
Expunging Google - duncan_bayne
https://github.com/duncan-bayne/duncan-bayne.github.com/wiki/Expunging-Google
======
ok_craig
I still think this is all ridiculous. Stopping support for a product that uses
a certain standard doesn't mean you're against that standard, unless you're a
conspiracy theorist.

You can argue that they're against certain open standards if you want, but the
canceling of Reader isn't actually evidence of that. Simultaneously putting
effort into G+ is also not evidence of that. It's not even symbolic of that.
It is only evidence of shifting product priorities, not outright _opposition_
to open standards.

The singular data point that I can think of as being anti-standard is the
pending drop of CalDAV for Calendar, which I personally think sucks. But
nobody ever cites that. Everybody's pissed that Google canceled a product that
they liked, and that's what's driving this never-ending criticism.

~~~
lobster_johnson
The main problem with Google at the moment is the centralization of many
popular services into one corporate entity. Video, search, email etc. are all
now in the hands of, mostly, Google. With so few viable competitors, you get a
de-factory monopoly as well as insane growth. The centralization itself is the
problem.

Success like this does not breed innovation. Aside from some novel extra-
Internet projects like Glass and autonomous cars, Google does not innovate
much, and many of these services have stagnated, and Google does not seem to
care much about Internet standards or about being ethical.

~~~
ok_craig
I can get behind your first paragraph, which is basically just saying that as
a consumer you like to support variety and a dynamic market by using services
from multiple providers. If that's you're goal, that's a reasonable enough
justification for me. However, that's not a reaction that would come as a
direct result of one product cancellation (because it is a proactive, not _re_
active perspective), and my comment is in response to the post, which
explicitly claims the reason for expunging Google is due to Google's supposed
new opposition to open standards.

I really don't understand your angle with the second paragraph though. It's
just the kind of stuff that's going to make this all devolve into a battle of
words about who the best/worst/most evil/most creative/most underdog/most
overvalued/undervalued/deserving/undeserving companies are. Frankly a
generalization like that without any specifics or context is a fanboy thing to
say. If you're trying to tell me that Google is a stagnating company doing
more net harm than good, all I think it's worth to say is that I think you're
terribly wrong, and I disagree.

~~~
vidarh
He is not claiming an _opposition_ to open standards, but that open standards
are _secondary_ , and will get thrown under bus if it conflicts with the
primary goal of making money, and that it seems Google believes social in
general and Google+ is the way to make more money, and that this puts open
standards at risk.

Reducing your dependency on Google's support for open standards then becomes
prudent.

Personally I'm sticking with a number of Google services, but I'm also taking
precautions (backing up my data; my primary address is on my own domain so I
can move away from Gmail easily if I want to (don't think they'd close it
down, but they certainly can - and have - made changes that I find
detrimental; I only stick with Gmail now because of a number of tweaks using
Minimalist, for example)

It's not so much that Google has become horrible, but that they've taken a
number of steps to be "less good" than what a lot of people have come to
expect and depend on. They're on their way to being "just another company"
instead of anything special.

~~~
dalks
No he is arguing that because Google closed down Reader, using any other
service offered by Google is poor judgement while also stating that they don't
innovate in many if not all product areas.

~~~
sergiosgc
I can't read that from the original comment. In fact, he didn't even mention
Google Reader specifically.

If you are referring to the original article, the article makes it fairly
obvious that the GReader event was the proverbial last straw, not the main
motivator.

~~~
Slimbo
Still odd that reader's the 'last straw', but not on the lists of services to
expunge!

------
tikhonj
Even assuming Google is not being malicious--and I think that's a broadly safe
assumption--I'm still concerned. I'm am _significantly_ over-reliant on
Google's serviced: my email, my calendar, my OpenID, my web search, my videos,
my phone, my maps, my web browser... (Well, I do use Firefox now.) It's a
single point of failure. A rather scary one at that.

Some of these things do not have good alternatives. My phone? I could use an
iPhone or Windows phone, but Apple and Microsoft _are_ malicious. Also, they
both hate Linux. But the other things? I probably could--and probably should--
move some of them to a different service, if only in the interest of
diversification.

Of course, I've been meaning to do this for a while. But I haven't. In many
different, usually small ways, I'm hooked into Google. That by itself worries
me; in some cases, even if I did want to move to a different service, it would
not be easy. Very importantly, this is not Google's fault at all--in fact,
they're very good about making my data portable. It's entirely poor planning
on my part. Yet it's still an issue.

Perhaps the worst part--or the best part--is that I don't have any immediate
problems with this situation. Everything works. Quite well. I just have a
general sense of disquiet about it all.

