Google is working on essentially putting DRM on the web
Google is working on essentially putting DRM on the web
The much maligned "Trusted Computing" idea requires that the party you are supposed to trust deserves to be trusted, and Google is DEFINITELY NOT worthy of being trusted, this is a naked power grab to destroy the open web for Google's ad profits no matter the consequences, this would put heavy surveillance in Google's hands, this would eliminate ad-blocking, this would break any and all accessibility features, this would obliterate any competing platform, this is very much opposed to what the web is.
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For me the most annoying part was switching off gmail (I went to fastmail) and the hardest habbit to break was Google search (I mostly use DDG).
I use fastmail, great service.
What motivated me to do that is finding these megacorp providers do not keep your email private.
I don't remember what my breaking point was, but since I dropped gmail there have been 2 or 3 announcements about it that would have gotten me to that point again.
That is the only solution to all this!
To everyone: Please remove at least as much Google products/services as you can from your life. Start with the easiest ones. Have a plan and gradually find alternatives for all other products/services of them. Remove them from your life. It will help even if you do this partly. This is for the benefit of us all.
Also, let's do the same to Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Reddit etc. Let's not let our lives depend on them. They are corporations. They are programmed to maximize profit.
I know there's currently not a lot of good alternatives out there, but if enough of us ditch these ass-companies, more and more open-source, decentralized, not-for-benefit services will pop up, and the existing ones will improve greatly. These are not for-profit projects that can be bought by corporations later and used to their benefit. They will only benefit their users.
Let's do this!
Fuck megacorporations!
I wish it were feasible to get off youtube..
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@ConfusedLlama @jherazob @kool_newt At this point I'm starting to wonder if an iPhone might be the lesser of two evils… sheesh
I am 100 % free of Facebook, Reddit, Microsoft, Google, including App Stores. I have always been, for many years.
I have synchronization of contacts and calendar, email, instant messenger, files, cloud storage. No self-hosting needed.
Ask me anything if you have questions.
The only thing I have left is YouTube. Apparently Piped allows registering and then storing subscriptions, maybe I'll move mine there.
Gotta say, deleting my google account would be very awesome to do
I use FreeTube, which is opensource and allows you to subscribe to channels without an account. The awesome thing is that you can categorize channels under different "profiles".
However, I think it won't take too long for Google to paywall YouTube APIs and do what it can to prevent web scraping (through disabling login-less use or attempts such as the one linked in this thread.). So our best option would be to ask our favorite Youtubers to move (or duplicate) their videos to other platforms such a peertube, and start using those platforms ourselves.
Use invidious to watch YT videos "outside YT". I think viewing from there doesn't count towards their metrics, so you're "freeloading" on their content. Some instances:
Not a bad idea. Just also avoid Microsoft, Apple, and any non-open hardware or software... they all do the same stuff or worse.
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Is it progress, or just picking a different cage?
Good luck in your voyages though, my approach is to try keeping stuff in multiple cages, also far from perfect.
Spoiler for a later stage of your journey: Your phone gets wayv faster. That part is pretty nice.
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I'm not sure, honestly.
Charitably, we could assume it's just from removing Google and various carriers background apps meant to improve my experience.
Uncharitably, I have my suspicions. For the last five or so versions of Android something always seemed to be using processor cycles and battery when I wasn't actually doing much with my phone.
But I never saw evidence of usage data exfiltration via Google apps - at least after I turned off the related optional settings.
In any case, switching to GrapheneOs was a startling and pleasant speed boost for me, whatever the real root cause.