10 ms·

What I use instead of Google services

424 points by lnmx 12y ago

chimeracoder 12y ago
> Email: Fastmail I recently migrated to Fastmail, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was. Fastmail automatically imports your emails from Gmail, and it took me so little time that I kicked myself for not doing it before. > Calendar: iCloud For those of us who don't use both OS X and iOS, this isn't feasible. Fortunately, though, Fastmail also provides a calendar service. It synchronizes with Google Calendar in case you still need to use Google (e.g. for work), and it was also a seamless switch. As for a client, I was very surprised by this, but I've actually found that the latest version of Mozilla Lightning[0] is the best calendar interface. Fastmail's is okay, but still in beta (it's less than a year old). Setting up Lightning to sync with Fastmail's calendar took just a minute, and I actually like the interface more than I liked Google Calendar's[1]. Thunderbird is an okay mail client (not a terrible interface, but not a great one), but even if you don't use Thunderbird for mail, I would recommend trying out Lightning for calendaring. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28software%29 [1] It's okay for viewing events in the week view, but there are a lot of UI quirks and bugs that catch up with you after daily use - this one is the most pernicious, but there are a number that are simply annoying as well: http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/how-google-calendar-can-tip-off-your-boss-you-want-a-raise/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/how-google-calendar-... [2] [2] Since I know people will ask - I consider this a UI issue because it's fairly easy to imagine a minor UI improvement that would indicate this unexpected result of Quick Add (and others) before clicking "Add" without sacrificing this functionality in case it is desired.
dhragoon 12y ago
"Apple Maps"? This is shameless. Not sure how to reconcile that with the seemingly mandatory PRISM invocations, the post was almost stomachable up until the Apple cameo especially with the recent privacy headlines. At Least recommend something that isn't a huge downgrade in functionality, an OSM client or something. I'm sure that Apple adding DDG to Safari is the reason for this thinly veiled reciprocity. Privacy or not these are people selling their wares and they are willing to be sleazy about it, this is not unlike the bullshit post about the fake cell antennas and the magical ROM that detected them that is making the rounds, it's disheartening.
- avar 12y ago
  I find it most interesting that he doesn't use some map provider using OpenStreetMap data because that's what embedded in the DuckDuckGo search results: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amsterdam https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amsterdam
  - rentnorove 12y ago
    Excellent though it is, they're using MapBox, which really only caters for the embed-a-map use-case, and not general purpose browsing/route planning.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    Apple Maps does use Open Street Map data.
- napoleond 12y ago
  > I'm sure that Apple adding DDG to Safari is the reason for this thinly veiled reciprocity. It seems unlikely that anyone other than Gabe could be sure of his intentions. At any rate, I assume he also uses Apple Maps for directions... if you know of any good non-Google/Apple competitors for that I would be very interested to hear about them.
  - pavlov 12y ago
    Here by Nokia (the independent company, not the division sold to Microsoft): http://here.com http://here.com Excellent maps and navigation in my experience.
    - ankitml 12y ago
      I find them far superior to google maps (for cities in India)
    - coffeecheque 12y ago
      Thanks for that. Looks good. Pity there's no HTTPS though. Do you know/can you recommend any other OSM providers? Here.com is one of the best I've come across, but I'm wondering if there are any others.
ape4 12y ago
I was hoping this was suggestions for services you can host yourself. Switching from Google to Apple doesn't really change much.
- cik 12y ago
  Maybe I can oblige here then :) owncloud, owncloud, owncloud! It has CalDAV, CardDAV, and files support. There's even a rudimentary (though scary) online editor with support for openoffice. I use two-factor with owncloud, and happily share files, too. And... it supports an encrypted backend!. Now, if you're happy to host your own mail, you can also look at adding RoundCube. This can solve the Calendar/Contacts/Email/Filesharing main case. Works across Windws/Mac/Linux, even mobile... which in my case is Android. It's not amazing, but it's pretty fantastic.
  - privong 12y ago
    > I use two-factor with owncloud, What are you using for the two-factor?
    - cik 12y ago
      owncloud has two-factor support via Google Authenticator, I'm happy enough there. I use Authy to sync the tokens between my devices. Full caveat though: I never have a single device with both my tokens, and synced password database - just in case memory dumps of phones/tablets become valid. So, I dump my password database to my tablet, whereas I sync my authy tokens between two phones.
      - privong 12y ago
        What owncloud plugin, I mean. I have not been able to locate 2FA in the OC config, and my searching for plugins has had mixed results.
        cik 12y ago
        Sorry, that was daft of me. I'm using One Time Password Backend (http://apps.owncloud.com/content/show.php/One+Time+Password+Backend?content=159196 http://apps.owncloud.com/content/show.php/One+Time+Password+...), but again, with OC6... until tonight.
larrys 12y ago
While it's not trivial it's not that hard to spin up a mail server on a VPS (which can run smtp, imap and/or webmail). For that matter you can run it off a static internet connection or even a dynamic IP from your home or office PC. (Running linux or Mac OSX never done it with windows although I'm sure you can).
- sosborn 12y ago
  Spinning it up is easy. Maintaining it is arguably not.
  - larrys 12y ago
    "Maintaining it is arguably not." Do you have anything in particular you'd like to offer to back that up? Have you ever done this? (I do and have done since the mid 90's on various equipment and I'm no Eric Raymond exactly either). We're not talking about running the mail server on a commercial ISP or a company with 20,000 employees. Just running a mail server to take care of your own mail.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    I find it pretty easy to maintain. Well really, Postfix and Debian do the hard work of actual maintenance. I just apply updates.
- eropple 12y ago
  You can then get shotgunned by spam filters, too. =( Running your own mail is not for the timid.
  - jerf 12y ago
    There's a difference between running a mail server for incoming mail, and one for outgoing mail. I use my local Comcast SMTP servers for outgoing on the (so far 100% correct) theory that nobody can afford to blanket blacklist those. Incoming you don't have to worry about getting blacklisted. You have to worry about spam, but, well... that's sort of a constant nowadays. My current solution is to use Thunderbird to filter everything on my primary machine and it's Good Enough. If you want webmail YMMV, though. Honestly, if you're just one or two mailboxes, it's not that big a deal to maintain. And I've been Joe-jobbed, so it's not like I haven't been exposed to some fury. Still not that big a deal.
napoleond 12y ago
Another Fastmail endorsement--they really are fantastic. I confess to still using Gmail for some things but it's mostly just because I've been too lazy to switch over all of my accounts. Fastmail is truly a better service. As for calendar, I've heard good things about https://fruux.com/ https://fruux.com/ although I haven't tried that myself yet. (And apparently Fastmail does calendar too--again, haven't tried.)
- dannysu 12y ago
  Another vote for FastMail calendar. Give it a shot. I find that it integrates really well with Gmail. I've had experience before where invites from different email providers don't play well, but FastMail sending invite to Gmail works just fine.
- thenomad 12y ago
  Is their spam filtering good? That's the primary reason I'm sticking with Google Apps for now.
  - lobster_johnson 12y ago
    Not very. It's basically SpamAssassin [1]. I have trained it with tens of thousands of emails, but it keeps letting obvious stuff through. On the other hand, I have had zero problems with false positives, which used to be a huge problem back when I was using Gmail. [1] https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technical/spamchecks.html https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technical/spamchecks.html
  - dewey 12y ago
    Just to give you another data point: I don't get any spam on fastmail, it works well for me.
  - songgao 12y ago
    Coming from Google Apps and currently using Fastmail: It's not as good as Gmail. I still get spams in my Inbox but they are not really a deal breaker. I've been using Fastmail for over 3 months and I'm rather happy about it (just paid for a yearly subscription). I'd suggest you to try it out with a 3 month subscription. You can always switch back; it's just a couple MX records after all. Oh btw, fastmail also has CalDav (Calendar only; no Tasks) and It's been working well for me too.
sergiotapia 12y ago
That's all fine and dandy - however most of the time when I'm working as a consultant, I'm created an email account on the company's domain. Typically hosted on, you guessed it, Google Apps. For some people leaving Google is literally not an option, and that's a shame.
- wfjackson 12y ago
  Well, at least they have recently stopped tracking of emails in the paid Google Apps for Business to build an ad profile. http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/protecting-students-with-google-apps.html http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/protecting-st...
