
You know, Google, the web already had this feature - vrypan
http://blog.vrypan.net/2013/4/11/Googleplus-pages-notifications/
======
kunai
Google has overstayed the web's welcome.

What started out as a quirky, innovative company that bucked all of the suit-
and-tie trends (see Microsoft, HP, even Apple in some regards) of Silicon
Valley, has now turned into a monstrous calamity with no regard for its users.
Up until 2009, it was breezy and beautiful, but right now, at this moment,
it's a different story altogether.

Don't be evil? Pfeh. The only thing left of Google that they haven't managed
to screw up or cause outrage over is search. The only thing they _can't_
afford to change, for fear people will stop using it.

This harkens back far before Google, far before any company dared invest in
the Internet. This type of corporate mentality is one we see often, but tend
to forget quickly. Apple did it in the 1990s. Microsoft is doing it now; look
at Windows 8.

Any corporation that strays too far from its roots with fail. Not in a fiscal
sense, but in an ethical sense, and that's the worst type of failure there is.
Do I _hope_ they get their shit together and start being Google again? Of
course. They could start by fixing YouTube, exhuming Google Reader, and
rethinking the decision to end iGoogle.

And please, PLEASE, reinvent that horrid thing called Google+. Even the name
sucks.

~~~
blhack
>Google has overstayed the web's welcome.

Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet Explorer,
get an iPhone and shut up about it.

No, google has not "overstayed the web's welcome", google has overstayed the
welcome of a few entitled silicon valley golddiggers who will continue feeling
wronged for the next 10 minutes until they realize what wonderful things
google has created in the world for them to use.

~~~
coldtea
> _Then stop using their products. Switch to bing, switch to Internet
> Explorer, get an iPhone and shut up about it._

And who exactly are you to tell him to "shut up about it"? He made his case.
You might disagree. State your case and let the discussion continue. Anything
else --like telling him to "shup up"-- should be beneath HN standards.

For one, people do use alternative products. It's not as if Chrome is the
ultimate browser. It's not like Android is the ultimate phone OS. The only
real Google stronghold is search. Even there, Bing has come a long way, lots
of geeks prefer DuckDuckGo, and 1.3 Billion Chinese could not care less about
Google Search for example. More than that, people would be really happy to see
a real contender in the search space in the West too.

And, more importantly, one market leading service does not justify taking
abuse from the company that offers it -- or putting up with their other
mediocre offerings.

Actually, come to think of it, nothing justifies taking abuse from any company
or putting up with BS schemes they make. Even if they are the only ones
selling water in Sahara.

~~~
ender7
I don't know, he/she didn't really "make a case". Read it again -- the OP
doesn't actually _say_ anything in the grandparent post besides "they used to
be great, but now I hate them". Why does the OP hate them? Who knows!

The fact that such a contentless diatribe is at #1 is depressing. That too
should be beneath HN's standards.

~~~
kunai
> Why does the OP hate them? Who knows!

I quite clearly stated this in my post. Everything that isn't research-based,
or what is user-oriented, like Google+, YouTube, etc. has been milked to death
and ruined in the process.

Other things, like how they consistently buy off startups and kill them, also
annoy the hell out of me.

> The fact that such a contentless diatribe is at #1 is depressing. That too
> should be beneath HN's standards.

Obviously opinions, while mixed, account for half of reasoning. Opinions seem
to be in the favor that Google has lost its way.

~~~
RestlessMind
> YouTube, etc. has been milked to death and ruined in the process.

Youtube, in fact, is much better in 2013 than what it was in 2007. eg. I have
seamless integration with other products I use (eg. uploading a video from my
android phone) or I can purchase/rent content which I couldn't earlier. Can
you explain how Youtube has been "ruined"?

> like how they consistently buy off startups and kill them, also annoy the
> hell out of me.

Then do you also hate the founders who sell their companies to Google (or any
other big company)?

~~~
coldtea
> _Youtube, in fact, is much better in 2013 than what it was in 2007. eg. I
> have seamless integration with other products I use (eg. uploading a video
> from my android phone) or I can purchase/rent content which I couldn't
> earlier. Can you explain how Youtube has been "ruined"?_

I can.

For one, being able to purchase/rent is irrelevant to the original YouTube
idea. It wasn't a movie marketplace -- it was about sharing videos. People can
purchase/rent content from 10000 sources, it's not what made YT useful
originally.

Second, it has been ruined by:

1) Constant ads, from "skip in 4 seconds" to "you have to watch all 30s,
sucka".

2) Taking off videos, or taking off their audio content, when some media
company decides the music is theirs.

