If you’re left leaning and want to send a message, do it with your wallet. Switch to tutanota for mails, search with duckduckgo, use f-droid as an app store… No one needs google, it’s just somewhat inconvenient to get used to alternatives
Thanks. Made the swap to Tuta as it’s the only thing I haven’t moved away from Google yet. See Tuta mention 2 years ago they’re making a drive alternative but… that’s still not a thing. Kinda sad would definitely like that.
Plug for https://kagi.com/ for those who can afford to pay for search engine. Best search engine experience, love the personalized results where you manually raise and lower specific domains.
Much like the current hullabaloo about the head of ProtonMail being suspect because of his support of Trump, there’s a ton of shady shit about Kagi, too. They’re Venture Capital funded. What’s the deal with the T-shirt company? Why did they lie stupidly about stuff like “we don’t do paid advertising… oh wait whoops now we do.”
Further, the CEO of Kagi just has that techbro attitude of “You are required to listen to what I have to say.”
Discussions with Vlad are him telling you his side and expecting you to accept it as the truth and not keep arguing. His goal isn’t to discuss, it’s to keep talking at you until you agree or go away. HE thinks he discusses with people, but he talks AT people. So I don’t feel bad making a blog post and forcing him to be talked at for once (which I never even expected him or that many other people to see it, I’m trying to figure out how many hits I even got rn to see how bad he Streissand’d this).
But yeah I knew that already, and that’s why I didn’t engage with him. I know what a Vlad conversation is and I wasn’t willing to be lectured by the CEO of a company I criticized on my tiny personal blog. Thats an insane proposition. And it’s really not even irony–I suspected this is exactly what would happen. I knew that arguing with Vlad would only benefit his own ego, but I knew that bluntly repeating “I will not discuss this with you quit emailing me” will just prove what I already knew, that he does not care what people say (and probably barely reads what they say given that he linked me the same post I already read twice) and that he will do whatever he’s driven to do no matter what. The only options were he quits emailing me (great!) or he digs himself in deeper and deeper (great??? idk but it proves a point)
Yeah, I definitely haven’t seen as much sketchy stuff about their leadership, that’s for sure. It’s really hard to find a trustworthy group doing this kind of thing, partially because of the sheer amount of money needed to get such a thing off the ground to begin with… which usually ends up meaning VC money, which ends up meaning shady decisions to be able to pay it back.
Kagi includes search results from the big search engines, which would mean Google and Bing. So while they do some of their own crawling to improve the results, some of your money will still be going to Google and Microsoft. It’s still a step in a better direction though. I don’t know whether Kagi has any plans to become more independent in future.
I tried finding API pricing for Google but it’s probably buried somewhere. They make it sound “free” but with usage limits, which surely Kagi exceeds? Either way, it’s probably on a “per-call” basis, and Google gets a lot less money that way compared to crapping out money driven search results.
“Our unique algorithms down-rank pages with a lot of ads and trackers (which we have found correlate with a decrease in content quality) and promote content from independent, ad-free sources and personal websites.”
I’m sure it’s not perfect, but my experience with Kagi has been very very good. With DuckDuckGo I’d often have to revert to Google to find what I was looking for, but not with Kagi.
I pay for Kagi, so my opinion might be clouded by confirmation bias.
As stupid as it is… You have to buy a fucking Google Pixel to really be able to get away from Google because it’s not as simple to get an alternate OS that is de-Googled on any other phones.
The Pixels, for example, are the only ones supported by GrapheneOS, widely considered one of the most secure phone operating systems with no Google nonsense in it.
LineageOS on the other hand you have to do a boatload of stuff to de-Google it.
GrapheneOS is awesome, wish more phones had it. Has really brought a feeling of control wity my phone. Just kind of ironic wearing the Google logo on the back lmao
If you’re left leaning and want to send a message, do it with your wallet. Switch to tutanota for mails, search with duckduckgo, use f-droid as an app store… No one needs google, it’s just somewhat inconvenient to get used to alternatives
Thanks. Made the swap to Tuta as it’s the only thing I haven’t moved away from Google yet. See Tuta mention 2 years ago they’re making a drive alternative but… that’s still not a thing. Kinda sad would definitely like that.
Wallets mean nothing to people and corps with more money than the rest of humanity combined.
The people calling the shots need to be… Uh…
You live by the sword you die by the sword.
Plug for https://kagi.com/ for those who can afford to pay for search engine. Best search engine experience, love the personalized results where you manually raise and lower specific domains.
Much like the current hullabaloo about the head of ProtonMail being suspect because of his support of Trump, there’s a ton of shady shit about Kagi, too. They’re Venture Capital funded. What’s the deal with the T-shirt company? Why did they lie stupidly about stuff like “we don’t do paid advertising… oh wait whoops now we do.”
Further, the CEO of Kagi just has that techbro attitude of “You are required to listen to what I have to say.”
https://mastodon.social/@[email protected]/112258758788834454
Seriously, his behavior is unhinged.
Ah, so Duckduckgo leadership is still the only one in thr clear?
Find a searx / searxng instance or run one yourself! Depending on corporate software will continue to be a cat and mouse game.
I have had reasonable experiences with startpage as a search engine.
Yeah, I definitely haven’t seen as much sketchy stuff about their leadership, that’s for sure. It’s really hard to find a trustworthy group doing this kind of thing, partially because of the sheer amount of money needed to get such a thing off the ground to begin with… which usually ends up meaning VC money, which ends up meaning shady decisions to be able to pay it back.
Well, appreciate the headsup. The battle is always staying informed.
While at it, any recommended alternatives to ProtonMail?
Tutanota is a common recommended alternative, (which is now just called “Tuta”).
Tutanota, as specified in my initial reply
Kagi includes search results from the big search engines, which would mean Google and Bing. So while they do some of their own crawling to improve the results, some of your money will still be going to Google and Microsoft. It’s still a step in a better direction though. I don’t know whether Kagi has any plans to become more independent in future.
https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
I tried finding API pricing for Google but it’s probably buried somewhere. They make it sound “free” but with usage limits, which surely Kagi exceeds? Either way, it’s probably on a “per-call” basis, and Google gets a lot less money that way compared to crapping out money driven search results.
“Our unique algorithms down-rank pages with a lot of ads and trackers (which we have found correlate with a decrease in content quality) and promote content from independent, ad-free sources and personal websites.”
I’m sure it’s not perfect, but my experience with Kagi has been very very good. With DuckDuckGo I’d often have to revert to Google to find what I was looking for, but not with Kagi.
I pay for Kagi, so my opinion might be clouded by confirmation bias.
Ah, does Duckduckgo not do that too anymore? I thought there wasn’t a fully independent search engine.
I can’t think of a fully independent one.
DDG uses Bing primarily.
As stupid as it is… You have to buy a fucking Google Pixel to really be able to get away from Google because it’s not as simple to get an alternate OS that is de-Googled on any other phones.
The Pixels, for example, are the only ones supported by GrapheneOS, widely considered one of the most secure phone operating systems with no Google nonsense in it.
LineageOS on the other hand you have to do a boatload of stuff to de-Google it.
???
LineageOS doesn’t come with Google Play Services on board at all, you have to flash it (or MicroG) if you want it. Why just make shit up?
GrapheneOS is awesome, wish more phones had it. Has really brought a feeling of control wity my phone. Just kind of ironic wearing the Google logo on the back lmao
Way ahead of you. I already use an alternative paid email service, don’t use Android, and don’t use Google search.