Tbh at least this one makes sense, who is going to use a VPN (an internet privacy tool) from Google?
My purpose for a VPN is more about connecting to WiFi APs I don’t control. Google VPN worked just fine for that.
These days you don’t get much extra benefit on a VPN over TLS which you get on 99% of websites.
when traveling Communist countries in Asia with google fi it was really nice to have
but then they revoked my data service while charging me the same amount every month, because they said I’m traveling too much.
Yeah right? I have a VPN to prevent Google (amongst many others) from having too much of my data.
Other than source IP address, I don’t see how does that prevent Google from having your data.
Google VPN is/was only available in select countries.
https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/7582172
There are 2 lists of countries applicable here. The list of countries where the VPN is included with a Google One subscription and the list where you could use the VPN while traveling.
You’ll notice that countries known for internet censorship are missing from both lists, so using it for that purpose wouldn’t work at all.
Oh yikes. I would’ve recommended Gandi but they were bought out too. Seems like no one wants to play the registrar game anymore.
I’ve heard lots of recommendations for Porkbun. Personally, I have mine with Cloudflare because they’re cheap.
Namecheap and clouflare are decent, though you have to use cloudflare’s DNS hosting if you go with them.
Yeah I’m in the same boat. I haven’t used squarespace and I have no idea if I should stay with them.
They are not primarily a domain registrar, they are a website builder SaaS. So they will probably try to sell you on that product when you renew, but many registrars will try to upsell you, so that’s not uncommon. If you are planning to transfer away, I can certainly recommend Namecheap, I’ve used them for many years without issue
Whenever Google launches a product or service wait at least 5 years before even trying it to see if they’re serious, got it
It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point. Like Netflix with new shows.
Netflix: here’s this new show
People: yeah you guys always cancel stuff after the first season or two, I’m not gonna get invested in something that will just get canceled
Netflix: man, these viewership numbers are low. CANCELED!
At this point, I’m surprised anybody (including myself) still buys/uses Google services, given how risky it is that you’ll become dependent on them and then they kill off the product(s). I really need to get off my ass and switch mail providers.
Google mail is extremely unlikely to get shut down.
But anyway, Proton Mail allows importing e-mails from Google.
Most people will use whatever the default on their device is. Most phones that aren’t iPhones come with Google apps and services set as default.
The only Google services I still use are YouTube and in rare cases Google Maps. But if YouTube continues to enshittify I’ll stop using that. I’ve been using Google Maps mainly to get information about places to eat/sleep in cities, not really for navigation.
If there wernt better YouTube frontends id probably stop using it altogether too. The base site is horrible and idk how anyone could possibly enjoy using it.
I think that YT should open up APIs to make a better frontend for third party apps, like what Reddit had, at least to premium users.
There was a time when the Google apps just worked, the applications were optimised for UX. Maybe I’ve just only noticed it now but the directions (and assistant in general) aren’t as useful, reliable, and filled with sponsored stuff.
what do you use for navigation and how does it compare?
Google Maps was a great app and service, it had decent navigation and always a lot of information on a lot of places. Nowadays it’s cluttered with features including a “news feed” with social network-like posts made by people on places in the area.
On iOS devices I can highly recommend Apple Maps nowadays. They completely overhauled their maps a few years ago and I got great results navigating with it. The app isn’t bloated, it’s fast, the map material looks great and their version of Street View is a lot more sophisticated.
For strictly navigating you can also check out TomTom AmiGO. It’s a free variant of TomTom’s navigational system. I wouldn’t really use it outside of car navigation though.
I used to use Sygic a few years back, but they switched to a subscription model and keep nagging existing “lifetime” buyers to subscribe.
I use them but honestly having to run the bridge to use a normal email client has me pretty nonplused. I wish they’d support S/MIME too; it seems like all email is just encrypted on delivery and at least S/MIME would give you something end-to-end encrypted.
Yeah. I don’t mind that this is a paid feature, but installing the bridge on every device is cumbersome.
I’m just now unravelling the last of the truly important bits of my life that are in their clutches, for that and other reasons.
Two phone numbers, a handful of documents I’ve shared over the years that probably don’t matter anyway, and a couple email addresses that I’ve been actively monitoring for months for anything important, and searches my password mgr for….
I should be free by 1 July at the outside, possibly a few days early if I don’t delay the actual deletion process. Feels fuckin great.
I’m surprised anyone uses Google services considering how they infiltrate your privacy.
A Google VPN is as private to me as giving a six year old a cardboard box and asking them but to look inside.
Do you honestly believe that there is a mail service out there that does not record data on you?
Protonmail is encrypted and they literally cannot decrypt to record your data.
The only reason I have a google account in the first place is android. You cannot use the fucking play store without one.
Google: people weren’t using it.
The People: you cancel literally everything you create, so why should we bother?
Remember when people were using allo and Google play music? Google doesn’t.
Allo didn’t ever make sense. What about Hangouts. Hangouts worked with imessage. And also works better than allo did And also works better than aloe did at any pointat any point.
Whats crazy is Hangouts is still going (in the form of Chat and Meet). I’ve had the same group chat going with a few buddies on it for years and years now. And it is still better than anything outside of Signal in my opinion for messaging.
Google One was a pretty sweet deal on paper.
But unfortunately, Google’s superpower of making really cool things and then killing it off continues to exist.
half-arsing a product, people are hesitant to try it, due to other killed off products, google kills product. repeat
And the more they kill the more the reputation grows
Like when stadia was announced my friends and I took bets on how long it would last or if any stadia exclusive games would ever get to launch
Ironically, if Google were upfront about how it would handle the shutdown, it likely would have increased consumer confidence enough that Stadia may not have needed to be shutdown.
Product launches are the vehicle for attaining promotions at Google, allegedly. Maintenance does not get similarly rewarded, nor does launching projects and having them live on to actually be successful.
When the launcher got promoted and moved on, they have to figure out whether to keep the thing around, and the answer is generally going to be no since few things can really compete with the infinite money glitch that is search ads.
I get on my VPN to provide less data to Google. Routing my traffic through an advertising company always felt like a bad idea to me.
I’ve had like three primary email accounts since the dawn of the popular internet in the 90’s
The first was Hotmail because that was a big deal at the time.
The second was google because the interface was slick and it came with (what was at the time) a lot of free storage.
The third is protonmail specifically because after decade+ on Google I realized they pretty much have the keys to the kingdom on my life’s data. All my personal relationships and business being filtered through their inbox for a long-ass time. Just because they “know me” inside out for a significant part of my life doesn’t mean I gotta just keep feeding them data indefinitely.
How you finding protonmail compared to Gmail? The thing I like about Gmail is I can find shit in my endless history…I also love the calendar integration.
Protonmail is fine for searching old emails and they have their own calendar integration. I self host calDAV for my own calendar so I cannot comment on protonmail’s other cloud services but I’m happy enough with their email service that I subscribe yearly for it.
That’s the downside of not getting data mined, you need to pay for these services. Setting up a private cloud is not impossible for a derp like me but a private email server is definitely well beyond my skillset so that’s something I pay for.
