6 ms·

Google just lost it

46 points by vilda 12y ago

ibstudios 12y ago
Web for the win! Everything else is a walled garden.
asadotzler 12y ago
Support alternatives like Firefox OS where you're in control of your experience, where you're the user, not the data product being sold.
spindritf 12y ago
There are services that will allow you to download .apk files from Google Play without an account. Like this one http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ Although I don't know how trustworthy they are. If you want to avoid Google, you should install a build without Google services. EDIT: OP's server went down so here's a copy of the rant: I've just lost it with Google. I install the latest Cyanogen Mod. What I've found is basically no android apps let you download the package to install yourself - you HAVE to use the App Store - and that means you HAVE to have a Google account. So I make a fake account and download the apps I need. I'm not sure if I might want some more, so I've not logged out. I went down to a museum today, took some photos. What I've just found is they have all been fucking uploaded without my fucking permission to the fucking Google cloud. Including a set of private photos, one of which was sent to me on the understanding it was for no one else to see. Way to fucking go, Google. I CANNOT TRUST YOU. So much for privacy. So much for ASKING PERMISSION. So much for MAKING IT CLEAR and so much for keeping my identity private - my IP and my phone are now associated with these photos, which contain my location info and probably shots of me in reflection. (I later found out - also my personal archived photos were uploaded - of my friends, me, personal photos for my eyes only). Uploading to Google is irrevocable. You can delete all you want - Google will be keeping everything. Delete just means you no longer see it. Oh, one other thing. If I'm logged into Google and I go to add someone to my address book, I can ONLY do so if I accept it being copied into the Google cloud - which is why my address book is currently still empty. Fuck you Google, fuck you. Gone too far. I hate this so much. I'm now wasting my fucking time trying to find out WHAT Google has done so I can try to undo it. I'm now searching on-line to try to find out how the fuck to delete a Google account. Addendum. Yup. Logging into a Google account SILENTLY activates FULL UPLOAD OF EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE TO GOOGLE. Contacts, photos, emails, everything. EVERYTHING. I think it's fair to say I cannot express in words how much I hate Google. So, now, the only way I can see to at least superficially remove my photos from Google is to make copies to my PC, then delete them on my phone, with sync enabled, so they're removed from public visibility by Google. All this trouble, frustrating, anger, annoyance, from Google, to me. I am never going to log in to Google again.
- drdaeman 12y ago
  > Logging into a Google account SILENTLY activates FULL UPLOAD OF EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE TO GOOGLE. Is this true? On SGS4mini I've seen option to back up data to Google servers, but I believe (not certain though - that was quite long time ago) that was opt-in, with some dialog asking me for agreement. Or maybe I'm mistaking anything, but at least I haven't seen any files that I didn't explicitly upload. I've also seen option to enable automatic photo backup to Google+, which was certainly opt-in, as a feature suggestion. It was quite persistent, suggesting that I enable it, though.
  - exacube 12y ago
    It's not true. I'm pretty sure OP just overlooked the dialogue that pops up and asks you if you want to backup pictures when you add a new account.
    - ch0wn 12y ago
      Correct. If you start Google+ for the first time, there's a wizard asking you whether you want to enable "Auto Backup" and further asks you whether this should happen only on WiFi or also on data. It's a separate page, so it's really hard to overlook.
    - nawitus 12y ago
      In practise that dialog can be overlooked very easily. It's practically impossible to not overlook any dialogs like that.
      - VikingCoder 12y ago
        If you care about privacy, don't use apps that are DESIGNED FOR SHARING. If you do care about privacy, and you do use apps that are designed for sharing, then read the permissions very very carefully.
    - fallinghawks 12y ago
      Yes. And auto backup can be turned on/off in Settings at any time. If this mor -- guy -- is so concerned about his privacy and technical enough that he knows what to do with an apk when he downloads one, there is absolutely no excuse. Don't blame Google.
yror10 12y ago
I think this web server just lost it.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sgtpepper 12y ago
Rant all you want, when you change phones and it all just syncs, it's fucking wonderful. If you don't like it, don't use a Google phone.
- MBCook 12y ago
  There is always Apple. At least they're not an advertising company.
- marssaxman 12y ago
  What's the alternative? iOS seems just as bad. I use an Android phone, but I've never entered any Google credentials into it. Can't use the Play Store, but I don't really care about apps that much. At least there's F-droid.
  - bbzealot 12y ago
    Talking about security, you can't forget about BlackBerry 10. I love it,it's nice to use and can't see a reason to come back to android (since bb provides an android app compatibility layer too)
- kybernetikos 12y ago
  You can actually do this on a cyanogen mod phone using DavDroid and e.g. an owncloud server.
gregbarbosa 12y ago
So the author seems angry to say the least. But he brings up a great point. What would the best alternative be in this situation? Apple? Firefox OS? Blackberry?
- aeturnum 12y ago
  What's wrong with CyanogenMod w/o google services? CM works fine without them. [1] [1] http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps
  - gregbarbosa 12y ago
    This is where I was really confused. Why didn't the author take this approach? It's definitely the route I would try.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
fdroid_fan 12y ago
An alternative to Google App Store is F-Droid [1]. It hosts open source applications and vets them for privacy issues. It also indicates if apps promote closed services. I use a few apps from F-Droid including: AdAway for blocking ads using host files RedReader for browsing Reddit MuPDF for reading PDFs OSMand for offline OpenStreetMap maps and navigation AFWall for blocking data hungry apps [1] https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/
- cyphax 12y ago
  I use f-droid as well but I also have Aptoide installed which has a huge offer of apps as well. I still don't have or care for Google's apps on my phone (it runs on CyanogenMod as well) so it's quite doable as far as I'm concerned.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
freeslugs 12y ago
didn't work for me. check out http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:htnWfH71ZJEJ:www.liblfds.org/habari/google-just-lost-it+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:htnWfH7...
phazmatis 12y ago
This is why I loved comodo firewall back in the day. You could block all outgoing connections, including some system processes. You would get a nice little dialog detailing what process was trying to reach the internet and what it was trying to connect to, on what port, and you could on-the-spot set up a policy for that app. Phones need this even more than PCs ever did. CyanogenMod people should look into this kind of functionality. Sure, google will try to make it impossible, but that won't stop a determined reverse engineer from making basic personal privacy available to anyone who wants it + can install a custom ROM.