- praveenster 12y ago
  Have you tried Zoho? I have used both and it comes pretty close to Google Apps and additionally they still offer a free option.
spindritf 12y ago
OK, there's some value in diversifying instead of using one provider for everything but mostly he just swapped Apple, Fastmail, or Clicky in place of Google. They can still track him, read his email, know his calendar... The benefit here is marginal. And how do those companies stack up against Google when it comes to security? It's one thing to protect the data against snooping by the provider, it's anoter to protect it from everyone else. Google is pretty solid, often on the cutting edge (PFS, certificate pinning).
- oconnore 12y ago
  The difference between data privacy now, and data privacy 10 or 20 years ago has little to do with how many people have access to it, or how secure it is. It mostly has to do with who can analyze it. An example: where you walk in public is public information, but for most of human history, no one has had the capability to keep a database of that information and query it retroactively. Your location information is therefore less private now than it was before, because that information used to be impossible to reference meaningfully. The same concept goes for email, calendars, contact graphs, etc. Using providers that don't have, or consciously avoid the capability to aggregate, analyze, and query it improves your privacy. Google is not one of those providers.
  - lallysingh 12y ago
    is Apple?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - theshrike79 12y ago
      Apple's business model doesn't rely on storing personal information, they get their money from devices and apps and services made for those devices sold through their store. They are the one company that has the ability to really push for user privacy, it's a route Google cannot follow - it would hurt their core business (advertising) too much.
zobzu 12y ago
Mostly its using Apple stuff instead of Google stuff.. thanks but no thanks
nodata 12y ago
Storage: BTSync -> syncthing (http://syncthing.net/ http://syncthing.net/)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hoopism 12y ago
Where I shop instead of Walmart: Sams Club
acheron 12y ago
One thing I've been looking to replace is Google News. Anyone know of another similar news aggregator? (Don't say "reddit".)
- awhitty 12y ago
  SkimFeed[0] aggregates mostly tech news, but it's not nearly as feature-heavy as Google News. Maybe check it out? 0 - http://skimfeed.com/ http://skimfeed.com/
- ximpathy 12y ago
  Circa News (mobile app only) each story is an aggregation of multiple sources
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Maybe http://popurls.com/ http://popurls.com/ ?
- mgreg 12y ago
  If you're looking for tech news techmeme is about the best. http://techmeme.com http://techmeme.com
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
Morphling 12y ago
>Phone OS: iOS I guess there isn't much you can do with this, but is changing from Android to iOS really big enough difference?
- natch 12y ago
  As he said, degrees matter. By which I guess he means differences of degree. The two companies involved (Google, Apple) have a fundamental difference in their business model. One involves you and your private data as the product; the other does not.
  - chimeracoder 12y ago
    If what you care about is privacy, I really don't think iOS is appreciably better than Android. (Not marginally or theoretically - I mean practically). If you're looking to be as private as possible[0], you should either use a custom ROM of Android with Privacy Guard and with Google services disabled (or use something like Replicant or FirefoxOS, if you're comfortable straying from the two dominant mobile OSes). [0] As private as possible while still carrying around a tracking device 24/7, mind you (cell phones constantly report your location to your carriers, who are not at all modest with this data)
- fidotron 12y ago
  Yes. Google+, by default, likes to grab all pictures taken with the device camera (and most stupidly will then say they're ready to be shared - because every photo is for sharing . . . ) The worst is Google Play Services though. It's basically a way for Google to get your location data, and to generate massive global maps of WiFi networks, rather like what got them in trouble with the streetmap cars. Anyone doubting how important this is to them needs to check their reaction when Motorola wanted to use Skyhook on a device instead: http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung#3 http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...
  - ismavis 12y ago
    >Yes. Google+, by default, likes to grab all pictures taken with the device camera Google+ photos auto-upload is opt-in.
Oletros 12y ago
Browser: Safari / ... Maps: ... / Apple for directions on mobile Phone OS: iOS Calendar: iCloud And then talks about data not given to one company. Really, is it just a strange joke?
- k__ 12y ago
  He's the CEO of DuckDuckGo and promotes to use it instead of Google, so what's to expect?
  - Oletros 12y ago
    Are iCloud, iOS, Apple Maps or Safari part of DDG?
    - k__ 12y ago
      No, but since some of his suggestions are DDG and he is the DDG CEO, questioning his integrity doesn't seem so far-fetched.
    - skeletonjelly 12y ago
      Isn't DDG in the upcoming iOS release though?
- eertami 12y ago
  I thought it was satire because >I don't like to be tracked. >Phone OS: iOS, etc But now I think it is serious, if not highly deluded.
  - atonse 12y ago
    It's actually quite simple: follow the money. Apple makes little to no money by invading your privacy. They've already made money once you bought their hardware. Which is why they will be a much better champion of your privacy. However, companies like Google and Facebook make almost 100% of their revenue by knowing every detail they possibly can about your life. That's why they try to commoditize hardware and place all the value in your personal information.
lvillani 12y ago
Personally, I have a VPS where I keep my own mail server, webmail, ownCloud instance (calendar, address book, file storage, etc), IRC bouncer... All courtesy of Sovereign (https://github.com/al3x/sovereign https://github.com/al3x/sovereign)
- cellover 12y ago
  Very interesting resource, thanks for posting ; even if not for the playbook itself, the collection of tools is interesting. Having your own server is definetely a good solution, it just needs experience and comes at a certain price, even if it stays reasonnable. But most people just don't want to be bothered with maintaining the box (hosting payment, security updates, domain name renewal, SSL ceritificate renewal and so on). However, it is a fantastic way of learning by yourself!
  - lvillani 12y ago
    Well, if you use the supported Debian 7 pointing Ansible to your box is all that's needed. Since I decided to go with Ubuntu 14.04 (unofficially supported), it took a little longer and I had to submit a couple of patches to make it work there. The "hardest" part was figuring out how to set-up the DKIM and SPF records in my registrar's DNS control panel (namecheap). Other than that, I don't really have to babysit the thing: I get a weekly logrotate report by email and rarely, if ever, SSH into the box to check that everything works. From time to time I re-run the Ansible script to ensure everything is in proper order but, still, I almost never have to spend more than 10 minutes a fortnight.
dan_bk 12y ago
> On top of the browser I use these add-ons to reduce tracking further; also, note that private browsing mode and the do not track setting will not stop you from being tracked. (Almost) nobody can escape the tracking, as long as fingerprinting remains possible: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Google's/Facebook's/Twitter's JS scripts are literally on every site. Fingerprinting allows them to increase their ROI since it builds more precise profiles on you. The advertising industry is happy and the government is happy. So forget about them not fingerprinting you.
- Semaphor 12y ago
  Plugins on click to play, use a plugin that changes your user agent every few minutes, disable plugin list enumeration. And suddenly the best information they can get is your HTTP accept string.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Most fingerprinting can be avoided by not allowing Javascript. Social tracking scripts can be specifically removed by addons like Disconnect.me.
elliottpayne 12y ago
I switched to fastmail and duckduckgo in lieu of google products a little over a year ago for some of the same reasons. I tried to switch to safari from chrome, and that experiment lasted about 3 months before I got annoyed by how safari handles multiple tabs. But, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. If you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using technology. It's not realistic. Yes, you can be an idealist and try to run your own email server, etc. but it's really about balancing tradeoffs. I also use Apple maps and iCloud and dropbox and Evernote and... many other services we should give just as much scrutiny to as Google. I don't see my choices as being about riding a high-horse, it's about a diversified portfolio of services that helps me avoid total lock-in. The day that google heavily oversteps with the G+ product strategy or twitter completely goes to shit, I've got a series of alternative services that can pick up the slack.
- toxican 12y ago
  My thing isn't that I don't trust any one particular Google product. It's that I don't feel safe putting all of my eggs into one basket. A year ago, Google was my phone, my search engine, my email, video hosting, my DNS, my IM service (GTalk when it was still a thing), and cloud storage system. That's a lot of personal stuff all tied together under one account. So I split things up. I hosted some stuff where I could (email and online storage) and used different services/products where I couldn't. But I also continue to use Google for my search engine. I don't really see it as a question of if Google will screw up with people's data, it's a question of when.
