I'm pretty neutral towards them. I use Gmail, Drive, and Google News.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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Today google search turned on dark mode and trendimg searches against my will once again, makimg me google how to turn them off again.
It's annoying.
I donβt hate Google. I created a Google account before recently to use YouTube.
Mainly because I couldnβt figure out Peertube on the Fediverse.
Google is unavoidable but I do my best to mitigate the worst parts of their privacy intrusions.
I have a pixel phone running grapheneOS with Google Services Framework installed but without Google Play or Gboard or any of that stuff. For me that's a balance that works.
I host my own email server so no Gmail.
I also host my own Matrix server and avoid WhatsApp where possible (not Google but just as bad if not worse).
I use YouTube but via Newpipe or using Ublock origin on Firefox (not logged in obviously).
Chrome is genuinely worse than Firefox now that Google have made adblocking more difficult with manifest v3.
You just have to decide what the best tradeoff is between privacy and convenience.
I host my own email server so no Gmail.
How are you finding this? How much is it costing you, and how much time/effort does it take for maintenance and also how was it setting up? I've also heard that self-hosting a mail server means your emails usually get marked as spam, have you had this problem? Interested in self-hosting email but I'm not sure it's worth the effort for me and my threat model.
I started in 2012, and it wasn't that difficult. I'd say I do about 30mins of maintenance every other month. It took me a while to work out the config originally, but I wrote a guide afterwards which was really popular for other people doing the same thing (it's quite out of date now but the principles are the same).
Started out using a raspberry pi (which was also hosting a website at the time) but when I moved house to somewhere with a worse internet connection I migrated to a VPS, so there is a cost but it's not enormous, maybe Β£20/month.
Don't even bother if you can't use a static IP, because all your email will be bounced if your PTR record for the IP (reverse DNS record) doesn't match your domain name.
It got a bit more complicated when people started adding extra layers of spam protection like SPF, DKIM and DMARC, but those are mostly set and forget.
Overall, I'd say it's worth it but only because I find it quite interesting/fun.
For work, sheets is a godsend.
Everything else, i have better software.
i hate Google but I still use YouTube way too much
I donβt hate Google
Chromebooks are cool
Me. Drive is useful, youtube is addicting, gmail is... fine, once you figure out a few things.
I don't hate them. I used to be a huge Google fanboy, but I simply don't trust them anymore.
It's not a data safety issue as such, even though they could shut down my account on a whim and I'd lose 20 years of data, but more like I don't want to use any new products they put out. For now I have Gmail, drive and photos, because it's very inconvenient to move, but I can't be excited for anything they make (or say they will) anymore. Shutting down Inbox was the last straw for me and I don't see a way to undo that loss of trust.
My stance is neutral, leaning towards negative. I think Google is still full of talented engineers who passionately want to build the best tech, but the higher ups are screwing up as seen everywhere else too. Their basis for all this data collection seems acceptable (personalization) but they're blind to the fact that this information can quickly fall into the wrong hands, like a hacker or bad government.
I still use a Google Pixel with the stock software because of the little things other ROMs don't provide, as well as Maps, Drive, Wallet, YT and Home. For everything else I use alternatives, albeit it's not because of a super strong dislike towards Google itself but because I want to support the competition.
Whoever that person is, they definitely exist. We just haven't seen them (and we probably never will since they're drown in downvotes immediately).
But they'll probably stop liking Google once they learn about the whole "collecting data and selling it to advertisers" thing.
If Nazis made a great product, would you start supporting Nazis?
Nice try, paid Google shill.