Just something to think about.

~~~
jrockway
Diversification is a good idea, but the cost seems higher than the benefit in
this case.

Let's say Google becomes evil and makes Android and Chrome evil: the solution
is simple, fork Android and Chromium and continue on without the evil
additions. Or, don't upgrade. If you "diversify" _now_ , though, you miss out
on cool Chrome features, or you spend your weekend maintaining a web browser
fork when you could be at the beach.

As for services like videos, calendars, email, and so on -- you can download
your data regularly [1] and move to a new service when you feel like it. This
lets you defer the cost of switching until you actually need to switch. If
that happens to be never, you win. If that happens to be tomorrow, you still
win. (But if you switch now, you pay the feature difference cost every day. If
Google never becomes evil, then you've wasted your time.)

[1] <https://www.google.com/takeout/?pli=1>

Think of it another way. Whenever I go to the grocery store, I typically buy
"store brand" products. That means everything in my pantry is "over-reliant"
on that one store. But in reality, that's not the case: if Whole Foods goes
out of business, I can just shop at Trader Joe's instead, since flour and
sugar is pretty much the same everywhere. My accumulated recipes will continue
to work either way. (And while both stores exist, nothing is stopping me from
shopping at them both other than the added time that visiting each store
takes. But that cost is non-zero, which entices me to consolidate my shopping
needs. For now.)

~~~
fafner
> If you "diversify" now, though, you miss out on cool Chrome features, or you
> spend your weekend maintaining a web browser fork when you could be at the
> beach.

Sorry but what you are saying doesn't make sense. It is your proposal (fork
when Chrome turns evil) which could end up with him maintaining a web browser
fork on the weekend. "[M]iss out on cool Chrome features" ... well you miss
out on cool Firefox features if you don't switch now ... I think switching the
browser is really the least complicated thing to do of all those things.

> This lets you defer the cost of switching until you actually need to switch.
> If that happens to be never, you win. If that happens to be tomorrow, you
> still win.

No. Because now you have the time to slowly migrate and adjust. When you are
with your back a against the wall the "costs" can be much much higher.

~~~
gwern
> No. Because now you have the time to slowly migrate and adjust. When you are
> with your back a against the wall the "costs" can be much much higher.

How, exactly? In some cases, waiting seems to be cheaper.

For example, I've always regularly backed up my Reader's OPML, so I could
leave anytime, but I'm still on Reader because this way I am waiting out
things like Feedly's downtime, letting them iron out import bugs and
complaints from less patient Reader refugees, letting people try out the
various options and blog about how they are working out over a period longer
than a day, etc. When Reader shuts down in June and I finally leave, won't it
be cheaper for me to switch to the next-best alternative _because_ I have
waited?

------
richardjordan
Most important thing is to not get so entrenched in one technology vendor or
another. They are not part of you. You're not an Apple person or a Google
person - that's just how companies want you to think. Don't let technology
choices become part of who you think you are. Use tech that helps you until it
doesn't. Always have an exit plan. Don't get emotionally attached to one
company or emotionally put off another. They're corporations. The don't care
about you. Thy offer a service. If that service comes as part of a trade
you're comfortable with use it, else don't.

~~~
mrich
This is the comment that should be at the top of this thread.

------
ebbv
This is not conscious consumerism. This is a childish temper tantrum.

Chrome has better developer tools. If your job is being a web dev and you
purposely make your job harder because you're mad at Google for shutting down
Reader, you're not being rational.

~~~
duncan_bayne
I'll still happily use Chromium for web development, as and where necessary.
Just not signed in to Google for sync, etc. etc.

I do wonder though ... would you have described the formation of the FSF as a
childish temper tantrum? I remember the days when to use Linux as a
development OS was painful ... it worked out well in the end though :)

~~~
jxi
FSF is an ideal. The ideal that all software is open source so that it's more
secure and has all the other benefits of open source. What you're doing is
being childish. "Boo hoo, big bad Google killed a product I liked, so I'm
going to make some bullshit arguments to stop using ALL their products."

I don't use all of Google's products, but I use a subset because they get the
job done well. If you think killing off reader was a bad idea, why not build
your own and see how the cost/benefit ratio pays off. What problem are you
even solving by doing this? You're just throwing a childish fit.

~~~
dchest
_FSF is an ideal. The ideal that all software is open source so that it's more
secure and has all the other benefits of open source._

FSF is not about open source or security: <https://www.fsf.org/about/what-is-
free-software>

Also, calling something/someone "childish" is not a good way to make your
point.

------
cromwellian
"It's because I think that Google is now working against the potential of the
open web" That's a pretty bold claim and an epic overreaction, especially
given that Google currently derives 97% of its revenue from the Web, and if it
goes away, it would be very problematic for Google.