  - anaktos 12y ago
    By the time when, Google will be our overlords. Running the world with no one to be able to resist their ironclad rule. Because they know you, they know where your most loved live, what you need most to live, what your habits are, what medications you need. Doesn't that sound bit too pessimistic? Of course it does. You already trusted Google, why trust another company and risk your data? What if, from the 10 companies you trust your data with, 2 of the go rogue and use your data against you? OR what if they get hacked, and lose everything? That's what I fear more than giving too much data to Google. I'd rather trust one super reliable guy (Google), than trusting 5 (Self hosting) maybe trust-able, 3 shady guys, and 2 unreliable guys. But that's just me, I make sure all my accounts have 2 step auth.
Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago
Video hosting: https://mediacru.sh https://mediacru.sh Benefits over Vimeo: FOSS, deployable on your own servers, pro-privacy, also supports audio and images. I helped make it, so take this with a grain of salt.
kungfooguru 12y ago
tl;dr: give your data to Apple instead of Google because...?
- wfjackson 12y ago
  Because Apple's free services are a value add to increase their device sales off which they make a ton of money, while Google's free services are typically monetized with targeted advertising based on a profile built off your private data, so they tend to collect and retain a lot of it.
  - mentaat 12y ago
    except google collecting data doesn't mean google shares that data with advertisers. its a common misconception of how the ad model works. moreover google has one of the best records of security for a consumer facing company. your data is more safe with google than apple - no question about that.
personlurking 12y ago
In the face of nefarious agencies and companies that track, I don't think there's a 'best' option to switch to, per se, only a harder (to be tracked) option. Tracking, in my belief, still goes on, in one way or another. So what are we left with? Trying as hard as possible to use online services for work (assuming that's your bread and butter) and to be in the real world for leisure, etc. Not always possible, and less possible as the years go on, but a lot better than thinking one (popular) online service will be a safe haven from another.
wstrange 12y ago
I sleep comfortably at night knowing my private photos are stored safely on iCloud.
- rakoo 12y ago
  and on everyone's computer after the leak of the day, too.
rizumu 12y ago
The PRISM break list is far more comprehensive: https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org
thewolf 12y ago
do you work for apple?
MichaelGG 12y ago
I, too, am very unhappy with Google. They're obviously intentionally trying to get people to get used to giving up privacy. From the moronic system Android has, to the tricky dialogs Chrome puts up, they don't like the anti-tracking sentiment. But... DuckDuckGo just doesn't compete on search results. I changed to it as my default search engine, but I ended up going to Google most of the time. And switching away from Android... I tried to move to Windows 8 / Phone, but the ecosystem is a joke. Desktop apps don't work well on their small tablet form factor, and the Metro apps are laughably terrible. Microsoft can't even prevent total scams, like $9 fake Netflix and HBO. And they ignore reports about them.
- Valseuss 12y ago
  Apple spies on you as much as google, without a doubt. They're just not as open about it. After all, why wouldn't they do it when it helps them build "better" products that make them more money.
TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
I did not know iOS and Apple Maps are more privacy centric than Android and Google Maps. Is that really true?
- chipotle_coyote 12y ago
  I'm sure people will leap out to argue with me when I say yes, but: yes. I don't say this out of a belief that Apple is pure and Google is evil, and certainly not out of a belief that Apple shows a deep understanding of security (boy, howdy, do they not show a deep understanding of security). I say it out of my understanding of their business models. Basically, Apple makes money from you because you give them money. Google makes money from you by analyzing the data you send through their services. "If you're not the customer, you're the product" is too glib by half -- both Google and Apple want to make good products that you want to use, and it's certainly in Google's interest to keep their users (i.e., you) happy. They're arguably much better at online services than Apple is. But Google has a vested interest in "reading" your mail, tracking your searches, and so on. Apple not only lacks that interest, it's arguably a competitive advantage for them to not keep any more information about you than they absolutely have to. They've spelled out in the recent past just what they keep, and it's largely "what they absolutely have to." Apple's corporate culture genuinely seems to be supportive of privacy, albeit tempered with profit-driven pragmatism. This is not an argument that Apple is full of good and wonderful people (I believe the ad copy should be "magical and revolutionary") and that Google is full of terrible people who hate their users. Not at all. And Apple has had a few high-profile privacy biffs where they were collecting information they shouldn't have been, which leads some people to be highly suspicious of them. I get that -- but we're often handing even more data over to Google routinely because that's what they require. That's their corporate culture: their mission is to organize the world's data, and fulfilling that mission requires them to have access to the world's data. All of it. And, last but not least, none of this is particularly relevant to government snooping except to the degree that the less information is stored on a server that isn't under your control the less information there is to be compromised. (At least compromised via that particular vector.) If you're deeply worried about that you shouldn't be using either Apple or Google.
genericuser 12y ago
Is there a good non-google alternative to Docs / Drive. I read the article hoping to find one, but didn't see any mention of one. Having a non-google version of a service which allows collaboration and modification of documents through a web browser, without additional software installed would be nice and I feel it must exist, but don't know where to look. Anyone got a recommendation.
- frabcus 12y ago
  Microsoft's web based Office is surprisingly good. EtherPad and EtherCalc for open source.
- jboynyc 12y ago
  The App Suite provided by mailbox.org is quite good, but I'm not sure how well it does with collaboration.
astrocat 12y ago
> "Like most people, I don't like to be tracked. I also am the founder of the search engine that doesn't track you, DuckDuckGo." It pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being "tracked" as something "bad" a priori. While there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, I tend to think of most "tracking" not as "stalking" but as "relationship building." Let me explain... Google is a service provider that I frequent, just like my coffee roaster or my stock broker or whatever. Over time, service providers develop a relationship with their customers based on knowledge of that customer. This knowledge helps inform how they provide and improve their service. My coffee roaster knows what kinds of coffee I like and makes appropriate recommendations when new beans arrive. My stock broker knows what kinds of risks I like to take and gives appropriate investment direction. Ok, so I don't really have a stock broker but... My point is: I appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first. The problem (as with most things that are hot-button issues) is that the most talked about thing - "tracking" - is a red herring. The REAL issue is accountability. True information lockdown rarely benefits anyone, but openness without accountability is useless and downright dangerous. Suggesting people flee one provider's services and head to other providers who are not concretely more accountable (just because they "say so" doesn't make it true) is simply being petty. We should instead be spending out breath advocating for greater accountability in the system as a whole.
- Semaphor 12y ago
  > My point is: I appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first. That's the reason I always come back to google and search logged in. Almost all my searches are computer or more generally electronic related. On other search engines I get useless results.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first. Really? For that exact query, I get the Wikipedia page for "Salt (Cryptography)", "How to Hash Passwords", and "Salt the Hash - Security tutorial"... you get the idea[0]. AFAIK, the stuff you're seeing at the top is their 'zero click' information, which Google never provided (until after DDG added it and promoted it as a selling point). That's a little hit-or-miss, sure, but the actual search results of DDG are generally just as relevant. I've been using DDG as my primary search engine for years now - I still resort to "!g" searches sometimes, but I have to do it far less than I used to. [0] https://i.imgur.com/qt2Xpfm.png https://i.imgur.com/qt2Xpfm.png
dreamfactory2 12y ago
The bigger problem is that almost every message you send or are sent ends up going through one of goog, fb, or twitter anyway
monokrome 12y ago
