Katie and David discuss what is going on with Google and alternative services if you are ready to jump ship.
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Links of note
Google’s Privacy Policy
MPU 58, Browser Wars
The Scorpian and the Frog
Google Mocality Shenanigans
MacSparky, Degrees of Free
5by5, Kinda Critical
The EFF on Google’s Privacy Policy
Google Privacy Policy Survival Guide
MacDrifter on Getting Off Google
MacSparky, Dumping Google Search
Fever RSS Alternative
MPU 69, Browser Wars
iCloud
Fantastical
Cozio
Mint Analytics
Woopra
OBi
Ooma
TextExpander Meetings
Reflections App
AirParrot
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:31:35 — 42.4MB)
Re MobileMe Galleries
Journals in iPhoto on iOS is a great replacement service. I got iPhoto running on my original iPad so I could try it out before a family member got the new iPad. It was really easy to put together a few images with text, upload and share the link. You can resize and arrange them and when people click on them they can see the full size image. Great for telling the story of a day or event.
Your mention of CloudPull (no link in the show notes, sadly) got me all excited but it appears to be Lion-only. Bummer. I’ve deliberately chosen to stay Snow Leopard. Any tips for archiving Gmail in a 10.6.8 environment? Thanks as always for another first rate podcast.
Hello!
Dumping Google
Maybe it’s because I am old—I am over sixty, though I have been using computers back to the PDP-I and macs to mac plus.
I use Google via Startpage and often use that as a proxy. I do not have a twitter account or a facebook page. I use Ghostery on my browser, and I use Linkedin with care. I do have a gmail account but keep it only for crashes. It has received four messages in three years. I hope I’ve done it right.
I just want to make one point about data and information. Data has no inherent significance. It is the person who looks at it who gives it significance by what he or she wants to use it for. I don’t presume to predict what someone might want to do with data, and how he or she might cobble together bits and pieces left around. For that reason, I don’t think there is really any such thing as safe or harmless data.
Remote Access and Dumping Google are absolute triumphs, deserving of multiple listenings. I have learned so much (and purchased so many apps!).
You both continually exceed expectations. I have happily used Duck for months, and just as happily dumped Gmail for Apple mail (plus Steward and Tags) a year ago. No regrets.
A couple of tips on DuckDuckGo. There is a free DuckDuckGo Search app in the iOS App Store.
In Chrome you can add a DuckDuckGo extension which adds a button to aid searching.
You can also change the default search in Chrome to use DuckDuckGo via the “Manage Search” part of the Chrome options. If you go to the DuckDuckGo website and do a search Chrome seems to automatically pick up the options needed and adds adds DuckDuckGo as an option in the “Other Search Engines” list.
If you don’t long into Google it will not store any search results in the history. Off course this doesn’t mean Google isn’t watching your searches (who doesn’t ?) at least its not visibly saved in the history.
As for downloading Gmail. Simply use a Mail client like Apple mail to download and store the email locally. You can migrate it to an other mail account by entering a an other email account and drag the emails to that account.
DuckDuckGo has won me over with the results. I used to be able to find anything in Google with combinations of double-quotes and plus/minus modifiers. When they took that all away and tried to feed me “local” results from over 100 miles up the road where it *thought* I was, I got very frustrated and could find practically nothing.
The different results from DDG are welcomed and they do support the modifiers I have grown proficient in. The speed difference may be a perception-only increase from the predictive searching Google does because it knows us so well. The tradeoff of any speed is more than made up for in privacy.
The DDG goodies are great! I could go on for hours about them so I’ll just say go look at what they have at duckduckgo.com/goodies.html or tech.html While you are digging, check out the “!bang Commands” where you can shortcut searches. For instance, I can search for !so hide javascript
to search StackOverflow.com for ways to hide things with JavaScript.
I’m not yet concerned at all about Google abusing my information, but the above-listed things are definite reasons why I switched to DDG. The only down side is that the “average Joe” uses Google so as a business owner I cringe every time I think about SEO/marketing/etc.
I use the NewsRack as my RSS reader. It can sync with Google Reader, but can also be used as a stand-alone app.
There is another feed-reader like the one mentioned in the show. It is an Ipad native app called ZITE. I refer to it as Pandora for the printed word because it will learn what you like and find more of it.
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Even though I am not all that concerned with privacy now that I have stopped my web history recording, I like the idea of getting away from google but its a big investment to leave gmail – to get Cloud Pull, Spam Sieve, Mail Act On and possibly Mail Steward – thats $100!. I am also nervous giving my @me address out to non-personal contacts like businesses or even posting comments like this on the web. Currently my @me address is untainted with only my mum and my husband and few close friends who have the address.
I am also very attached to Reeder and would love to see a viable alternative as I don’t run a server to be able to use Fever.
It was a great show on a timely topic.
Waiting for MPU episode “Dumping Facebook”…
what was the name of the app David mentioned that he like to replace google maps?
thanks
An *interesting* thing just happened to me. I deleted my google contacts months ago and did everything else I have heard about to wipe my data out of google, including deleting my history before the deadline. I have however maintained my google account for a spam-likely Gmail address and Reader purposes. That said, if I now go into gmail my contacts are blank, bar one person I sent an email to from the web interface. I am using mail.app and all my contacts are in address book.
Today LinkedIn prompted me to allow access to my contacts to suggest connections (as it often does). As a test I thought I’d allow access to gmail contacts only and see what happened. Of course it suggested some people, one of which I did want to link with so I unchecked the others and hit “invite”. But I was too hasty, didn’t check thoroughly and that was just page 1 of many and I therefore apparently invited ALL OF MY CONTACTS EVER !!!
I have spent the morning getting acceptances from people including some I once sent an email too that weren’t even stored as my contacts but just captured by google ! I feel like I should post what happened on linkedin and apologise, but then people who accepted might feel offended, what a mess.
Two lessons, google doesn’t clear the data they keep on you, YOU just can’t access it anymore, and linkedin have a very grubby business model too.
Lesson learnt.