5 ms·

My storage is relatively immaterial to my dependence on Google. My email address is linked to several hundred accounts which I use to run my life, manage my ho

My storage is relatively immaterial to my dependence on Google. My email address is linked to several hundred accounts which I use to run my life, manage my household, do finances, etc. My email address is, of course, the primary means of communicating with me other than phone. YouTube is my primary means of entertainment, but that's disposable. I also use Sign In With Google on dozens of the above accounts, so they are a definite dependency on the Google account. I own an Android phone and a Chromebook. I operate 3 personal accounts, and my employer relies on Google as our primary business platform. My Google Calendar and Tasks are my sole method of scheduling everything I do in life, from daily tasks to events I attend and everyone's birthdays. My Google Contacts contain all contacts of everyone I know and is the sole repository of that data. Google Docs and Sheets are my sole word processing and spreadsheet apps, which I use to great effect for writing letters, managing household, etc. etc. I know them like the back of my hand, and I also use them every day for work. All the photos I've ever taken since 2015 are stored only in Photos. Not many, of course, but some I'd miss. I'm increasingly using Wallet and GPay for financial transactions and event tickets. I even hear tell that my jurisdiction is putting driver licenses on Wallet now. So could you rephrase your advice to me please? Which $20/year service replaces these apps, and permits easy import of all my data from Takeout? If someone used 365, would you demand that they GTFO Microsoft and junk their Windows systems? What should we run? A PDP-11?

veave 3y ago
From what I can see, you dug yourself into a hole. If google decides to close your account, you will be in some real trouble. You should start working ASAP in diversifying your online life.
- NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - veave 3y ago
    >Get a life and pick on someone else. Your mindless hate is transparent and pointless. People make choices in life, and we live with them. I hope you can respect mine a little more. I'm not hating, it's a recommendation for your own good. If you don't take the recommendation I hope you never get to regret the decision. >Also, look at yourselves a little bit. Have you got two ISPs? Two routers from different manufacturers? Plenty of mobile providers and a drawer full of SIMs? [...] I wouldn't have the same corporation provide me with internet access, routers, mobile providers, browsers, OSes, utilities, and my freezer, that's for bloody sure. Each one of the things you mention is provided to me by a different company and that's the way I like it. If I browse the wrong website and mozilla decides not to allow me to use firefox I don't have my water cut off or my freezer thawing my chicken breasts.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - veave 3y ago
        It's absurdly impractical to rent several houses to keep all your offline stuff - most people can not even afford it. On the other hand it's very easy to use several online services to keep all your online stuff. The only apple I use is an iphone but I don't use any online apple services or any kind of cloud storage of any company for that matter. Even in my iphone I use yandex mail services and I use the local calendar and notes without sending my stuff over to icloud. I also use spotify instead of apple music. Unfortunately as you say I am forced to use ios and safari but it's not that important. Regarding degoogling, there are lots of free services that do everything you want. How many free email, calendar and contacts providers are there? You can create a microsoft account and use some of their services too - they provide online office for free, and photo storage as well. No alternative to youtube but you can choose not to sign in when browsing videos and use RSS to subscribe to channels. And so on and so forth. "sign in with google" is an awful idea - if they ban your account you will lose not only your google account but accounts on other services as well. You have an Android phone and a Chromebook but you can still use these third party services on them.
  - McDyver 3y ago
    If your landlady is frequently brought up on unrelated sites by her other tenants saying she just evicted them without apparent cause or appeal, then maybe your landlady might cause you problems sooner or later.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - behringer 3y ago
        I personally know multiple individuals with inaccessible google accounts. I'm sure there's millions of lost accounts. They're just gone, period. They're not happy about it, but what can you do? Best I can tell them is post about it on HN.
        NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        Some of my friends are Black, too. If there are 2 million lost accounts since Google's inception, then there are 0.1% of all accounts lost. And why are they lost? Account loss comes from many factors: failing to secure it and being hacked. Losing passwords or credentials. Abandonment. Inactivity. TOS violations. Death of user. There are many reasons accounts could be lost, and almost none of those reasons are no reason at all.
    - savanaly 3y ago
      If any given landlady served as many people as Google does you can be damn sure she would be brought up on all sorts of unrelated sites daily no matter how excellent she was. Being great is no match for having hundreds of millions of customers in terms of avoiding mistakes.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > describes a life incredibly reliant on Google > receives warning to diversify and feigns taking it as a personal insult > throws around the word incel I'm pretty sure this guy is just trolling.
    - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - flangola7 3y ago
        > Nah the trolls are the comrades spreading FUD about band for nyet reazonz and GTFO Google because Chernobyl could happen at any time I think you are trolling as well and may even be a sock puppet account. Reasonable concerns have been presented, not "FUD." Dismissing them out of hand is done so with unjustified confidence.
    - behringer 3y ago
      he's also doing the ol' but what about you? We're not talking about me, we're talking about you lol. If we always did what's best there'd be no posts like this on HN. We learn from experience and try to give advice based on that.
_urvc 3y ago
> My email address is linked to several hundred accounts which I use to run my life, manage my household, do finances, etc. Any reputable service allows changing email addresses. For less important services like Amazon you can use an email alias. Tutanota and Proton are nice email providers whi do not read the content of your emails and and not scan files. > My email address is, of course, the primary means of communicating with me other than phone. If you have a phone, can't you just install a messenger? Session does not require a telephone number nor a smartphone, I think. > I also use Sign In With Google on dozens of the above accounts, so they are a definite dependency on the Google account. In your Google Account settings which accounts use Sign In With Google. Go to each account and change authentication to email and password wherever possible. > I own an Android phone and a Chromebook. I operate 3 personal accounts, and my employer relies on Google as our primary business platform. Does not prevent you from using a secondary email for your personal important stuff like government and financing. > My Google Calendar and Tasks are my sole method of scheduling everything I do in life, from daily tasks to events I attend and everyone's birthdays. > My Google Contacts contain all contacts of everyone I know and is the sole repository of that data. Should be exportable as ics files I think. Make at least a backup once in a while. > Google Docs and Sheets are my sole word processing and spreadsheet apps, which I use to great effect for writing letters, managing household, etc. etc. I know them like the back of my hand, and I also use them every day for work. Get an offline editor like LibreOffice. Online editors are crap when your internet connection is off or need to make a ton of content. > All the photos I've ever taken since 2015 are stored only in Photos. Not many, of course, but some I'd miss. You can download them for offline use, make a backup and then print out the ones you really care for. > I'm increasingly using Wallet and GPay for financial transactions and event tickets. I even hear tell that my jurisdiction is putting driver licenses on Wallet now. If you use GPay, it is even more important to not have any content stored in your account. See the case of a father sending his doctor a picture of his son for diagnosis. It was falsely recognized as child porn and the father had no way to get back the account. If your account gets suspended, you are out of luck. > So could you rephrase your advice to me please? Which $20/year service replaces these apps, and permits easy import of all my data from Takeout? > If someone used 365, would you demand that they GTFO Microsoft and junk their Windows systems? What should we run? A PDP-11? Noone said to nuke your Google account. In fact you're being very passive aggressive despite not having made any effort on researching alternative apps. Don't tie your whole offline and online identity to one provider who doesn't care about you except for your (and people close to you) money and data.