~~~
duncan_bayne
The Web is a small subset of the Internet. There are many other protocols to
enable the sharing of data between individuals and platforms, and it looks
like Google wishes to deprecate at least some of those in favour of its own
end-to-end solution. I think that killing off Reader in favour of G+ is the
start of acceleration in that direction. I hope I'm wrong.

~~~
cromwellian
First of all, the quote, from you, specifically says "open Web" not "open
Internet"

Secondly, Reader was not killed because of G+. If FriendFeed is finally killed
off, will you say it was because Facebook needed the resources and engineers
on a competing product? Consumers have moved on to desire the kinds of
features that are inherent in services like Facebook, and RSS simply isn't
suited to solving the problem of federated social networking. There is no open
standard for this, remember, Google tried it with
PubHubSubHub/WebFinger/OpenID/OAuth/ActivityStreams but it didn't work.

I favor federated feeds as well (see my essay
[http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-
web.htm...](http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.html)),
but honestly, for me personally, RSS was a HUGE step back from what I had on
USENET in the 80s with RN/TRN. Someone must create a new, open federated
social networking platform, but honestly, you can't put the cart before the
horse. Google tried that several times and failed.

First, you've got to built a super successful platform consumers love, then
you can standardize it. The history of doing it the other way is littered with
failure. Remember OpenSocial?

I don't think Google has lost sight of the Open Web, I think it just realized
that you must focus on the end user design issues first if you want to be
successful. Ignore this at your peril, look at the way consumers flock to
native apps on mobile. They care about experiences, not implementation. If the
"open web" specs don't do the job, then you need to create a product first
that consumers show they want, and then work backwards to figure out how to
fix the specs.

~~~
duncan_bayne
You're right; I've corrected that.

You're also correct that RSS doesn't solve the problem of federated social
networking. It was never intended to.

W.r.t. developing protocols for federated social networking: Google isn't
interested; it would harm their bottom line if users on their systems could
easily share content outside those systems. Hence why Google+ doesn't even
offer an RSS feed.

Do you really, hand-on-heart, think that Google would support a federated
social media protocol on Google+ should such a thing come into being? Do you
think they're planning to build such a protocol?

~~~
cromwellian
A central core feature of Google Wave was federation. Wave failed. Reason? Not
because of federation, but because of consumer experience and confusion.

If you look at G+, Google has taken a very very careful approach this time
(after OpenSocial, Buzz, Wave, et al failed), building on it very
incrementally, always concentrating on user experience at each step. Even to
the extent that they don't have even have an API to post content to G+
programmatically. Whether or not it will eventually turn into some idea
federated open network, I have no idea.

But I would not take G+ as somehow Google dropping support for the open web.
Google is a very large company with lots and lots of product, and company
culture just doesn't change overnight.

I'd love it if Google had done a disapora-like federated system. But honestly,
if they had gone that route, we'd have threads all over the blog-sphere
laughing at Google for yet another social networking failure.

Those kinds of projects earn the love and adoration of the hacker community,
but they don't get grandma, teens, and celebrities on your site.

Want better counter-evidence? Look at WebRTC and Google Hangouts. Hangouts are
a defining competitive advantage G+ has over all over social networks, and
Google sponsors a spec that essentially makes them a commodity that anyone can
implement now.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Hmmmm ... the fact that there is no API access, no RSS feed etc. doesn't
strike me as a coincidence, or perhaps a consequence of a streamlined user
experience. I think it's deliberate, & part of a long-term strategy.

Clearly you don't though.

Perhaps we should resume this conversation in five years time? :)

------
h2s
I'm planning to do exactly this, myself. Not so much because of any perceived
danger to the open web posed by Google, but because I've come to realise that
I simply have too many eggs in their basket. Tellingly, my list of products
that I will be replacing is almost completely different to this person's.
Google has become the Walmart of computing and it's time to resist.

------
cageface
I understand why people are reluctant to trust a single corporation with so
much control over their personal information, particularly when, as they say,
the user is as much the product as the customer. I'm generally a big defender
of Google but even I am disquieted by their maneuvering around Google+.

However, I also doubt it's possible to build services as sophisticated as
GMail on direct payments from users. I strongly suspect that very few people
would be willing to pay what it would cost to build and run a service like
GMail without ads.

~~~
duncan_bayne
> I strongly suspect that very few people would be willing to > pay what it
> would cost to build and run a service like > GMail without ads.

What do you think the problem would be? I'm using Fastmail now, and not
missing anything from Gmail. All for $50 / month.

~~~
cageface
I tried Fastmail last year and maybe my impressions are out of date but it
can't compete on features at all. The web interface is stone age compared to
gmail, search is far slower and less sophisticated, spam filtering was not as
good etc. No native apps are available for mobile.

Fastmail isn't bad but I don't consider them to be in the same league.

~~~
alexmuller
The new Fastmail webmail interface is actually massively on-par with Gmail.
It's very slick and I'd encourage everyone to give it a(nother) go.

------
lnanek2
Reminds me of Android Market. Used to be OK for getting apps, but now it is
going to shove music and video search results in my face every chance it gets
with annoying screens between me and the app search results and annoying
continue shopping screens after each app.

If I wanted those things, I'd be in the other apps for them, like Google Books
or whatever. Of course I'm never in that particular one because Amazon Kindle
is so much better. I'm sure if I liked music or video then Google wouldn't be
my choice either. I tried to get 300 once for someone and it had a search
result for it, but wouldn't show me the page. Then I bought batman instead and
it just gave me a license error whenever I tried to watch it.

