I dunno, has he thrown any chairs at anyone yet?
I wonder if this correlates with my recent desires to de-Google my life. I’m steadily growing less happy about daily using their services and them holding all my info.
I’m open to suggestions for cloud photo storage/management on par with Google Photos if anyone has some. I’m looking into FOSS but would rather pay for the service in the long run. These days I’m too busy to learn to be an effective server admin and keep up with the technology.
Proton, has email, cloud storage and VPN services.
I’ll second Proton. It sucks to have to pay for services again to have something that matches the generous free shit that we got before… but seems those wild west days of the internet, unless you were grandfathered on or have to give up a lot of info in return… are now long gone.
If you’re not paying for a service, then you’re the product. I never understood the expectation that people should just provide you email and storage for free, because?
This saying is actually horseshit, though. The profit motive and infinite growth model of capitalism guarantees that even if you are paying for a product, your data and attention — everything that can be — will be monetized eventually.
The saying should be “if the service isn’t open-source and E2E encrypted, you’re the product”
Nah I’d disagree. Infinite growth motive doesn’t necessarily apply to private companies. To suggest there’s unbridled greed present in every company is just a falsehood.
It should be noted, though, that the “if you aren’t paying, you’re the product” mantra isn’t always true. FOSS exists.
And I know that seems obvious to anybody reading this on Lemmy, but I’ve had people refuse to use good open source software because they fundamentally refuse to trust something being provided to them for free.
That applies to the software itself, sure, but only if you bring your own infrastructure. Large scale FOSS infrastructure services are going to be the exception not the norm.
You can also feel good about supporting Proton. They are literally bootstrapped as a service and only rely on what we pay them. They never took any money from vc or other sources.
If you have more than one person who should/would/could move over to Proton, they have a family plan and every so often they bring back their visionary plan which is a better version of the family.
I’m particulay looking for.the functionality of Google Photos, not just a cloud storage solution but a photo catalogue integrated with my camera among other things. Does Proton offer this?
There is a self hosted alternative for google photos if you have NAS. I don’t remember the name and it’s not nextcloud but that project have web and mobile apps to sync and they catalog photos with face and name similar to google. If you are specifically looking for storing and syncing photos mega.nz is decent but pricey alternatively pClound offers one time purchase during holiday season which is much more affordable.
PhotoPrism is kind of that thing on self hosted NAS.
Or alternatively both biggest NAS makers Synology and Qnap have their own things for that.
Immich, is probably what you’re thinking of.
Yeah, thanks for reminding the name.
No, Ente has more photo gallery functionality though. Not sure about it being “integrated” with the camera. What do you mean by this?
The photos I take on my cellphone are instantly catalogued, scanned for metadata, and synchronized with my gallery. The app then gives me fun photo displays and reminders of my past daily.
I do nothing but take photos and pay a small fee.
I’m an iPhone user, and i’ll probably stay that way, but I’ve tried to de-google my life as much as possible and I’d consider de-appleing if there was an alternative that wasn’t google’d up. What do anti-google self-host folks do about smartphones? Android is “open” i guess, but it’s crammed full of adware and trackers and all sorts of garbage.
Linux for desktop is an easy-peasy transition; linux for mobile, no so much
Android devices with a non-deadlocked bootloader can be reflashed to have de-googled builds of Android. LineageOS isn’t completely de-googled (it’s damn close to it) but you can put that on any supported device without GApps and use it that way.
Apple is completely deadlocked, through and through, and you cannot de-Apple without completely abandoning their platform.
Android is “open” i guess, but it’s crammed full of adware and trackers and all sorts of garbage.
That’s a bit hyperbolic and unfair to the point of being misleading.
“Android” is not one universal type of phone operating system. It, like Linux, has various distributions. Samsung makes their own version. as does Motorola, as does HTC and Nokia, as does OnePlus, Huawei, etc… The version of Android that comes with a Samsung phone is radically different than what comes with a Motorola phone. You cannot blame Google for what Samsung decides to include on their own strain of Android. You cannot blame Google for what shady Chinese brands put on their hardware.
Want an Android device that isn’t crammed full of adware, trackers and all sorts of garbage? Stop buying garbage devices from garbage OEMs.
Motorola and Google are the two that (shock, surprise!) are the most open, always have unlocked bootloaders when bought directly and not through a carrier and have the most well supported devices if you decide to go with a custom rom.
I work for an Android OEM; i am quite familiar with GMS and AOSP versions of Android. I was unclear what i meant - software choices on Android are highly limited when trying to avoid adware and trackerware apks. It’s just unfortunately a platform where the value extracted from it is way more often from provide free but not great software that also mines your life. not too many options for great software that also doesn’t mine you, free or paid.