I think that recommending BTSync is a bit scary. Instead of accounts and a potentially long brute-force process as provided by Dropbox, BTsync relies on a public and "secret" key having been generated. This seems fine and dandy until you realize that the concept of brute force is an applicable means of getting access to anyone's BTsync if they are using the standard tracker. Given enough storage space and bandwidth, someone could just create any number of shared folders assigning them all a different set of keys (this doesn't need to be done one-at-a-time) and wait for data to fall into them. Doesn't this completely sidestep the concept of the data being supposedly secure in BTsync?
- jamoes 12y ago
  As long as the secret has enough bits, then the risk of collision is so negligible that it's basically zero in our finite world. I think the concept of just how large some numbers are really sunk in for me when I read this article [1] from Bruce Schneier. One thing I learned was that it would require more energy than the total energy output of the sun just to power a computer to count to 2^256. Ultimately, this quote from that article sums up his point well: > These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_...
goldhand 12y ago
Who has time for this? Google can track me all they want but I'm not that interesting of a person to track :)
jacquesm 12y ago
It's sad that the only alternatives he can come up with for one set of cloud based services by one set of providers is another set of cloud based services by another set of providers.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
_lce0 12y ago
google is not a "search engine" anymore.. so why would I keep using it for? all services that I keep using, are those that kept me from going somewhere else (gmail replacement?), or those that I'm forced to use (not-removable android apps?) so seems to me, I'm stuck with google -- at least for now
lvs 12y ago
This website is somehow blocked for me: This Page Cannot Be Displayed Based on your corporate access policies, this web site ( http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html ) has been blocked because it has been determined by Web Reputation Filters to be a security threat to your computer or the corporate network. This web site has been associated with malware/spyware. Threat Type: othermalware Threat Reason: IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS. If you have questions, please contact your corporate network administrator and provide the codes shown below. Notification codes: (1, MALWARE, othermalware, IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS., BLOCK-MALWARE, 0x037419bb, 1409690418.913, AAAEOQAAAAAAAAAAJf8ACP8AAAD/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAE=, http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html)
- itazula 12y ago
  Same here, the "web reputation" is low according to SenderBase. See http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/?search_string=www.gabrielweinberg.com http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/?search_string=www.gabrielw... "Fwd/Rev DNS Match" is said by SenderBase to be "Unknown" (this is odd). Checking on my laptop: $ dig +short www.gabrielweinberg.com gabrielweinberg.com. 96.227.124.38 $ dig +short -x 96.227.124.38 blink.duckduckgo.com. It is on the Verizon FiOS network, which has a number of poor reputation hosts: http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Verizon%20FiOS http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Verizon%... The site appears within the CBL too, which gives some details: IP Address 96.227.124.38 is listed in the CBL. It appears to be infected with a spam sending trojan, proxy or some other form of botnet. It was last detected at 2014-09-03 06:00 GMT (+/- 30 minutes), approximately 4 hours ago. This IP address is infected with, or is NATting for a machine infected with "Gameover Zeus" or "GOZ" - previously it has been referred to as "ZeusV3" or "p2pzeus". GOZ is a version of the ZeuS malware that uses peer-to-peer (P2P) command and control mechanisms.
NicoJuicy 12y ago
Personally, a bunch of your suggestions are based on Apple = severly censored, anti-competitive,... i REALLY don't like that. If walking away from Google means switching to Apple, then it's a no-go for me. I'll rather have Microsoft ( fyi. i'm mainly a c# developer, but also python, RoR and nodejs )
alex_duf 12y ago
And for everyone ready to self-host, yunohost.org is a great and super easy solution to host email, calendar, files etc... I would recommend, I think this distribution doesn't have the popularity it deserves.
alpatters 12y ago
> "Practically, switching away from as many Google services as possible will help alleviate the most obvious issues like most of your personal data being in the hands of one company and the related issue of ads following you around the Internet." Ads that follow you has absolutely nothing to do with Google services. These are retargeting companies using their cookies to track you. They use ad exchanges, so even that is not principally Google.
mark_l_watson 12y ago
Until recently, I also was very concerned with privacy, partly not wanting my personal data available easily to many large corporations, and also wanting to keep resources for client work very secure. What changed is that I have retired (except for some mentoring and writing). Now, I would like the tech side of my life to be as simple as possible in order to free up my time for other activities. So for right now I am massively using Google services but I am considering, depending on how much I like the iPhone 6, just living in Apple's little walled garden. I trust both Apple and Google to generally do the right things. I still advise friends and family to run Adblock software, and to be generally prudent privacy and security wise. But for me personally privacy issues are not as important as they once were.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Looking forward to use instead of Google's Hangouts: Signal on the desktop.
mentaat 12y ago
you can use most google services without google "tracking" you - search, chrome, gmail, youtube, gmaps etc. and for years i did just that but what makes google insanely useful is that the more it knows about you the better its services become for you. iow, as the amount of data you give google increases the useful the services become. but google is still incredible useful even if you don't give it any data.
Cowicide 12y ago
For those of you in this thread that are dismayed that some of us don't enjoy being tracked, I highly recommend a short, entertaining documentary that's currently available on Netflix, iTunes, etc. called: Terms and Conditions May Apply http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_apply/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_app... http://tacma.net/ http://tacma.net/ Actually, I think even some privacy-conscious folks might learn a thing or two from it as well. I know I did. :)
wcummings 12y ago
I use fastmail, I'm happy to pay for an email service instead of seeing ads
tehwalrus 12y ago
Fastmail still has hardware inside the US; not a viable alternative to Google, privacy-wise. (have just checked out MyKolab, they seem pretty awesome, although alas too expensive for me right now.)
patrickaljord 12y ago
Another day, another anti-google article by the duckduckgo guy, more FUD.
xamdam 12y ago
"But what do you use for search when you can't find it with DDG" is my question. (I do not work for the answer)
- zanny 12y ago
  Startpage?
molixiaoge 12y ago
great
thomasfoster96 12y ago
The problem that many people (me included) have with being tracked is usually that they don't know what's being tracked and/or how it is being used and stored. DuckDuckGo thinks that the solution is to stop tracking altogether, when really I'd be happy with just a search engine that was more transparent with what they were storing and using.
icantthinkofone 12y ago
Interesting he uses Google Analytics as a "Google is tracking you" story when the real trackers are the companies that put Analytics on their web site. And all that tracking is now from a company they only bought relatively recently (Double Click) that had been tracking you long before Google bought them. But Google isn't the only company that does this and it's been done in far more places than just the web and not by Google and for decades. Tracking you by marketing companies has been happening since I was growing up in the 60s. The only difference between then and now is it's also happening on the new internet thing. Everything else tracks you, too.
contingencies 12y ago
Fastmail would be more attractive if they accepted bitcoin.
- robn_fastmail 12y ago
  We're actually testing bitcoin payments at the moment. If you want to take the time to contact support, we can tell you how to use it.
x0x0 12y ago
Is there a good, paid, gmail alternative with the same conversations, labels, keyboard controls, and decent search? Ideally with both webmail, calendar, and an app? Also, ideally not associated with microsoft, yahoo, or even the valley? I keep seeing fastmail but it looks like just another email provider. I keep pondering creating a service like this for say $40/year, but I'd rather to it than build it. I'm currently a tuffmail subscriber but I really want gmail with a clone of their android app, just in exchange for money and a strong privacy policy.
- nmjenkins 12y ago
  FastMail has conversations, keyboard controls and decent search, with both webmail and calendar and is $40/year for a 15GB account… (Disclaimer: I work for FastMail. But seriously, it sounds like we might be just what you're looking for).
  - b3n 12y ago
    Only issue I have with FastMail is they don't accept Bitcoin.
    - robn_fastmail 12y ago
      We're actually testing bitcoin payments at the moment. If you want to take the time to contact support, we can tell you how to use it.
  - x0x0 12y ago
    thank you; when I looked at your site it didn't seem like mail had gmail conversations
mikebay 12y ago
I really do not like google or they spying.
iamgopal 12y ago
This is like being in a marriage, your privacy is at risk, but at the same time, if given security and support and comfort, you can actually put your privacy at risk for benefit.