46 points by vilda 12y ago

Web for the win! Everything else is a walled garden.

Support alternatives like Firefox OS where you're in control of your experience, where you're the user, not the data product being sold.

spindritf 12y ago

There are services that will allow you to download .apk files from Google Play without an account. Like this one http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ http://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/ Although I don't know how trustworthy they are. If you want to avoid Google, you should install a build without Google services. EDIT: OP's server went down so here's a copy of the rant: I've just lost it with Google. I install the latest Cyanogen Mod. What I've found is basically no android apps let you download the package to install yourself - you HAVE to use the App Store - and that means you HAVE to have a Google account. So I make a fake account and download the apps I need. I'm not sure if I might want some more, so I've not logged out. I went down to a museum today, took some photos. What I've just found is they have all been fucking uploaded without my fucking permission to the fucking Google cloud. Including a set of private photos, one of which was sent to me on the understanding it was for no one else to see. Way to fucking go, Google. I CANNOT TRUST YOU. So much for privacy. So much for ASKING PERMISSION. So much for MAKING IT CLEAR and so much for keeping my identity private - my IP and my phone are now associated with these photos, which contain my location info and probably shots of me in reflection. (I later found out - also my personal archived photos were uploaded - of my friends, me, personal photos for my eyes only). Uploading to Google is irrevocable. You can delete all you want - Google will be keeping everything. Delete just means you no longer see it. Oh, one other thing. If I'm logged into Google and I go to add someone to my address book, I can ONLY do so if I accept it being copied into the Google cloud - which is why my address book is currently still empty. Fuck you Google, fuck you. Gone too far. I hate this so much. I'm now wasting my fucking time trying to find out WHAT Google has done so I can try to undo it. I'm now searching on-line to try to find out how the fuck to delete a Google account. Addendum. Yup. Logging into a Google account SILENTLY activates FULL UPLOAD OF EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE TO GOOGLE. Contacts, photos, emails, everything. EVERYTHING. I think it's fair to say I cannot express in words how much I hate Google. So, now, the only way I can see to at least superficially remove my photos from Google is to make copies to my PC, then delete them on my phone, with sync enabled, so they're removed from public visibility by Google. All this trouble, frustrating, anger, annoyance, from Google, to me. I am never going to log in to Google again.