Really would have been better to migrate Android Market/Google Play as soon as
someone else made an app store on Android, and there are many, rather than
trusting Google not to sell out their users. With Google you invest time in a
product, then basically it gets shut down or co-opted into something you don't
want. A startup you like getting bought by Google is pretty much the worst
thing possible since generally they'll just kill the product.

Guess I should go through this list and get off their other services
proactively. It just isn't worth trusting Google where you don't have to.

------
jrockway
By these standards, it would seem that every company on Earth is "opposed to
an open web" because they don't make available a free web-based RSS reader.

------
parennoob
I don't think Google is 'actively working against an open web', but the
shuttering of Reader in order to make way for that ghastly Google+ makes me
reconsider every time they open up a new service (didn't even glance at Keep,
for example. Remember what happened to Google Notebook?)

It's nice to have open source alternatives, and possibly to help them grow. If
a lot more people start using, say, ownCloud, it will probably help develop it
into a more robust and usable platform. Also, as a hacker, having a stack of
my own software side-by-side with my current Google/Apple stack will probably
help me learn more as I use it more, and will give me something to fall back
on in case Google shutters it.

~~~
cromwellian
"the shuttering of Reader in order to make way for that ghastly Google+"

There's a lot of erroneous assumptions in there. Reader was never really a
product with much support, it was more a labor of love of a small dedicated
team. Reader was not shutdown to "make way for G+" anymore than any of the
other spring cleaned services were shut down because of competing services.
Even the original (ex-Googler now) Reader engineers have pretty much outlined
many of the reasons, including the decline of RSS, which was killed off in
large part by people moving to services like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.

It's really regretable, but it's time to realize that the rest of the world
moved on, and if we want federated, open services, it's going to have to built
from the ground up, and in a way that users, not hackers, will want to use it.

------
dannyr
I'm a bit speechless with this post.

I have seen overreaction from people when Google shut down Reader.

I told myself that the craziest of those overreactions would be for somebody
to quit all of Google's services.

Then I saw this article and I thought he was trolling.

Sadly he is not.

------
aray
Regardless of where you stand on this issue, this is (to me) why being able to
export your data is a _first class_ requirement of a service. For these
listed, there's takeout: <https://www.google.com/takeout/>

Backing up your online data from services should be just as common (and
practiced) as backing up harddrives or important information. You decide which
services you want to use, but give yourself the flexibility to move if and
when circumstances change.

------
DanBC
I don't care about reader or RSS.

I do care about Google's decision to avoid paying tax. This may be legal, but
it's shady. Thus, I'm starting to not use Google provided services.

It's a shame because Google Search (web, at least) really is very good,
despite occasional weirdness.

Here's some screenshots (<http://imgur.com/a/u1zj6>) of my results. (Note that
suicidegirls is NSFW)

[suicidegirls dutch doctors want to kill little babies] gives this URL
([https://www.google.co.uk/#output=search&sclient=psy-
ab&#...](https://www.google.co.uk/#output=search&sclient=psy-
ab&q=suicidegirls+dutch+doctors+want+to+kill+little+babies&oq=suicidegirls+dutch+doctors+want+to+kill+little+babies&gs_l=hp.3...631.9034.0.9122.53.41.0.1.1.0.312.4667.1j25j4j1.31.0...0.0...1c.1.9.psy-
ab.Mk4wE-
lsAIY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45512109,d.d2k&fp=24006220c2dff3f4&biw=1280&bih=713))

But [suicidegirls dutch doctors] gives this url
([https://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy-
ab&q=suicidegirls+...](https://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy-
ab&q=suicidegirls+dutch+doctors&oq=suicidegirls+dutch+doctors&gs_l=hp.3...120198.120198.1.120595.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0...0.0...1c.1.9.psy-
ab.kPe0DhqLH_I&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45512109,d.d2k&fp=24006220c2dff3f4&biw=1280&bih=713))

------
emilis_info
Switching to Firefox will not save you.

I recently found out that Firefox sends a request to
safebrowsing.clients.google.com for every page I visit. I found out how to
disable it, but it wasn't straightforward and there were still requests sent
to Google for other things.

Safe browsing is in Firefox Preferences "Security" tab under "Block reported
attack sites" + "Block reported web forgeries".

Search for "goog" in about:config to find more interesting things.

LiveHTTPHeaders extension is also an eye-opener, because Firebug usually
doesn't show these requests.

~~~
magicalist
sniff the connection rather than jumping to conclusions (and _especially_
before telling people to disable a safety feature of their browser).

Safe browsing _does not_ send the addresses you visit over the wire. The
protocol was very carefully designed to be both fast updating and not expose
any information about the sites you visit.

<https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/phishing-protection/>

[https://code.google.com/p/google-safe-
browsing/wiki/Protocol...](https://code.google.com/p/google-safe-
browsing/wiki/Protocolv2Spec)

edit: just to save time for others parsing the protocol page, and it's been a
while since I've read it, so someone please correct me if I have this wrong,
but Firefox (and Chrome, and maybe others, not sure) stores a local set of the
first 32 bits of the 256-bit hashes of all the sites currently marked as
hosting malware or whatever. Your browser pings fairly often to get an updated
version of this set of sites.