424 points by lnmx 12y ago

> Email: Fastmail I recently migrated to Fastmail, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was. Fastmail automatically imports your emails from Gmail, and it took me so little time that I kicked myself for not doing it before. > Calendar: iCloud For those of us who don't use both OS X and iOS, this isn't feasible. Fortunately, though, Fastmail also provides a calendar service. It synchronizes with Google Calendar in case you still need to use Google (e.g. for work), and it was also a seamless switch. As for a client, I was very surprised by this, but I've actually found that the latest version of Mozilla Lightning[0] is the best calendar interface. Fastmail's is okay, but still in beta (it's less than a year old). Setting up Lightning to sync with Fastmail's calendar took just a minute, and I actually like the interface more than I liked Google Calendar's[1]. Thunderbird is an okay mail client (not a terrible interface, but not a great one), but even if you don't use Thunderbird for mail, I would recommend trying out Lightning for calendaring. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28software%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_%28software%29 [1] It's okay for viewing events in the week view, but there are a lot of UI quirks and bugs that catch up with you after daily use - this one is the most pernicious, but there are a number that are simply annoying as well: http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/how-google-calendar-can-tip-off-your-boss-you-want-a-raise/ http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/01/how-google-calendar-... [2] [2] Since I know people will ask - I consider this a UI issue because it's fairly easy to imagine a minor UI improvement that would indicate this unexpected result of Quick Add (and others) before clicking "Add" without sacrificing this functionality in case it is desired.

dhragoon 12y ago

"Apple Maps"? This is shameless. Not sure how to reconcile that with the seemingly mandatory PRISM invocations, the post was almost stomachable up until the Apple cameo especially with the recent privacy headlines. At Least recommend something that isn't a huge downgrade in functionality, an OSM client or something. I'm sure that Apple adding DDG to Safari is the reason for this thinly veiled reciprocity. Privacy or not these are people selling their wares and they are willing to be sleazy about it, this is not unlike the bullshit post about the fake cell antennas and the magical ROM that detected them that is making the rounds, it's disheartening.

avar 12y ago
I find it most interesting that he doesn't use some map provider using OpenStreetMap data because that's what embedded in the DuckDuckGo search results: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amsterdam https://duckduckgo.com/?q=amsterdam
- rentnorove 12y ago
  Excellent though it is, they're using MapBox, which really only caters for the embed-a-map use-case, and not general purpose browsing/route planning.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  Apple Maps does use Open Street Map data.
napoleond 12y ago
> I'm sure that Apple adding DDG to Safari is the reason for this thinly veiled reciprocity. It seems unlikely that anyone other than Gabe could be sure of his intentions. At any rate, I assume he also uses Apple Maps for directions... if you know of any good non-Google/Apple competitors for that I would be very interested to hear about them.
- pavlov 12y ago
  Here by Nokia (the independent company, not the division sold to Microsoft): http://here.com http://here.com Excellent maps and navigation in my experience.
  - ankitml 12y ago
    I find them far superior to google maps (for cities in India)
  - coffeecheque 12y ago
    Thanks for that. Looks good. Pity there's no HTTPS though. Do you know/can you recommend any other OSM providers? Here.com is one of the best I've come across, but I'm wondering if there are any others.

ape4 12y ago

I was hoping this was suggestions for services you can host yourself. Switching from Google to Apple doesn't really change much.

cik 12y ago
Maybe I can oblige here then :) owncloud, owncloud, owncloud! It has CalDAV, CardDAV, and files support. There's even a rudimentary (though scary) online editor with support for openoffice. I use two-factor with owncloud, and happily share files, too. And... it supports an encrypted backend!. Now, if you're happy to host your own mail, you can also look at adding RoundCube. This can solve the Calendar/Contacts/Email/Filesharing main case. Works across Windws/Mac/Linux, even mobile... which in my case is Android. It's not amazing, but it's pretty fantastic.
- privong 12y ago
  > I use two-factor with owncloud, What are you using for the two-factor?
  - cik 12y ago
    owncloud has two-factor support via Google Authenticator, I'm happy enough there. I use Authy to sync the tokens between my devices. Full caveat though: I never have a single device with both my tokens, and synced password database - just in case memory dumps of phones/tablets become valid. So, I dump my password database to my tablet, whereas I sync my authy tokens between two phones.
    - privong 12y ago
      What owncloud plugin, I mean. I have not been able to locate 2FA in the OC config, and my searching for plugins has had mixed results.
      - cik 12y ago
        Sorry, that was daft of me. I'm using One Time Password Backend (http://apps.owncloud.com/content/show.php/One+Time+Password+Backend?content=159196 http://apps.owncloud.com/content/show.php/One+Time+Password+...), but again, with OC6... until tonight.

larrys 12y ago

While it's not trivial it's not that hard to spin up a mail server on a VPS (which can run smtp, imap and/or webmail). For that matter you can run it off a static internet connection or even a dynamic IP from your home or office PC. (Running linux or Mac OSX never done it with windows although I'm sure you can).

sosborn 12y ago
Spinning it up is easy. Maintaining it is arguably not.
- larrys 12y ago
  "Maintaining it is arguably not." Do you have anything in particular you'd like to offer to back that up? Have you ever done this? (I do and have done since the mid 90's on various equipment and I'm no Eric Raymond exactly either). We're not talking about running the mail server on a commercial ISP or a company with 20,000 employees. Just running a mail server to take care of your own mail.
- _delirium 12y ago
  I find it pretty easy to maintain. Well really, Postfix and Debian do the hard work of actual maintenance. I just apply updates.
eropple 12y ago
You can then get shotgunned by spam filters, too. =( Running your own mail is not for the timid.
- jerf 12y ago
  There's a difference between running a mail server for incoming mail, and one for outgoing mail. I use my local Comcast SMTP servers for outgoing on the (so far 100% correct) theory that nobody can afford to blanket blacklist those. Incoming you don't have to worry about getting blacklisted. You have to worry about spam, but, well... that's sort of a constant nowadays. My current solution is to use Thunderbird to filter everything on my primary machine and it's Good Enough. If you want webmail YMMV, though. Honestly, if you're just one or two mailboxes, it's not that big a deal to maintain. And I've been Joe-jobbed, so it's not like I haven't been exposed to some fury. Still not that big a deal.

napoleond 12y ago

Another Fastmail endorsement--they really are fantastic. I confess to still using Gmail for some things but it's mostly just because I've been too lazy to switch over all of my accounts. Fastmail is truly a better service. As for calendar, I've heard good things about https://fruux.com/ https://fruux.com/ although I haven't tried that myself yet. (And apparently Fastmail does calendar too--again, haven't tried.)

dannysu 12y ago
Another vote for FastMail calendar. Give it a shot. I find that it integrates really well with Gmail. I've had experience before where invites from different email providers don't play well, but FastMail sending invite to Gmail works just fine.
thenomad 12y ago
Is their spam filtering good? That's the primary reason I'm sticking with Google Apps for now.
- lobster_johnson 12y ago
  Not very. It's basically SpamAssassin [1]. I have trained it with tens of thousands of emails, but it keeps letting obvious stuff through. On the other hand, I have had zero problems with false positives, which used to be a huge problem back when I was using Gmail. [1] https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technical/spamchecks.html https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technical/spamchecks.html
- dewey 12y ago
  Just to give you another data point: I don't get any spam on fastmail, it works well for me.
- songgao 12y ago
  Coming from Google Apps and currently using Fastmail: It's not as good as Gmail. I still get spams in my Inbox but they are not really a deal breaker. I've been using Fastmail for over 3 months and I'm rather happy about it (just paid for a yearly subscription). I'd suggest you to try it out with a 3 month subscription. You can always switch back; it's just a couple MX records after all. Oh btw, fastmail also has CalDav (Calendar only; no Tasks) and It's been working well for me too.

sergiotapia 12y ago

That's all fine and dandy - however most of the time when I'm working as a consultant, I'm created an email account on the company's domain. Typically hosted on, you guessed it, Google Apps. For some people leaving Google is literally not an option, and that's a shame.

wfjackson 12y ago
Well, at least they have recently stopped tracking of emails in the paid Google Apps for Business to build an ad profile. http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/protecting-students-with-google-apps.html http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/protecting-st...
praveenster 12y ago
Have you tried Zoho? I have used both and it comes pretty close to Google Apps and additionally they still offer a free option.

