Getting the heck off of G**gle!

sufi

lala
https://passwords.google.com/settings/passwords

I was directed to this page a while ago by some random twitter/blog, when i tried to find it again i couldn’t, to the point that i thought maybe it was just a bad dream, honestly...

It contains the password to my router at home, as well as loads of other sites that are nothing to do with google, that have been sniffed by chrome...

enough is enough

and even if it had been a weird nightmare, that was sufficient mental turbulence to inspire me to start getting my shit off google. Who of course also run my mobile phone.

I also read a blog by a guy who tried to delete google pics, only to find that they were still publishing photos from his phone insecurely online http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/14/8956945/google-photos-collecting-pictures-android-after-delete-app

I already use https://duckduckgo.com/ for searching, tho it's less featured than google, and use incognito browsing when i don't want to be tracked,

I guess i'll need to keep a google account as it's pretty impossible to use android without it,

give me more tips, anecdotes please
 

droid

Well-known member
I was locked out of facebook recently and its given me the impetus to shut it down completely. Their evil has gotten way out of hand.

I think the only way to engage with online tech companies is through shell identities. Fake name and address, fake GPS from decoy phones, fake photos, fake search history - all designed to connect your real interaction to a completely false substitute identity.

Theres a startup idea right there!
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
https://passwords.google.com/settings/passwords

I was directed to this page a while ago by some random twitter/blog, when i tried to find it again i couldn’t, to the point that i thought maybe it was just a bad dream, honestly...

When I go to that site, it just says that my browser isn't updated enough to see what's on the site, so maybe that's a way round it all, or maybe I just cant see what they got on me; either way it made me laugh.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
https://passwords.google.com/settings/passwords

I was directed to this page a while ago by some random twitter/blog, when i tried to find it again i couldn’t, to the point that i thought maybe it was just a bad dream, honestly...

It contains the password to my router at home, as well as loads of other sites that are nothing to do with google, that have been sniffed by chrome...

enough is enough

and even if it had been a weird nightmare, that was sufficient mental turbulence to inspire me to start getting my shit off google. Who of course also run my mobile phone.

I also read a blog by a guy who tried to delete google pics, only to find that they were still publishing photos from his phone insecurely online http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/14/8956945/google-photos-collecting-pictures-android-after-delete-app

I already use https://duckduckgo.com/ for searching, tho it's less featured than google, and use incognito browsing when i don't want to be tracked,

I guess i'll need to keep a google account as it's pretty impossible to use android without it,

give me more tips, anecdotes please

Soon enough, they will run you cars as well. Lovely prospect, right?

Thank heavens I love motorcycles.
 

Woebot

Well-known member
hi sufi

i went to that page - i just got this message

"You don't have any passwords saved in Chrome, or you are not syncing them. Change settings."

i think if you change your settings - or ask chrome not to save your info you'd be fine

i use lastpass for all my passwords. i also have history switched off in chrome and it purges all my cookies when i log out. i don't have anything to hide particularly (privacy is for paedos right?) - i just don't see it is necessary for google to have this information. and of course i'm sure it's probably all tracked anyway...

however i took the view a long while back that i'd put my eggs in one basket - so rather than trust my information to f***book/apple etc I'd just trust it to one company - so i went with google. they have my contacts and emails for instance.

actually google i don't mind.
 

sufi

lala
this, off a mailing list, with Andrew's permission, i like his tactics and systematic approach
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Why do people still appear to trust Google?

I guess others can speak for themselves, but for my part, I don't trust
google at all at a human level. Besides their less-than-open
involvement with the NSA, they're more or less explicitly hostile to
user privacy.

So in terms of what I do about it, I try pretty hard not to trust them
at a technological level. It really is pretty hard to avoid them though.

I never use the main google search interface directly, though I do use
startpage.com, who anonymise and forward search queries to google. I
also use duckduckgo.com, who are more independent, but the results are
not as good for some types of queries.

I generally block cookies from google (cookiemonster), and I block a lot
of the like buttons and so forth (adblock with the easylist/easyprivacy
subscription and some customisation), but it's increasingly hard to use
large parts of the net without accepting google's javascript, and some
of the javascript
tools they provide to people require google cookies being enabled. This
is particularly true when people use google's captcha widget.

I resist use of google groups pretty much entirely. Google docs is
harder though. It's pretty hard to avoid it when clients want to use
google docs to collaboratively work on a document, and I don't know any
other tool to suggest which does that job as well. Wikis have their
place of course, but for simultaneous modification of a single document
with annotation, there's not much else.