When you visit a page, the canonicalized name of the page you're on is hashed
and the first 32 bits are compared against the database of prefixes. If there
is a collision (I believe there are usually a few hundred thousand entries of
the 2^32 available hash prefixes), _only the first 32 bits of the hash of the
page you're on is sent to google_ , as a request for the set of full hashes of
malicious pages that begin with that prefix, which allows for the final, very
much local, check.

This saves a bunch of time and bandwidth, and lets you get a last minute
double check that the page is still bad with no one able to work out what page
you're actually on.

------
lettergram
I have seen many of these posts recently and I honestly do not understand. I
use Google products and it definitely beats out most of the competition and
doesn't interfere with anything worse than any other product out there. Sure
the internet is changing, and you can either go with it (or not). Switching to
many different products to complete the same tasks (many of them worse than
Google products) seems kind of silly to me.

------
ahoge
RSS just isn't very popular. Firefox also removed that RSS icon from the
address bar a few months ago. Do you think Mozilla did that because they
"oppose the open web"?

No, of course they don't. They got rid of it because virtually no one used it.

------
lessnonymous
FYI: Fastmail, while still developed in Australia, is now owned by Opera
Software.

~~~
3825
I'd like to give credit to Google where it is due. With takeout, it is very
easy to get quite a bit of your information. You already could get your emails
by IMAP or POP but still Google set a standard with Takeout :)

This makes it possible for someone to just pack his bags and leave. This is
also the reason why I am staying.

------
alexeston
Just like everybody else said, Google is not moving against the open web.
Rather the opposite. The only thing I agree with is the part where Google
tries to get everybody to use Google only, which makes sense considering
Google can be compared to a small empire. I mean, has anyone seen the office
buildings that Google has?

As for Chrome, I think Webkit (or now Blink) is where web happens fastest. All
new web experiments are done with -webkit, not -moz-, and you gotta go where
the majority goes. In this case anyway. I haven't used gmail for a long time
tho', because I didn't like that the content of my emails get used for ads -
so I set up my own email server for personal usage. Other then that, maps,
search .. it does what I need it to do so whether it tracks me or whatever is
just the cost of the service.

~~~
bzbarsky
> All new web experiments are done with -webkit, not -moz-

Uh... That happens to not be true. But WebKit does have much better (and
better-funded) marketing.

------
chmike
When I registered on Quora by using my GoogleId, I was very surprised to see
Quora asking me to send an email invite to all my Android phone contacts.
Google handed over all the emails of my Android phone contacts to Quora ! Is
this what I get from using Android and synchronization ? I didn't see an opt
out of that.

I'm now waiting for Ubuntu phone, while hoping that they don't try to monetize
it using similar abuse of monopole. The Ubuntu desktop spam still hurts.

Also, when connecting to my Youtube account, google ask me regularly to use my
real name and there is no button to reply just no and don't ever ask me
anymore!

Google is lowering the barrier for competitors ! Same thing for Twitter and
Facebook.

~~~
fpgeek
No, that's what you get when you don't read the permissions you are granting.
Here is the permission request I saw:

    
    
      Quora is requesting permission to:
    
        View basic information about your account
        View your email address
        Manage your contacts
    

Given that, you shouldn't be at all surprised that Quora was able to figure
out your phone contacts.

~~~
chmike
I agree but this means that I can't register in quora with my googleId without
giving Quora all my emails. Since I don't use facebook and twitter what
options are left ? I do want to use googleId authentication to access Quora
but why would that imply I have to give all my emails to Quora ? Why can't I
decide about that ? Why is Google imposing that to me ? Is this a commercial
deal between Google and Quora ?

~~~
fpgeek
Google isn't imposing anything, AFAIK. The permissions exist because there are
reasonable applications that might want them (e.g. contact sync). Quora is
deciding what permissions to ask for. They could ask for more or less (other
sites/services do), but they don't.

------
g3rald
For companies like Google we are mere merchandise, as we do not generate
sufficient profits they discard us, well done ...

------
Bjorkbat
You know, I've come to think of Google as less of a corporation and more of a
country lately. Most of their products act more like a sort of public service
for their citizens, subsidized through ad revenue rather than taxes.

So far, it's had a pretty good track record for a country, no doubt due to the
fact that it's still technically a corporation, but still, not too bad.

Still, it has its issues. There are many countries that can only dream of
obtaining the data Google has on its citizens. Many of them have tried, and
thankfully, for the time being, Google has been more or less protective of
this data. Then there's their whole policy of axing infrastructure and
services (products) whenever they deem fit, and by fit I mean unprofitable.
Depending on your political views, this can be seen as either irresponsible or
efficient. Regardless, its inconvenient for those who were using the service,
and most efforts to put a service on the chopping block have something to do
with trying to get more people to migrate to Google+, possibly to collect more
data and serve up more ads, a very bizarre synthesis of increasing taxes and
surveillance.

So maybe Google doesn't want to be a country of the internet. Tough. That's
what they grew into, and the only way to avoid it is to shrink and pivot and
lay off a lot of people who are essentially the Google equivalent of
government employees.

Until then, we're right to be critical and cautious towards Google's actions,
a responsibility even, otherwise they're liable to really screw up.

------
pavs
Also: Self-Host Everything <http://www.slashgeek.net/2013/02/17/self-host-
everything/>

------
jay_kyburz
I would find this a lot harder.

I have 6 applications running on Google App Engine. I use Analytics to track
stats in them. I use Ad Sense and Ad words to help monetise them. I have 2
apps for business accounts each with separate gmail, calendar and docs. One
for personal life one for business.

Crome is significantly better than both Safari and Firefox on my Mac laptop
event though I use both and have all three browsers open, each has a different
google account loged into it.

------
logn
I don't know about replacing Google with DDG. I'd prefer an engine that
actually does its own indexing. Yandex is the only alternative that fits the
bill in my mind: <http://www.yandex.com>

Also, so happy to learn about ownCloud. As a developer, I'm a little
disappointed to see AGPL licensing, but it's probably a smart choice and I use
that license in some projects.