spindritf 12y ago

OK, there's some value in diversifying instead of using one provider for everything but mostly he just swapped Apple, Fastmail, or Clicky in place of Google. They can still track him, read his email, know his calendar... The benefit here is marginal. And how do those companies stack up against Google when it comes to security? It's one thing to protect the data against snooping by the provider, it's anoter to protect it from everyone else. Google is pretty solid, often on the cutting edge (PFS, certificate pinning).

oconnore 12y ago
The difference between data privacy now, and data privacy 10 or 20 years ago has little to do with how many people have access to it, or how secure it is. It mostly has to do with who can analyze it. An example: where you walk in public is public information, but for most of human history, no one has had the capability to keep a database of that information and query it retroactively. Your location information is therefore less private now than it was before, because that information used to be impossible to reference meaningfully. The same concept goes for email, calendars, contact graphs, etc. Using providers that don't have, or consciously avoid the capability to aggregate, analyze, and query it improves your privacy. Google is not one of those providers.
- lallysingh 12y ago
  is Apple?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - theshrike79 12y ago
    Apple's business model doesn't rely on storing personal information, they get their money from devices and apps and services made for those devices sold through their store. They are the one company that has the ability to really push for user privacy, it's a route Google cannot follow - it would hurt their core business (advertising) too much.

zobzu 12y ago

Mostly its using Apple stuff instead of Google stuff.. thanks but no thanks

nodata 12y ago

Storage: BTSync -> syncthing (http://syncthing.net/ http://syncthing.net/)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hoopism 12y ago

Where I shop instead of Walmart: Sams Club

acheron 12y ago

One thing I've been looking to replace is Google News. Anyone know of another similar news aggregator? (Don't say "reddit".)

awhitty 12y ago
SkimFeed[0] aggregates mostly tech news, but it's not nearly as feature-heavy as Google News. Maybe check it out? 0 - http://skimfeed.com/ http://skimfeed.com/
ximpathy 12y ago
Circa News (mobile app only) each story is an aggregation of multiple sources
pessimizer 12y ago
Maybe http://popurls.com/ http://popurls.com/ ?
mgreg 12y ago
If you're looking for tech news techmeme is about the best. http://techmeme.com http://techmeme.com
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

Morphling 12y ago

>Phone OS: iOS I guess there isn't much you can do with this, but is changing from Android to iOS really big enough difference?

natch 12y ago
As he said, degrees matter. By which I guess he means differences of degree. The two companies involved (Google, Apple) have a fundamental difference in their business model. One involves you and your private data as the product; the other does not.
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  If what you care about is privacy, I really don't think iOS is appreciably better than Android. (Not marginally or theoretically - I mean practically). If you're looking to be as private as possible[0], you should either use a custom ROM of Android with Privacy Guard and with Google services disabled (or use something like Replicant or FirefoxOS, if you're comfortable straying from the two dominant mobile OSes). [0] As private as possible while still carrying around a tracking device 24/7, mind you (cell phones constantly report your location to your carriers, who are not at all modest with this data)
fidotron 12y ago
Yes. Google+, by default, likes to grab all pictures taken with the device camera (and most stupidly will then say they're ready to be shared - because every photo is for sharing . . . ) The worst is Google Play Services though. It's basically a way for Google to get your location data, and to generate massive global maps of WiFi networks, rather like what got them in trouble with the streetmap cars. Anyone doubting how important this is to them needs to check their reaction when Motorola wanted to use Skyhook on a device instead: http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung#3 http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...
- ismavis 12y ago
  >Yes. Google+, by default, likes to grab all pictures taken with the device camera Google+ photos auto-upload is opt-in.

Oletros 12y ago

Browser: Safari / ... Maps: ... / Apple for directions on mobile Phone OS: iOS Calendar: iCloud And then talks about data not given to one company. Really, is it just a strange joke?

k__ 12y ago
He's the CEO of DuckDuckGo and promotes to use it instead of Google, so what's to expect?
- Oletros 12y ago
  Are iCloud, iOS, Apple Maps or Safari part of DDG?
  - k__ 12y ago
    No, but since some of his suggestions are DDG and he is the DDG CEO, questioning his integrity doesn't seem so far-fetched.
  - skeletonjelly 12y ago
    Isn't DDG in the upcoming iOS release though?
eertami 12y ago
I thought it was satire because >I don't like to be tracked. >Phone OS: iOS, etc But now I think it is serious, if not highly deluded.
- atonse 12y ago
  It's actually quite simple: follow the money. Apple makes little to no money by invading your privacy. They've already made money once you bought their hardware. Which is why they will be a much better champion of your privacy. However, companies like Google and Facebook make almost 100% of their revenue by knowing every detail they possibly can about your life. That's why they try to commoditize hardware and place all the value in your personal information.

lvillani 12y ago

Personally, I have a VPS where I keep my own mail server, webmail, ownCloud instance (calendar, address book, file storage, etc), IRC bouncer... All courtesy of Sovereign (https://github.com/al3x/sovereign https://github.com/al3x/sovereign)

cellover 12y ago
Very interesting resource, thanks for posting ; even if not for the playbook itself, the collection of tools is interesting. Having your own server is definetely a good solution, it just needs experience and comes at a certain price, even if it stays reasonnable. But most people just don't want to be bothered with maintaining the box (hosting payment, security updates, domain name renewal, SSL ceritificate renewal and so on). However, it is a fantastic way of learning by yourself!
- lvillani 12y ago
  Well, if you use the supported Debian 7 pointing Ansible to your box is all that's needed. Since I decided to go with Ubuntu 14.04 (unofficially supported), it took a little longer and I had to submit a couple of patches to make it work there. The "hardest" part was figuring out how to set-up the DKIM and SPF records in my registrar's DNS control panel (namecheap). Other than that, I don't really have to babysit the thing: I get a weekly logrotate report by email and rarely, if ever, SSH into the box to check that everything works. From time to time I re-run the Ansible script to ensure everything is in proper order but, still, I almost never have to spend more than 10 minutes a fortnight.

dan_bk 12y ago

> On top of the browser I use these add-ons to reduce tracking further; also, note that private browsing mode and the do not track setting will not stop you from being tracked. (Almost) nobody can escape the tracking, as long as fingerprinting remains possible: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Google's/Facebook's/Twitter's JS scripts are literally on every site. Fingerprinting allows them to increase their ROI since it builds more precise profiles on you. The advertising industry is happy and the government is happy. So forget about them not fingerprinting you.

Semaphor 12y ago
Plugins on click to play, use a plugin that changes your user agent every few minutes, disable plugin list enumeration. And suddenly the best information they can get is your HTTP accept string.
dublinben 12y ago
Most fingerprinting can be avoided by not allowing Javascript. Social tracking scripts can be specifically removed by addons like Disconnect.me.

elliottpayne 12y ago

I switched to fastmail and duckduckgo in lieu of google products a little over a year ago for some of the same reasons. I tried to switch to safari from chrome, and that experiment lasted about 3 months before I got annoyed by how safari handles multiple tabs. But, as far as most of the criticisms posted here, they're really unfounded. If you want to be a purist about privacy, you really have to just quit using technology. It's not realistic. Yes, you can be an idealist and try to run your own email server, etc. but it's really about balancing tradeoffs. I also use Apple maps and iCloud and dropbox and Evernote and... many other services we should give just as much scrutiny to as Google. I don't see my choices as being about riding a high-horse, it's about a diversified portfolio of services that helps me avoid total lock-in. The day that google heavily oversteps with the G+ product strategy or twitter completely goes to shit, I've got a series of alternative services that can pick up the slack.

toxican 12y ago
My thing isn't that I don't trust any one particular Google product. It's that I don't feel safe putting all of my eggs into one basket. A year ago, Google was my phone, my search engine, my email, video hosting, my DNS, my IM service (GTalk when it was still a thing), and cloud storage system. That's a lot of personal stuff all tied together under one account. So I split things up. I hosted some stuff where I could (email and online storage) and used different services/products where I couldn't. But I also continue to use Google for my search engine. I don't really see it as a question of if Google will screw up with people's data, it's a question of when.
- anaktos 12y ago
  By the time when, Google will be our overlords. Running the world with no one to be able to resist their ironclad rule. Because they know you, they know where your most loved live, what you need most to live, what your habits are, what medications you need. Doesn't that sound bit too pessimistic? Of course it does. You already trusted Google, why trust another company and risk your data? What if, from the 10 companies you trust your data with, 2 of the go rogue and use your data against you? OR what if they get hacked, and lose everything? That's what I fear more than giving too much data to Google. I'd rather trust one super reliable guy (Google), than trusting 5 (Self hosting) maybe trust-able, 3 shady guys, and 2 unreliable guys. But that's just me, I make sure all my accounts have 2 step auth.