I suspect you feel that way because it’s easier to know what DOES mine you, free or paid, on Android, than it is on any other mobile OS. Consequentially, it’s also easier to block such stuff on Android with custom dns, custom roms, root and a hosts file or using apps to track the trackers like Exodus. So, no, I disagree: You say it’s highly limited when trying to avoid those kinds of apps… We have F-Droid and other third party app stores. There’s a plethora of FOSS apps that can replace the common garbage data collecting apps out there. People just don’t want to make the effort and look a little bit harder elsewhere for what they would feel more comfortable using. That’s why we have privacy nightmares: people are lazy.
deleted by creator
Me too, trying to figure out what I’m gonna do about Gmail.
Lots of people here say Proton, but I’d also consider selfhosting my email on either a home server or the cloud, whichever meets my criteria for redundancy to stay online vs cost
I hear self-hosting email is a really complicated thing if you want it secure and all that. I never tried, just hearsay.
The only problem with self-hosting is that big coorps like google or microsoft will put you on their spam list, so your e-mails will land in the spam folder when you send emails to gmail or outlook addresses. Other than that it’s not a huge hassle as stuff like https://mailcow.email/ or mailu or mail-in-a-box exist.
Just make sure you add DKIM and all that. Mail in a box will do it mostly for you and it should take care of the spam issues at least until someone reports your emails as spam. For a personal email that shouldn’t happen.
Basically sending emails without DKIM is like serving a webpage on HTTP; nobody should trust the page you got was not altered and the domain is properly registered.
Without dkim dmarc spf and all that stuff it won’t even reach the spam folder, but get either silently dropped or rejected where mailer daemon will send you a nice message.
google or microsoft will put you on their spam list
Ah, wow. Yeah. That’s a big problem, or would be for me anyway. No time or energy to deal with that issue.
Safe yourself some time and use virtualmin if you want to host mail yourself.
Self hosted immich is by far the closest. It has many if the same features but all runs locally
I’ve considered the same, but the Google Photo smart auto-tagging is just too useful
make an issue on immich
That already works.
I’ve maintained this idea for a while as well. It’s really only after Pichai took over that Google and Android both have started scrapping useful programs/apps/services, made needless change to make products worse, and in general just haven’t really innovated much at all. At least when compared to how the company was run when Larry Page and Erik Schmidt were running the company.
This dude has made Google boring.
I also have the impression that google jumped on the feature treadmill that microsoft is on. Working with Google ads + analytics in 2016 was a pleasant experience, it was fairly simple and it worked. I could easily maintain it as a side project next to my main job, but a few years later and it had become a feature treadmill where all new features seemed to have 3 goals in common: waste my time by making me migrate settings to basically end up with the same end result, make the product more convoluted to use + milk more money per customer. Add to that, that facebook campaigns were both easier to run and resulted in more good leads for us and it doesn’t look good for Google.
And evil.
That was Eric
Wait, there are two Erics?
Evil-er
We can point fingers at Pichai, but I don’t think Larry Page and Erik Schmidt would have been able to keep Google true to its visions even if they really wanted to. Google simply became too big and successful compared its humble cool techy startup era, no way it was remaining the same all along.
It does feel like Google is on a nosedive with all its major products except for Gmail.
I’m an Apple user, for the most part, and I’ve noticed lately that in the last 6-12 months Google Maps has deteriorated significantly for me while Apple Maps has gotten better and better. Even things you’d think would be similar, e.g. satellite imagery, for my area Google’s imagery is now a half-decade out of date while Apple’s is current.
It really does feel like most of Google’s consumer-facing products are languishing.
Google Maps has gotten worse and worse.
It’s now actively bloating a map with random businesses, making it difficult to use. And worse, it’s obscuring random businesses from search. I noticed it a while back if I googled “Chinese food”, a few places aren’t showing unless I zoom in really really close. And these are places with 100+ reviews.
Yeah it’s started inserting “totally not advertisements” like “take a left in 300 feet, past the McDonald’s”. More enshittification.
Five years ago, I would have said, “Nah, they can throw money at it and make it better. So we should stay.”
But now, Google has a massive history of giving up and killing products. Devs and open source are making comparable alternatives. The general public is turning on even Google Search. And even my own job is considering Google alternatives.
The next five years are going to be anybody’s game.
Using Google products is starting to feel like watching season 1 of a Netflix produced show - I don’t want to invest energy into something that’ll just get cancelled.
I still have an existential crisis whenever im faced with the decision of giving out my google voice number vs my normal one.
Couldn’t have said it better.
That’s honestly good to hear!
Gmail is no exception.
Maybe not but I haven’t noticed any worse change at all.
They put ads in.
Oh, that’s why I didn’t notice lol
He’s really sweaty?
He yells a lot?
Lol being the top boss is not easy when you’re a Technical guy. He comes from a technical background hence the sweat. I can relate but these top jobs are best suited for guys from sales coz they know how to talk and play with words.
aRe YoU tElLiNg Me StEvE jObS wAs A sAlEs GuY¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?¿?
Lol its like comparing apple to oranges. Read about Sundar and Steve to get more info. About their background.
Why am I comparing apples to organges?
I can relate but these top jobs are best suited for guys from sales coz they know how to talk and play with words.