~~~
dublinben
DDG actually pulls its results from Yandex and several other sources. Why
limit yourself to a single, old-fashioned crawler, when you can use one of the
most innovative meta-search engines?

<http://help.duckduckgo.com/customer/portal/articles/216399>

~~~
logn
Meta-search is a pretty old idea too. And you're at the mercy of your sources
and have less insight into the data you're searching and less ability to rank
pages.

------
ganarajpr
This reminds me of a kid, lying flat in the middle of a super market,
revolting with his parents because they didn't buy a toy he liked..

------
RWeaver
People want their news curated, either through hacker news, reddit, Google
plus or something else. For a minority RSS was their preference, but for
everyone else Google correctly shifted their resources to the future.

RIP RSS, you had your day in the sun and lead the way for better products.

~~~
gurkendoktor
That's a false dichotomy - I can consume curated news through RSS just fine.
Trivium is one of my favourite feeds, for example.

The only difference between using RSS and following the author on
FB/G+/Twitter is that I can use any client I want, and neither of us has to
use yet another web service.

------
laumars
Google Talk uses an open protocol, XMPP. So basically any client that support
XMPP _should_ (hopefully) work with Google Talk. This means you wouldn't have
to migrate your friends / family over to a new client but you can still
expunge Google's IM client specifically.

~~~
prg318
Google just recently reinstated federated XMPP for their Google Talk service
[1] so you can talk to peers on other XMPP servers. I use an XMPP server that
has been provided to me by my e-mail provider (lavabit.com) to chat with my
friends/family that use Google Talk without any issues.

[1]
[http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-April/001672...](http://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/operators/2013-April/001672.html)

------
overshard
I love these articles and seeing alternatives to mainstream solutions but
focusing on alternatives for a single company is not the end goal for me. You
can go with Apple, Google or Microsoft and get a nice packaged solution for
email, calendar, contacts, music, storage, etc and the end goal for me would
not be switching to separate packages. The end goal would be to have a self-
hosted easy to install and solution, OwnCloud is almost there for 90% of what
I want but it doesn't maintain my email. There is no solution for me unless
it's easy and all works seamlessly together, like Google and the rest have.

------
tonylemesmer
The main Google services I use are Gmail, Android and Search. I would be
mainly interested in replacing Gmail and tried (I have a personal domain with
mail forwarded to Gmail). I use Gmail mainly because of its excellent spam
blocking but also the Android experience is very good.

I tried getting rid of Gmail last year but failed due to not finding a decent
email client on Android that wasn't Gmail. Any suggestions? Please don't
suggest K-9.

For search I am now trying DuckDuckGo. I'm a mechanical engineer so will give
this a few weeks to see if it affects my day to day fact finding.

------
felipebueno
I totally agree with your thoughts and concerns. It sounds like my experience:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5535181>

------
rentzsch
I've barely used it, but <http://librelist.com> seems like a potential Google
Groups replacement.

------
stonith
Adding the missing features (email + maps) to owncloud would appear to be the
neatest way to go. Then target something like the openstack API and you can
move between providers pretty easily. The bit that bugs me is how to deal with
rolling your own maps provider, but if you're willing to compromise on having
access to all maps all the time it wouldn't be so hard.

------
jimbosis
For replacing Google Groups, you should check out Groupsapces, a UK company.
<http://groupspaces.com/>

A free plan gets you two lists of 50 members, and there are many paid options.
I've been using it for a group in my local community for over a year now and
am very pleased with the product.

------
b2spirit
Google's primary objective is not money, but information gathering and
control. The move to Google+ is a centralisation of the information
repository. Google Glass is an attempt at getting more detailed personal
information. The autonomous vehicle development is for them to control your
vehicle.

------
nfoz
Stop whining and build something better. Reader was never a very good RSS
reader anyway. You can do better.