Sir_Cmpwn 12y ago

Video hosting: https://mediacru.sh https://mediacru.sh Benefits over Vimeo: FOSS, deployable on your own servers, pro-privacy, also supports audio and images. I helped make it, so take this with a grain of salt.

kungfooguru 12y ago

tl;dr: give your data to Apple instead of Google because...?

wfjackson 12y ago
Because Apple's free services are a value add to increase their device sales off which they make a ton of money, while Google's free services are typically monetized with targeted advertising based on a profile built off your private data, so they tend to collect and retain a lot of it.
- mentaat 12y ago
  except google collecting data doesn't mean google shares that data with advertisers. its a common misconception of how the ad model works. moreover google has one of the best records of security for a consumer facing company. your data is more safe with google than apple - no question about that.

personlurking 12y ago

In the face of nefarious agencies and companies that track, I don't think there's a 'best' option to switch to, per se, only a harder (to be tracked) option. Tracking, in my belief, still goes on, in one way or another. So what are we left with? Trying as hard as possible to use online services for work (assuming that's your bread and butter) and to be in the real world for leisure, etc. Not always possible, and less possible as the years go on, but a lot better than thinking one (popular) online service will be a safe haven from another.

wstrange 12y ago

I sleep comfortably at night knowing my private photos are stored safely on iCloud.

rakoo 12y ago
and on everyone's computer after the leak of the day, too.

rizumu 12y ago

The PRISM break list is far more comprehensive: https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org

thewolf 12y ago

do you work for apple?

MichaelGG 12y ago

I, too, am very unhappy with Google. They're obviously intentionally trying to get people to get used to giving up privacy. From the moronic system Android has, to the tricky dialogs Chrome puts up, they don't like the anti-tracking sentiment. But... DuckDuckGo just doesn't compete on search results. I changed to it as my default search engine, but I ended up going to Google most of the time. And switching away from Android... I tried to move to Windows 8 / Phone, but the ecosystem is a joke. Desktop apps don't work well on their small tablet form factor, and the Metro apps are laughably terrible. Microsoft can't even prevent total scams, like $9 fake Netflix and HBO. And they ignore reports about them.

Valseuss 12y ago
Apple spies on you as much as google, without a doubt. They're just not as open about it. After all, why wouldn't they do it when it helps them build "better" products that make them more money.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago

I did not know iOS and Apple Maps are more privacy centric than Android and Google Maps. Is that really true?

chipotle_coyote 12y ago
I'm sure people will leap out to argue with me when I say yes, but: yes. I don't say this out of a belief that Apple is pure and Google is evil, and certainly not out of a belief that Apple shows a deep understanding of security (boy, howdy, do they not show a deep understanding of security). I say it out of my understanding of their business models. Basically, Apple makes money from you because you give them money. Google makes money from you by analyzing the data you send through their services. "If you're not the customer, you're the product" is too glib by half -- both Google and Apple want to make good products that you want to use, and it's certainly in Google's interest to keep their users (i.e., you) happy. They're arguably much better at online services than Apple is. But Google has a vested interest in "reading" your mail, tracking your searches, and so on. Apple not only lacks that interest, it's arguably a competitive advantage for them to not keep any more information about you than they absolutely have to. They've spelled out in the recent past just what they keep, and it's largely "what they absolutely have to." Apple's corporate culture genuinely seems to be supportive of privacy, albeit tempered with profit-driven pragmatism. This is not an argument that Apple is full of good and wonderful people (I believe the ad copy should be "magical and revolutionary") and that Google is full of terrible people who hate their users. Not at all. And Apple has had a few high-profile privacy biffs where they were collecting information they shouldn't have been, which leads some people to be highly suspicious of them. I get that -- but we're often handing even more data over to Google routinely because that's what they require. That's their corporate culture: their mission is to organize the world's data, and fulfilling that mission requires them to have access to the world's data. All of it. And, last but not least, none of this is particularly relevant to government snooping except to the degree that the less information is stored on a server that isn't under your control the less information there is to be compromised. (At least compromised via that particular vector.) If you're deeply worried about that you shouldn't be using either Apple or Google.

genericuser 12y ago

Is there a good non-google alternative to Docs / Drive. I read the article hoping to find one, but didn't see any mention of one. Having a non-google version of a service which allows collaboration and modification of documents through a web browser, without additional software installed would be nice and I feel it must exist, but don't know where to look. Anyone got a recommendation.

frabcus 12y ago
Microsoft's web based Office is surprisingly good. EtherPad and EtherCalc for open source.
jboynyc 12y ago
The App Suite provided by mailbox.org is quite good, but I'm not sure how well it does with collaboration.

astrocat 12y ago

> "Like most people, I don't like to be tracked. I also am the founder of the search engine that doesn't track you, DuckDuckGo." It pains me to hear intelligent people talk about being "tracked" as something "bad" a priori. While there are certainly plenty of examples of abuse of knowledge, I tend to think of most "tracking" not as "stalking" but as "relationship building." Let me explain... Google is a service provider that I frequent, just like my coffee roaster or my stock broker or whatever. Over time, service providers develop a relationship with their customers based on knowledge of that customer. This knowledge helps inform how they provide and improve their service. My coffee roaster knows what kinds of coffee I like and makes appropriate recommendations when new beans arrive. My stock broker knows what kinds of risks I like to take and gives appropriate investment direction. Ok, so I don't really have a stock broker but... My point is: I appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first. The problem (as with most things that are hot-button issues) is that the most talked about thing - "tracking" - is a red herring. The REAL issue is accountability. True information lockdown rarely benefits anyone, but openness without accountability is useless and downright dangerous. Suggesting people flee one provider's services and head to other providers who are not concretely more accountable (just because they "say so" doesn't make it true) is simply being petty. We should instead be spending out breath advocating for greater accountability in the system as a whole.

Semaphor 12y ago
> My point is: I appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first. That's the reason I always come back to google and search logged in. Almost all my searches are computer or more generally electronic related. On other search engines I get useless results.
chimeracoder 12y ago
> appreciate that google is aware enough to know that when I search for "hash salt" I'm not talking about potatoes. DDG shows me recipes and first. Really? For that exact query, I get the Wikipedia page for "Salt (Cryptography)", "How to Hash Passwords", and "Salt the Hash - Security tutorial"... you get the idea[0]. AFAIK, the stuff you're seeing at the top is their 'zero click' information, which Google never provided (until after DDG added it and promoted it as a selling point). That's a little hit-or-miss, sure, but the actual search results of DDG are generally just as relevant. I've been using DDG as my primary search engine for years now - I still resort to "!g" searches sometimes, but I have to do it far less than I used to. [0] https://i.imgur.com/qt2Xpfm.png https://i.imgur.com/qt2Xpfm.png

dreamfactory2 12y ago

The bigger problem is that almost every message you send or are sent ends up going through one of goog, fb, or twitter anyway

monokrome 12y ago

I think that recommending BTSync is a bit scary. Instead of accounts and a potentially long brute-force process as provided by Dropbox, BTsync relies on a public and "secret" key having been generated. This seems fine and dandy until you realize that the concept of brute force is an applicable means of getting access to anyone's BTsync if they are using the standard tracker. Given enough storage space and bandwidth, someone could just create any number of shared folders assigning them all a different set of keys (this doesn't need to be done one-at-a-time) and wait for data to fall into them. Doesn't this completely sidestep the concept of the data being supposedly secure in BTsync?