I know of no good substitute for google's map search facility, but
outside of search, I use openstreetmaps.org. The actual map data seems
to be at least as complete as Google, and I can use it offline on my
phone, so even apart from the privacy arguments, it's pretty good.

And of course there's no end of people who choose to host with google.
Hard to just not use that chunk of the net.

I'm a technical guy, and I do a lot of server management. In that
context I try to promote alternatives to google software when clients
ask for it. I also make a point of removing references to google's
nameservers in server configurations, which are unfortunately extremely
common, and wind up with google getting a feed of info on people
conencting to various servers. e.g. if a user logs in via ssh, or sends
an email to the server their IP gets looked up in DNS, and that DNS
request often goes to google. Unfortunately this is very often the
default in VPS hosted machines as configured by the hosting provider,
and for example it's what you get if you use a ubuntu or debian docker
container without doing anything special about it.

I have experimentally tried firewalling off google's IP ranges from my
home machine. It really didn't last long. At a user level, it's pretty
hard to get away from google. We can only really disentangle ourselves
from google if we disentangle all the various sites which integrate with
them, and that requires a massive education campaign aimed at site builders.

Unfortunately, when I raise concerns about using google for various
things, I mostly get blank looks. For most people the possibility and
the reasons are not even on their radar.

Regards,
Andrew McNaughton
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 

sufi

lala
from the same thread
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- How the CIA made Google

- Why Google made the NSA

And also the news that Google kept secret the fact that they didn't put
up a fight when asked to hand over all the data they had associated with
3 WikiLeaks staff members to the US:

- Search Warrants Against WikiLeaks Staff: Justice Department, Google &
US Media Silence Threaten Press Freedom
https://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2...ogle-us-media-silence-threaten-press-freedom/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
of course our emails may not be of much interest to the security services, but i'm still unhappy with 900973 intrusive and non-transparent behaviour
 

sufi

lala
just to mention that "google takeout" is completely shit.

i made the mistake years ago of using their generous cloud space allocation to connect to a non-google email account, and now the space is full up, so i need to get the emails off google and back em up locally.
you might expect that google would have a great system for managing bulk stuff in their cloud, unless you remember that they are complete fucking crooks.
There's no export function in gmail :rolleyes: so you have to use their shitty takeout tool which is supposed to bundel up all your google account, so it needs a load of working around to arrange the messages using labels and filters (not just folders ffs that would be too normal).
then you request an export of the set of messages
Export in progress...

Google is creating a copy of files from Mail
This process can take a long time (possibly hours or days) to complete. You'll receive an email when your export is done.
ok that makes sense, even despite the flakey interface, and having to log in again and again... and then wait for an undetermined amount of time
but then when the export is ready, (despite specifying that it should be in reasonably sized 1GB chunks) - it's a 4.7GB download - wankers!
but never mind my internet is fast... give it a try,
unfortunately the download fails to complete again and again, with pathetic messages that aren't documented by the lacklustre google support community. bunch of useless idiots

tldr: just don't trust google with your stuff - all their mighty resources are devoted to grabbing your data, and getting it back is next to impossible.
cunts is actually too good a word to describe these shitbags
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
You heard of Ecosia? Ive been using that as a search engine for over a year now, don't believe they are owned by Alphabet but I could be wrong. Anyway a good chunk of their revenue generated by searches, goes to planting trees, primarily in Africa and Latin America from what I gather. Their financial reports are public.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I use Ecosia search engine, on Brave Browser, which is ostensibly built around privacy but I don't know if they have been audited in that respect.
 

sufi

lala
i use duckduckgo or occasionally qwant for search
getting off gmail is a nightmare though
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah I use a few buffer/pseudonymous google accounts when using Youtube and the like, rather than having my legal name associated with my watch history. I'm sure the dots can be connected somehow, but it would take more of a concerted effort, rather than something easy and automatic.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Plus I have little to no social media presence under my legal name. But what are you trying to do re: getting out of gmail?

You ever try ProtonMail? I'd recommend that, albeit from my limited usage and knowledge of it.
 

sufi

lala
yeah i saw that, disappointing, but good news for their rivals - there are some good alternatives to gmail & protonmail e.g. https://gn.apc.org (apologies for the plug),
it's just been ridiculously hard to get my stuff back off goofle (i did in the end get the gmail export downloads working, but it took a frustrating long time), and i suspect that is their intention
- it's not so easy to run a indie mailserver as it is to run an indie webserver
 
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