~~~
adamors
Reader was a great RSS archiver and syncer though.

------
tbirdz
I might recommend uzing Zoho mail instead of fastmail. I've used it for a
while now and it's very nice.

------
rmrfrmrf
Cool. Now show me how you're going to expunge server-side Google Analytics
from your life.

~~~
oelmekki
If you mean replacing analytics for your website, piwik is the answer :
<http://piwik.org/>

If you mean not being tracked by analytics, well, it's quite simple :

# cat /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 www.google-analytics.com googleadservices.com

edit: formatting

~~~
rmrfrmrf
I was talking about actual server-side analytics includes. Pretty sure the
only way around it is to spoof your user agent data or use a proxy.

------
dools
Great list! I had already been eyeballing fastmail but hadn't seen ownCloud.
Will check it out, thanks!

I agree with you on the Android front, too. Although I'm still struggling to
get a new qwerty after my pro+ died :(

~~~
tonylemesmer
Also check out <http://aerofs.com/> (I prefer this to Owncloud)

------
zobzu
For maps you may want to try here.com It's not bad - faster than gmaps too

~~~
olalonde
Hmmm Laval shows up before Montreal... I think I'll keep using Google Maps for
now.

~~~
ernesth
Google Maps has its share of little cities showing before big ones. I
currently see a Digoin on the map of France whereas Saint-Étienne, Clermont-
Ferrand, Bourges (or Laval) do not appear...

------
pseut
Note that you can often get jabber/xmpp from your email provider: e.g.
<https://www.fastmail.fm/help/features_chat.html>

------
niggler
I've asked multiple times about adding subdomains to distinguish repos from
blogs, but it appears that this is a workaround that no subdomain reporting
would detect

------
kylec
One alternative to Google Groups is 37signals' Breeze:

<http://basecamp.com/breeze>

$20 one-time payment to create a group email list.

------
zalew
> Bing Maps looks like a potential alternative

why not openstreetmaps?

~~~
joahua
It's pretty incomplete for parts of the world, and certain applications
require accuracy (or at least completeness). The answer, of course, is to
contribute, but when your core business isn't mapping that's hard to propose
as a viable fix.

Parts of the world in my case ~= Sydney, which has a decent number of geeks
per capita to contribute. OSM is wonderful, but has a way to go before it's a
viable solution for everyone.

~~~
incanus77
Check out MapBox and <http://ideditor.com>.

~~~
joahua
iDeditor is great! Leagues ahead of other OSM interfaces I've seen :) Did
MapBox have anything to do with it? Polished! Love the walkthrough!

I've just recently discovered (and love) TileMill.

------
xwei
I use all the products you listed. And I will not attack a company just
because of a product. If you just want to be popular? you did it. Kid.

------
jpkeisala
This is exactly like in nineties and also later some were trying to do anti-
microsoft movement.

------
ternaryoperator
owncloud was an interesting item on his replacement list. Has anyone else used
owncloud and can vouch for it? If so, are you self-hosting it or using a
commercial host? If the latter, which one?

~~~
xradionut
I was mildly interested in it until I saw the letters PHP, then lost interest.

------
AznHisoka
What about the products advertisers/publishers use? Adsense and Adwords.

------
Kiro
I'm doing the opposite.

------
czk
Streeme is a good alternative to Google Music

<https://code.google.com/p/streeme/>

------
felipelalli
exagerado.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Nah, farsighted :) Seriously, you just wait.

If you're a user on a commercial system you didn't pay for (Google, Facebook,
etc.) then you're not a customer, you're cattle. Your value is directly
proportional to how much the company running the system knows about you.

I don't like where Facebook is going, and I think Google is following in their
footsteps, albeit helped along by an excellent reputation for quality and fair
play, especially amongst geeks.

Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon, but I think Google is playing the same
'embrace and extend' card as Microsoft did back in the day, just for slightly
different reasons.

~~~
jmesserly
> Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon, but I think Google is playing the same
> 'embrace and extend' card as Microsoft did back in the day, just for
> slightly different reasons.

I see this meme a lot, but I don't get it how the analogy is supposed to work.

There is actual evidence that Microsoft in the 90's was trying to sabotage
standard protocols and open source software, e.g.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Documents>.

The key part of "embrace, extend, and extinguish" strategy was extending the
standard in proprietary ways, thus making it incompatible and no longer
implementable via open source software, thus killing it.

I don't get how any of this applies to any web company, where nearly the
entire business is based on the web and the standards that back it. It's no
wonder that many of these companies contribute back to the web standards and
open source software. Sure, these contributions are in the company's interests
--but that's the whole point. We reached a time when it's in interests of many
big (and small) corporations to contribute to open source and standards
(including Microsoft!).

Some people see efforts to improve standards or contribute new ones as somehow
bad, "embrace and extend". When actually it's the opposite: investing in the
commons to promote its welfare.