jamoes 12y ago
As long as the secret has enough bits, then the risk of collision is so negligible that it's basically zero in our finite world. I think the concept of just how large some numbers are really sunk in for me when I read this article [1] from Bruce Schneier. One thing I learned was that it would require more energy than the total energy output of the sun just to power a computer to count to 2^256. Ultimately, this quote from that article sums up his point well: > These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space. [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_cr.html https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/09/the_doghouse_...

goldhand 12y ago

Who has time for this? Google can track me all they want but I'm not that interesting of a person to track :)

jacquesm 12y ago

It's sad that the only alternatives he can come up with for one set of cloud based services by one set of providers is another set of cloud based services by another set of providers.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

_lce0 12y ago

google is not a "search engine" anymore.. so why would I keep using it for? all services that I keep using, are those that kept me from going somewhere else (gmail replacement?), or those that I'm forced to use (not-removable android apps?) so seems to me, I'm stuck with google -- at least for now

lvs 12y ago

This website is somehow blocked for me: This Page Cannot Be Displayed Based on your corporate access policies, this web site ( http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html ) has been blocked because it has been determined by Web Reputation Filters to be a security threat to your computer or the corporate network. This web site has been associated with malware/spyware. Threat Type: othermalware Threat Reason: IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS. If you have questions, please contact your corporate network administrator and provide the codes shown below. Notification codes: (1, MALWARE, othermalware, IP address is either verified as a bot or has misconfigured DNS., BLOCK-MALWARE, 0x037419bb, 1409690418.913, AAAEOQAAAAAAAAAAJf8ACP8AAAD/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAE=, http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2014/09/what-i-use-instead-of-google-services.html)

itazula 12y ago
Same here, the "web reputation" is low according to SenderBase. See http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/?search_string=www.gabrielweinberg.com http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/?search_string=www.gabrielw... "Fwd/Rev DNS Match" is said by SenderBase to be "Unknown" (this is odd). Checking on my laptop: $ dig +short www.gabrielweinberg.com gabrielweinberg.com. 96.227.124.38 $ dig +short -x 96.227.124.38 blink.duckduckgo.com. It is on the Verizon FiOS network, which has a number of poor reputation hosts: http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Verizon%20FiOS http://www.senderbase.org/lookup/org/?search_string=Verizon%... The site appears within the CBL too, which gives some details: IP Address 96.227.124.38 is listed in the CBL. It appears to be infected with a spam sending trojan, proxy or some other form of botnet. It was last detected at 2014-09-03 06:00 GMT (+/- 30 minutes), approximately 4 hours ago. This IP address is infected with, or is NATting for a machine infected with "Gameover Zeus" or "GOZ" - previously it has been referred to as "ZeusV3" or "p2pzeus". GOZ is a version of the ZeuS malware that uses peer-to-peer (P2P) command and control mechanisms.

NicoJuicy 12y ago

Personally, a bunch of your suggestions are based on Apple = severly censored, anti-competitive,... i REALLY don't like that. If walking away from Google means switching to Apple, then it's a no-go for me. I'll rather have Microsoft ( fyi. i'm mainly a c# developer, but also python, RoR and nodejs )

alex_duf 12y ago

And for everyone ready to self-host, yunohost.org is a great and super easy solution to host email, calendar, files etc... I would recommend, I think this distribution doesn't have the popularity it deserves.

alpatters 12y ago

> "Practically, switching away from as many Google services as possible will help alleviate the most obvious issues like most of your personal data being in the hands of one company and the related issue of ads following you around the Internet." Ads that follow you has absolutely nothing to do with Google services. These are retargeting companies using their cookies to track you. They use ad exchanges, so even that is not principally Google.

mark_l_watson 12y ago

Until recently, I also was very concerned with privacy, partly not wanting my personal data available easily to many large corporations, and also wanting to keep resources for client work very secure. What changed is that I have retired (except for some mentoring and writing). Now, I would like the tech side of my life to be as simple as possible in order to free up my time for other activities. So for right now I am massively using Google services but I am considering, depending on how much I like the iPhone 6, just living in Apple's little walled garden. I trust both Apple and Google to generally do the right things. I still advise friends and family to run Adblock software, and to be generally prudent privacy and security wise. But for me personally privacy issues are not as important as they once were.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Looking forward to use instead of Google's Hangouts: Signal on the desktop.

mentaat 12y ago

you can use most google services without google "tracking" you - search, chrome, gmail, youtube, gmaps etc. and for years i did just that but what makes google insanely useful is that the more it knows about you the better its services become for you. iow, as the amount of data you give google increases the useful the services become. but google is still incredible useful even if you don't give it any data.

Cowicide 12y ago

For those of you in this thread that are dismayed that some of us don't enjoy being tracked, I highly recommend a short, entertaining documentary that's currently available on Netflix, iTunes, etc. called: Terms and Conditions May Apply http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_apply/ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/terms_and_conditions_may_app... http://tacma.net/ http://tacma.net/ Actually, I think even some privacy-conscious folks might learn a thing or two from it as well. I know I did. :)

wcummings 12y ago

I use fastmail, I'm happy to pay for an email service instead of seeing ads

tehwalrus 12y ago

Fastmail still has hardware inside the US; not a viable alternative to Google, privacy-wise. (have just checked out MyKolab, they seem pretty awesome, although alas too expensive for me right now.)

patrickaljord 12y ago

Another day, another anti-google article by the duckduckgo guy, more FUD.

xamdam 12y ago

"But what do you use for search when you can't find it with DDG" is my question. (I do not work for the answer)

zanny 12y ago
Startpage?

molixiaoge 12y ago

great

thomasfoster96 12y ago

The problem that many people (me included) have with being tracked is usually that they don't know what's being tracked and/or how it is being used and stored. DuckDuckGo thinks that the solution is to stop tracking altogether, when really I'd be happy with just a search engine that was more transparent with what they were storing and using.

icantthinkofone 12y ago

Interesting he uses Google Analytics as a "Google is tracking you" story when the real trackers are the companies that put Analytics on their web site. And all that tracking is now from a company they only bought relatively recently (Double Click) that had been tracking you long before Google bought them. But Google isn't the only company that does this and it's been done in far more places than just the web and not by Google and for decades. Tracking you by marketing companies has been happening since I was growing up in the 60s. The only difference between then and now is it's also happening on the new internet thing. Everything else tracks you, too.

contingencies 12y ago

Fastmail would be more attractive if they accepted bitcoin.

robn_fastmail 12y ago
We're actually testing bitcoin payments at the moment. If you want to take the time to contact support, we can tell you how to use it.

x0x0 12y ago

Is there a good, paid, gmail alternative with the same conversations, labels, keyboard controls, and decent search? Ideally with both webmail, calendar, and an app? Also, ideally not associated with microsoft, yahoo, or even the valley? I keep seeing fastmail but it looks like just another email provider. I keep pondering creating a service like this for say $40/year, but I'd rather to it than build it. I'm currently a tuffmail subscriber but I really want gmail with a clone of their android app, just in exchange for money and a strong privacy policy.

nmjenkins 12y ago
FastMail has conversations, keyboard controls and decent search, with both webmail and calendar and is $40/year for a 15GB account… (Disclaimer: I work for FastMail. But seriously, it sounds like we might be just what you're looking for).
- b3n 12y ago
  Only issue I have with FastMail is they don't accept Bitcoin.
  - robn_fastmail 12y ago
    We're actually testing bitcoin payments at the moment. If you want to take the time to contact support, we can tell you how to use it.
- x0x0 12y ago
  thank you; when I looked at your site it didn't seem like mail had gmail conversations

mikebay 12y ago

I really do not like google or they spying.

iamgopal 12y ago

This is like being in a marriage, your privacy is at risk, but at the same time, if given security and support and comfort, you can actually put your privacy at risk for benefit.