drdaeman 12y ago
> Logging into a Google account SILENTLY activates FULL UPLOAD OF EVERYTHING ON YOUR PHONE TO GOOGLE. Is this true? On SGS4mini I've seen option to back up data to Google servers, but I believe (not certain though - that was quite long time ago) that was opt-in, with some dialog asking me for agreement. Or maybe I'm mistaking anything, but at least I haven't seen any files that I didn't explicitly upload. I've also seen option to enable automatic photo backup to Google+, which was certainly opt-in, as a feature suggestion. It was quite persistent, suggesting that I enable it, though.
- exacube 12y ago
  It's not true. I'm pretty sure OP just overlooked the dialogue that pops up and asks you if you want to backup pictures when you add a new account.
  - ch0wn 12y ago
    Correct. If you start Google+ for the first time, there's a wizard asking you whether you want to enable "Auto Backup" and further asks you whether this should happen only on WiFi or also on data. It's a separate page, so it's really hard to overlook.
  - nawitus 12y ago
    In practise that dialog can be overlooked very easily. It's practically impossible to not overlook any dialogs like that.
    - VikingCoder 12y ago
      If you care about privacy, don't use apps that are DESIGNED FOR SHARING. If you do care about privacy, and you do use apps that are designed for sharing, then read the permissions very very carefully.
  - fallinghawks 12y ago
    Yes. And auto backup can be turned on/off in Settings at any time. If this mor -- guy -- is so concerned about his privacy and technical enough that he knows what to do with an apk when he downloads one, there is absolutely no excuse. Don't blame Google.

yror10 12y ago

I think this web server just lost it.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sgtpepper 12y ago

Rant all you want, when you change phones and it all just syncs, it's fucking wonderful. If you don't like it, don't use a Google phone.

MBCook 12y ago
There is always Apple. At least they're not an advertising company.
marssaxman 12y ago
What's the alternative? iOS seems just as bad. I use an Android phone, but I've never entered any Google credentials into it. Can't use the Play Store, but I don't really care about apps that much. At least there's F-droid.
- bbzealot 12y ago
  Talking about security, you can't forget about BlackBerry 10. I love it,it's nice to use and can't see a reason to come back to android (since bb provides an android app compatibility layer too)
kybernetikos 12y ago
You can actually do this on a cyanogen mod phone using DavDroid and e.g. an owncloud server.

gregbarbosa 12y ago

So the author seems angry to say the least. But he brings up a great point. What would the best alternative be in this situation? Apple? Firefox OS? Blackberry?

aeturnum 12y ago
What's wrong with CyanogenMod w/o google services? CM works fine without them. [1] [1] http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Google_Apps
- gregbarbosa 12y ago
  This is where I was really confused. Why didn't the author take this approach? It's definitely the route I would try.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

fdroid_fan 12y ago

An alternative to Google App Store is F-Droid [1]. It hosts open source applications and vets them for privacy issues. It also indicates if apps promote closed services. I use a few apps from F-Droid including: AdAway for blocking ads using host files RedReader for browsing Reddit MuPDF for reading PDFs OSMand for offline OpenStreetMap maps and navigation AFWall for blocking data hungry apps [1] https://f-droid.org/ https://f-droid.org/

cyphax 12y ago
I use f-droid as well but I also have Aptoide installed which has a huge offer of apps as well. I still don't have or care for Google's apps on my phone (it runs on CyanogenMod as well) so it's quite doable as far as I'm concerned.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

freeslugs 12y ago

didn't work for me. check out http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:htnWfH71ZJEJ:www.liblfds.org/habari/google-just-lost-it+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:htnWfH7...

phazmatis 12y ago

This is why I loved comodo firewall back in the day. You could block all outgoing connections, including some system processes. You would get a nice little dialog detailing what process was trying to reach the internet and what it was trying to connect to, on what port, and you could on-the-spot set up a policy for that app. Phones need this even more than PCs ever did. CyanogenMod people should look into this kind of functionality. Sure, google will try to make it impossible, but that won't stop a determined reverse engineer from making basic personal privacy available to anyone who wants it + can install a custom ROM.