veave 3y ago

From what I can see, you dug yourself into a hole. If google decides to close your account, you will be in some real trouble. You should start working ASAP in diversifying your online life.

NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
[flagged]
- veave 3y ago
  >Get a life and pick on someone else. Your mindless hate is transparent and pointless. People make choices in life, and we live with them. I hope you can respect mine a little more. I'm not hating, it's a recommendation for your own good. If you don't take the recommendation I hope you never get to regret the decision. >Also, look at yourselves a little bit. Have you got two ISPs? Two routers from different manufacturers? Plenty of mobile providers and a drawer full of SIMs? [...] I wouldn't have the same corporation provide me with internet access, routers, mobile providers, browsers, OSes, utilities, and my freezer, that's for bloody sure. Each one of the things you mention is provided to me by a different company and that's the way I like it. If I browse the wrong website and mozilla decides not to allow me to use firefox I don't have my water cut off or my freezer thawing my chicken breasts.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - veave 3y ago
      It's absurdly impractical to rent several houses to keep all your offline stuff - most people can not even afford it. On the other hand it's very easy to use several online services to keep all your online stuff. The only apple I use is an iphone but I don't use any online apple services or any kind of cloud storage of any company for that matter. Even in my iphone I use yandex mail services and I use the local calendar and notes without sending my stuff over to icloud. I also use spotify instead of apple music. Unfortunately as you say I am forced to use ios and safari but it's not that important. Regarding degoogling, there are lots of free services that do everything you want. How many free email, calendar and contacts providers are there? You can create a microsoft account and use some of their services too - they provide online office for free, and photo storage as well. No alternative to youtube but you can choose not to sign in when browsing videos and use RSS to subscribe to channels. And so on and so forth. "sign in with google" is an awful idea - if they ban your account you will lose not only your google account but accounts on other services as well. You have an Android phone and a Chromebook but you can still use these third party services on them.
- McDyver 3y ago
  If your landlady is frequently brought up on unrelated sites by her other tenants saying she just evicted them without apparent cause or appeal, then maybe your landlady might cause you problems sooner or later.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - behringer 3y ago
      I personally know multiple individuals with inaccessible google accounts. I'm sure there's millions of lost accounts. They're just gone, period. They're not happy about it, but what can you do? Best I can tell them is post about it on HN.
      - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
        Some of my friends are Black, too. If there are 2 million lost accounts since Google's inception, then there are 0.1% of all accounts lost. And why are they lost? Account loss comes from many factors: failing to secure it and being hacked. Losing passwords or credentials. Abandonment. Inactivity. TOS violations. Death of user. There are many reasons accounts could be lost, and almost none of those reasons are no reason at all.
  - savanaly 3y ago
    If any given landlady served as many people as Google does you can be damn sure she would be brought up on all sorts of unrelated sites daily no matter how excellent she was. Being great is no match for having hundreds of millions of customers in terms of avoiding mistakes.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  > describes a life incredibly reliant on Google > receives warning to diversify and feigns taking it as a personal insult > throws around the word incel I'm pretty sure this guy is just trolling.
  - NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - flangola7 3y ago
      > Nah the trolls are the comrades spreading FUD about band for nyet reazonz and GTFO Google because Chernobyl could happen at any time I think you are trolling as well and may even be a sock puppet account. Reasonable concerns have been presented, not "FUD." Dismissing them out of hand is done so with unjustified confidence.
  - behringer 3y ago
    he's also doing the ol' but what about you? We're not talking about me, we're talking about you lol. If we always did what's best there'd be no posts like this on HN. We learn from experience and try to give advice based on that.

_urvc 3y ago

> My email address is linked to several hundred accounts which I use to run my life, manage my household, do finances, etc. Any reputable service allows changing email addresses. For less important services like Amazon you can use an email alias. Tutanota and Proton are nice email providers whi do not read the content of your emails and and not scan files. > My email address is, of course, the primary means of communicating with me other than phone. If you have a phone, can't you just install a messenger? Session does not require a telephone number nor a smartphone, I think. > I also use Sign In With Google on dozens of the above accounts, so they are a definite dependency on the Google account. In your Google Account settings which accounts use Sign In With Google. Go to each account and change authentication to email and password wherever possible. > I own an Android phone and a Chromebook. I operate 3 personal accounts, and my employer relies on Google as our primary business platform. Does not prevent you from using a secondary email for your personal important stuff like government and financing. > My Google Calendar and Tasks are my sole method of scheduling everything I do in life, from daily tasks to events I attend and everyone's birthdays. > My Google Contacts contain all contacts of everyone I know and is the sole repository of that data. Should be exportable as ics files I think. Make at least a backup once in a while. > Google Docs and Sheets are my sole word processing and spreadsheet apps, which I use to great effect for writing letters, managing household, etc. etc. I know them like the back of my hand, and I also use them every day for work. Get an offline editor like LibreOffice. Online editors are crap when your internet connection is off or need to make a ton of content. > All the photos I've ever taken since 2015 are stored only in Photos. Not many, of course, but some I'd miss. You can download them for offline use, make a backup and then print out the ones you really care for. > I'm increasingly using Wallet and GPay for financial transactions and event tickets. I even hear tell that my jurisdiction is putting driver licenses on Wallet now. If you use GPay, it is even more important to not have any content stored in your account. See the case of a father sending his doctor a picture of his son for diagnosis. It was falsely recognized as child porn and the father had no way to get back the account. If your account gets suspended, you are out of luck. > So could you rephrase your advice to me please? Which $20/year service replaces these apps, and permits easy import of all my data from Takeout? > If someone used 365, would you demand that they GTFO Microsoft and junk their Windows systems? What should we run? A PDP-11? Noone said to nuke your Google account. In fact you're being very passive aggressive despite not having made any effort on researching alternative apps. Don't tie your whole offline and online identity to one provider who doesn't care about you except for your (and people close to you) money and data.