I asked you according to this statement, if you want to tell me, that Steve Jobs was a sales guy.
Google and apple are not same company. Sundar and Steve don’t have the same technical background. Steve bootstrapped the company and scaled it , Sundar was given the CEO role of an established company.
There’s more but I’d suggest you to read and learn and try to become a wise man.
OK, so you would say Steve Jobs was not a sales guy?
🤦♂️
Does he “love this company!” tho?
I don’t know if OpenAI of all things is the contrast needed to show this. 😂
Couldn’t agree more. I went from a Google fan boy to a Google skeptic during his reign.
Same, I completed my de-google process last year.
Ai summary of the article if you don’t wanna click the link:
A recent poll found that 76% of respondents agreed that Google CEO Sundar Pichai is comparable to Steve Ballmer, who led Microsoft during a period of decline. Both men took over from revolutionary founders as business managers focused on profits rather than innovation. However, under Pichai’s leadership, Google has lost its dominance in areas like search and AI, with competitors like OpenAI making strides. Many argue Google search has become cluttered with irrelevant results, while former employees say visionary leadership is lacking. There is a sense that Pichai’s Google is no longer the innovative company it was and risks losing further ground to emerging technologies if it does not recapture its start-up spirit.
Good bot. I will say Google never had public dominance in AI products, only research.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/1cL9zIo-4ts?si=P8EB9wmaEV-It4qS
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Sundar is less entertaining though.
Sundar is ballmer with less cocaine
And more hair
And less sweat
And less mass
And less of my axe
Ballmer had that energy emanating that just screamed I. Love. This. Company. (screams)
A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.! A.I.!
Pillar men theme intensives
Lol had to look that one up
Enshittify👏Enshittify👏Enshittify👏Enshittify👏
Gemini👏Gemini👏Gemini👏Gemini👏Gemini👏
Apple pie 🥧 Apple pie 🥧 Apple pie 🥧 Apple pie 🥧 Apple pie
The thought that comes to mind for me is that all of the tech companies are in a heavy cycle of stock/investor profit mode. It seems like every major company is just pumping the bottom line for stock gains.
I know that can lead to R&D money and advances, but I’m only really seeing that with M$ buying (I mean partnering) ChatGPT for their CoPilot to be the next big thing for Office/Microsoft 365.
What has Apple done new lately? iPhones just get better specs right?
Google, being the subject of the article, they do seem like they’re getting their butts kicked trying to compete with OpenAI.
Broadcom buys VMware (which wasn’t really doing anything wildly new IMO lately), openly plans to milk it for profit, and has been pretty honest about not giving a shit about customers, until their latest post where they are trying to speak against the obvious aforementioned ‘not-giving-a-shit’
Who else?
Any major innovations lately not coming to my mind, or all just bottom line pumping?
HPE just made the fastest supercomputer in the world by 2.5x the closest system in 2nd place a couple years ago. Frontier breaking the exascale barrier was pretty huge.
Now that’s more upbeat. Good call.
I’ll have to go see if they’re doing anything cool with it, it just trying to fix male pattern baldness. I’m thinking of an Idiocracy reference…
Oak ridge labs. They don’t run fluff.
I’m betting you’re right. Hopefully they can crack that last inch holding us back from some sweet ass fusion power, or some kind of cancer+everything else miracle cure…
The pictures look cool anyway.
You are too kind to Microsoft, buying into innovation isn’t the same as creating it.
If you aren’t seeing innovation from Apple it’s likely because you’re an Apple hater. For example, they released their own CPU chips quite recently. The smartphone is now a matured product, any innovation would likely be something very different.
Broadcom? Who cares. Thats enterprise shit. It’s like mentioning Oracle in the same list. They are milking corporations. Completely different paradigm.
You don’t mention Amazon, but there’s another potential sinking ship. Their brand loyalty is fading and they don’t seem to care but it’s still has momentum to recover.
Google is the real concern. They have lost their luster. Their main product is search and it is getting worse and no one trusts their new offerings to last because their product grace yard is a landfill. No one can say the same about any of these other companies.
Windows is still the same meh.
iPhones, Apple Watches, etc are meh.
Google search is done. Everyone that was an early adopter is fleeing to the competition, desperately looking for something that sucks less.
Eventually someone will find the new way to search the wealth of information found on the web. It does not look like that company will be Google. It’s also unlikely to be Apple or Microsoft but both of those companies have mature products that aren’t experience a decline in the way that Google search is.
apple hater
Nah, I’m indifferent. They’re just another company. I did forget about the chips they’re working on. That’s a big/expensive investment.
Google is trying that with the tensor. Not hearing a huge roar about that either.
I was thinking more enterprise with MS.
I think the new way to search the web is LLMs, but still probably relies on their respective indexer.
I’d say it’s never been clearer that Sundar Pichai is to google as Jonathan Loepner is to Loepner Pneumatics Industries Co. But that’s just me.
Who and what company?
