or pages are requesting domains that hang for too long? It gives rust a bad name because this is one of the bigger rust products I know.

SilverRed 5y ago
Hardly any of firefox is using rust. Servo was abandoned. I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine.
- steveklabnik 5y ago
  > I think the only rust part of FF right now is the CSS engine. That's not correct. Currently, 9.5% is Rust https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/ https://4e6.github.io/firefox-lang-stats/
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Servo was abandoned after all of the fanfaire? Was a reason ever given? I thought we were in the servo era.
  - SilverRed 5y ago
    Mozilla cut a bunch of jobs and the servo team was one of the teams cut. The servo project is not officially canceled but there is no clear future for it.