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Honestly at this point, if you trust google you’re a fool. It’s demonstrated itself to be unreliable, capricious, and absolutely willing to break the law if it
by ashtonkem 5y ago
Honestly at this point, if you trust google you’re a fool. It’s demonstrated itself to be unreliable, capricious, and absolutely willing to break the law if it thinks it can get away with it. Do business with them if you absolutely must, but under no circumstance should you actually trust them.
- fmajid 5y agoAs a middleman, it is in Google’s interest to commoditize its complements, namely the publishers. Given how the incentives are not just misaligned but actually completely opposed, it was always the height of folly for publishers to assist Google (or Facebook).
- SimeVidas 5y agoHeh, when I watched the Chrome Summit recap video earlier this week, when they talked about the Privacy Sandbox developments, I remember thinking to myself “This is all cool, but I don’t trust you”. xD
- is_true 5y agoYou might not trust Google, but you cannot stop doing business with them unfortunately. If you are a publisher you need Google's traffic, and if you don't play by their rules you run with disadvantage with your competitors.
- benrapscallion 5y agoSeconded. As such, I’ve switched to Safari, DuckDuckGo, and Fastmail. But how does one escape their ubiquitous presence all over the web (Google analytics, ads)??? They’re like a creepy neighbor who keeps following you around.
- Fordec 5y agoCould install a Pi hole to block them off your home network entirely. But yeah, I'm also phasing out my google usage. Personally getting off gmail and professionally migrating off firebase and already refuse to work with GCP in any capacity.
- checkyoursudo 5y agoI haven't used this method for Google, but I have blocked some other domains using hosts file entries. Here is an example for Google: https://superuser.com/questions/1135339/cant-block-connections-to-google-via-hosts-file https://superuser.com/questions/1135339/cant-block-connectio...
- Loic 5y agoI am using and paying for NextDNS together with Firefox and uBlock Origin. Pretty painless setup. It works pretty well and as I have setup NextDNS to be the DNS resolver used by my access point, the family get the benefits of it without knowing about it. On the mobile, you need to set it up as VPN, this adds clutter in the notifications area, my kids do not like that.
- pmontra 5y agoI'm using Blockada on Android. It's also a VPN. Sadly Android allows only one VPN (don't know why) so I can't have Blockada running when I connect to a customer VPN.
- eitland 5y agoHosts file on Linux (also works on Windows for those still stuck there). Something like Lockdown on iOS (works nicely even on unrooted devices like mine.)
- throaway46546 5y agoPi-hole, DNS66, uBlock Origin
- prox 5y agoOn websites, drop GA for “simple” server stats. Or one of many options now available.
- isoprophlex 5y agoDNS-level blocking of Google bullshit on all your devices and/or directly in your router
- javajosh 5y agoFirefox and uBlock Origin is a convenient and effective first line of defense. My personal concern is the smartphone. Apple concerns me less than Google, but not by much. Android has the better potential for full, verifiable independence-from-the-Mothership (via LineageOS, GrapheneOS, F-Droid, ...) but it all feels early, amateurish, almost like an ambitious project that advances only when capable strangers volunteer their spare time.
- fsflover 5y agoSee also GNU/Linux smartphones, Librem 5 and Pinephone.
- packetlost 5y ago> but it all feels early, amateurish, almost like an ambitious project that advances only when capable strangers volunteer their spare time Because that's literally what those projects are.
- javajosh 5y agoIf only I had known that when I wrote my post, and used the opportunity to make a dry joke out of it by imitating someone who is guessing an answer they know to be true! It's the end of the weekend and I want to go so deep I don't even know if I'm being sarcastic anymore.
- tsol 5y agoFiltering apps like blokada are a start, I would presume
- zzzbra 5y agoFirefox is also really worth checking out again.
- winternett 5y agoThey still have you with Android OS on many phones, and if not with Google Analytics tracking firmly embedded into most sites on the web... Occasionally I like to fake wild conversations and go to completely out of character sites and locations just to throw their algos and tracking of me off. It's the only real way I can protest any more. :/
- robin_reala 5y agoTurn on Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox: it shims GA so that websites that expect the API to be there still function, but nothing gets loaded from Google.
- elliekelly 5y agoNextDNS has a “No Google” list but it definitely takes some getting used to. Even though you’re aware of Google’s stranglehold on the internet it’s a bit jarring. I didn’t realize just how pernicious Google was until I blocked them completely.
- Diesel555 5y agoI believe Safari is underrated these days. I really like the tab grouping and syncing that they just released. Except for dev, I still use Chrome/Brave and Firefox for that. I also use the three technologies you mentioned. Fast mail has been great.
- Havoc 5y ago>Honestly at this point, if you trust google you’re a fool. And same rest of FAANG. Though Apple and Netflix still seem to be evil-lite for now
- bsenftner 5y agoCorporations, NGO, governments and any 3rd party person or group capable of treating you as an anonymous other is the untrustworthy world we find ourselves.
- Grakel 5y agoMaybe we should call it MANGA now.
- SllX 5y agoI know you’re joking, but I’m going to oppose that on prudential grounds. I don’t want a form of entertainment I enjoy mixed up with a grouping of companies people are incredibly critical of. Ruins the Google results too.
- Grakel 5y agoI was joking, but since we're here,... MAGNA? Edit, oo, I got it: MAANG. That way we can say, "Come on, MAANG!"
- SllX 5y agoWell I don’t know if you intend the M to be Microsoft or Meta, but if you want to incorporate both: MAGNAM.
- randomswede 5y agoOr MAGMAN (can either be read as "the magnetic man", superhero origin story to be determined), and it is also the Swedish determined form of magma (so literally "the magma").
- grammarnazzzi 5y ago> The complaint states that AMP’s speed benefits “were also at least partly a result of Google’s throttling. Google throttles the load time of non-AMP ads by giving them artificial one-second delays in order to give Google AMP a ‘nice comparative boost.‘” Be evil.
- nostrebored 5y agoAs someone who cares about page load times and reads the news, I’ve never seen this
- rchaud 5y agoPublishers did not want to have to refactor their page templates with a bunch of AMP markup to please Google. For most companies, it was a question of whether they were OK risking being left behind if other publishers got favourable treatment running stories on AMP validated pages. This comes back to Google's domination of both search and Adwords. And it comes back to the unfortunate reality that people don't want to subscribe or otherwise compensate websites for putting out information for free.
- zeepzeep 5y agoContextual ads were generating revenue before google had access to every single http request