Obligatory disclaimer: speaking for myself here, not any employer past or
present.

~~~
duncan_bayne
... except where it isn't in their interests, which is why Google is trying to
kill off RSS with a multi-pronged strategy (ignore RSS in Chromium, kill off
RSS reader, don't offer an RSS feed in G+).

If your platform is free-as-in-beer, you have to monetise your users to
advertisers. You do this by learning more about them by keeping them within
your ecosystem, not by allowing them access to your platform through open
protocols.

I see it as a fundamental conflict between users of a system (you and me) and
the customers (advertisers). Google has made it clear which side of that
equation they care about. See e.g. their support of DRM in HTML.

~~~
magicalist
Not only would that be a pretty poor multi-pronged strategy, it still has
absolutely nothing to do with "embrace, extend, and extinguish", as the parent
pointed out.

And, seriously, "ignore RSS in Chromium" is now kowtowing to advertisers? How
about the lack of gopher support[1]? And no built in bittorrent client[2]??

I'm starting to agree with others that you have a point somewhere in here but
you're missing it over anger about Reader.

[1] <https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=11345>

[2] <https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=182399>

~~~
duncan_bayne
Not exactly embrace and extend like MS did it, but similar in spirit: take an
open protocol, embrace it for a while, gradually weaken it over time in favour
of a parallel closed system, then once everyone is happily using it, kill it
dead and watch the migration into the closed system.

If I had to guess, I'd say that torrent support was nixed for fear of
offending Big Content; Opera has already showed that it's reasonable for a
browser to support it. Also there's already a plugin for that protocol, so it
may just be a low priority for the team. Odd that they flagged the request
'invalid' though.

(Please stop telling me that I'm angry about Reader. It's not that I'm angry:
I've identified what I think is a pattern in Google's behaviour, figured out
what their end goal is, and it troubles me. So I'm abandoning their platform
to the greatest extent practical.)

~~~
magicalist
That's not similar in spirit to "embrace, extend, and extinguish", and not
even a good description of what they've done. There's no migration path from
Reader to G+ (presuming that's what you mean by "the closed system"). There's
not even a clear correspondence between the content in each, and meanwhile
Google _does_ provide a migration path to other RSS readers.

I think there is a clear argument for Google consolidating around APIs and
their social network instead of federated protocols in the future. However,
the whole "strategy to kill off RSS" thing is silly and undermines the other
arguments you're making.

The bittorrent and gopher comments were facetious. It's not at all clear that
all browsers should have a button that appears when a page has an RSS feed
and, when pressed, opens a _different_ web page to then enter the address of
that RSS feed into your reader. Zawinski's Law was not meant as praise.

The lack of that RSS button is no more evidence of trying to kill RSS than the
lack of gopher support is evidence of Google's plot to make sure that Gopher
will never rise again like a phoenix and supplant the World Wide Web once and
for all. Instead, you make sure extensions are able to build that button for
those that want it (or put an option to enable it in about:config) and you
call it a day.

------
maxwell2022
Good for you...

------
yanw
I try to avoid these sorts of submissions, mainly because of their non-content
and the subsequent familiar discussion, but somehow they keep reaching the
front page.

It’s certainly your prerogative to use whatever you like but the incorrect
assertions bother me, especially the prevalent one: “It's because I think that
Google is now working against the potential of the open web”.

Here’s a rebuttal in the form of a _partial_ list of links to Google
initiatives that exist primarily to advance the “open web”:

<http://www.webrtc.org>

<http://www.chromium.org>

And their various web speed efforts:

<https://developers.google.com/speed/spdy>

<https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed>

And of course:

<https://fiber.google.com>

I don't think the closure of Google Reader was any indication to the contrary,
and all of these are certainly much more important to the web than yet another
centralized RSS reader.

Other errors in that post: Chrome never ‘dropped decent RSS support’ as it
never supported it to begin with, it was actually Firefox that dropped their
support. Also there is no evidence that Reader was closed to “drive users to
Google+”, there is no proof nor common sense explanation to support that
assertion.

~~~
josteink

        Here’s a rebuttal in the form of a partial list of links to Google
        initiatives that exist primarily to advance the “open web”:
        
        http://www.chromium.org
    

That's funny. I see Chromium as their OSS alibi for doing whatever non-
standard they want with open-web HTML, which doesn't exist in any other
browser. But now it's not "proprietary", because it's in a OS code-repo
somewhere.

So now it's "standards" even though it hasn't been submitted, ratified or
approved yet. And everyone else, if they dont want Google's stuff to work
poorly in their browser, has to be a dog and follow Google's leash.

I consider Chromium some of the worst damage Google has done to the open web.

~~~
Spakman
Interesting opinion. I hadn't considered it like that at all, but I will give
it some thought. How much of the non-standard stuff is getting any
use/traction (honest question)?

For me, currently, Chromium seems like nothing like a good thing. For example,
their Linux sandboxing appears to be at least a step ahead of anything else so
far.