3) Forced G+ integration.

~~~
RestlessMind
> People can purchase/rent content from 10000 sources, it's not what made YT
> useful originally.

Correct, but now I can do all my online-video-related activities in one place.
How is "going to 10000 different sources" better than that? Google already has
my credit card info. Ability to purchase content on YT means I don't have to
give my CC details to yet another website. How is that not a good thing for
the user?

> 1) Constant ads, from "skip in 4 seconds" to "you have to watch all 30s,
> sucka".

I prefer that experience over alternatives which have even more intrusive ads.

>2) Taking off videos, or taking off their audio content, when some media
company decides the music is theirs.

This can happen to any website. Google is just complying with the law. Are you
proposing that Google should violate the law?

> 3) Forced G+ integration. I agree, its bad. But saying YT is "ruined"
> because of that is hyperbole.

------
blhack
You guys in this thread whining about google:

It isn't google that has changed, it is _the whole world_ which has changed.

Look at the things that some of you champion; the iPhone, the iPad...anything
running iOS, anything made by apple computer, the company that is pushing _the
hardest_ against openness on the internet. Oh, you want some basic browser
functionality like uploading files? Spend time learning objective C, writing
an app, submitting it to us (can't let anything edgy get through! Don't use
any APIs we don't like!) and then selling it in our closed off app store so
that people stay in our warm walled in garden of shiny plastic.

You talk about "growth hackers" or "hustlers" as if these people are anything
but parasites on our creative culture.

Yeah, google does some shitty things. Google+ is obnoxious. Some of the stuff
happening with youtube is obnoxious, but google remains as one of the coolest
companies in the world, still funding the coolest things in the world just
because they can.

If a little bit of annoying google+ talk is the price that humanity has to pay
for things like google driverless cars, google glass, and google fiber FINALLY
holding bandwidth providers to task on bringing fiber to the curb, then GOOD.

I will continue to take that deal. The people whining about google+ will too.

Oh hey! You know we could just give it all back.

Back goes chrome! Remember when firefox leaked memory like a sieve but we all
STILL ran it because there wasn't a viable alternative (unless you were double
super extra hip and ran Opera)

Back goes android! Enjoy choosing between Apples complete joke of a mobile
operating system and RIM, or palm.

Back goes google glass! Maybe Microsoft will sink the money required into
developing a viable headmounted display.

Back goes google cars! Oh! Maybe Mercedes will license some garbage developed
by a defense contractor in the 90s and sell it on their most expensive luxury
cars.

Reading this thread reads like I'm reading the comments of a bunch of spoiled
children.

If you seriously hate google+ this much, then good! Use all of these
wonderful, world changing tools we have around us and "hustle" and "growth
hack" your way into a brand new web browser and suite of free mail, spam
filtering, document storage, and search.

I look forward to see it!

~~~
kunai
There is nothing Google Glass does that my smartphone already can't.

And how is Apple waging war against openness? WebKit is open-source. They're
pushing HTML5 against Flash (open vs proprietary). Darwin (OS X without Quartz
and DPS) is open source. A few of the apps included with OS X are open-source.

Google cars? Driverless car research has been going on for years, both before
and alongside Google.

Look, I'm not badmouthing their accomplishments. All I'm saying is that
they're just not the company they used to be.

~~~
NewAccnt
HTML5 is not standard, certainly not open. Everyone abandoned WebKit for some
unknown reason having to do with Apple. Please list these OSS Apps, I would
love to know since Google and Wikpedia say nothing like that.

~~~
clobber
<http://www.opensource.apple.com/>

Crazy, huh?

~~~
reidrac
I don't know if it's crazy, but I wouldn't say that site is the answer. Yes,
it has the open source word all over it, but have you spent two minutes to
look at the content? Most of the "relevant" stuff is just to comply with third
party OSS licenses (read: non APSL projects).

Although not exactly the same, it looks to me more or less like this:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200203720)

OSS is about community not just a website to release files (aka "code dump").
If you had pointed to <http://www.webkit.org/> or <http://www.cups.org/> ;
well, that would be different.

EDIT: typos

~~~
Intermernet
Maybe not CUPS.

From <http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/license.html>

"CUPSTM is provided under the GNU General Public License ("GPL") and GNU
Library General Public License ("LGPL"), Version 2, with exceptions for Apple
operating systems and the OpenSSL toolkit."

I wonder why the OpenSSL toolkit needs an exemption.

~~~
sciurus
OpenSSL's license imposes additional restrictions which are not compatible
with the GPL. Thus, if you release code under the GPL but want to allow people
to link it with OpenSSL, you need to provide an exception.

There's an article covering the topic with much more nuance at
<https://lwn.net/Articles/428111/>

~~~
Intermernet
Thanks, I had originally thought it may have been some residual effect of the
export embargo on crypto
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_U...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_in_the_United_States#PC_era\)>);

I'm going to have to do some more reading on this. I was particularly
interested in the quote "the problem here is actually a former OpenSSL hacker
who has no interest (and, in fact, a positive interest against) in changing
the OpenSSL licensing". Sounds intriguing!

------
ChuckMcM
I feel the author's pain. I don't hold it against Google for looking at the
way RSS is (was?) used and re-implementing it in a way that they can more
easily make money off it, while simultaneously removing any traction they are
offering for the old non monetizable way of doing things. They are a business
after all and no amount of money in the bank is enough [1].

But I find the whining a bit distracting since the same thing that made RSS in
the first place is still out there. There is no "patent" on aggregating RSS
feeds or creating a more durable (and by that I mean self sustainable) service
which has the same capability.

My advice is don't look at this as a loss, look at this as an opportunity.
Rarely does the invading army come back to revisit the burned out village they
have left behind. It is dead to them, so it is a uniquely safe place to avoid
their future gaze.

[1] I asked Eric Schmidt at one of the TGIF (friday) meetings why taking the
$30M/year they spent on bottled water and putting it into their bank account
made sense. His answer was that there were a lot of unknowns facing Google and
the only insurance they had for dealing with them was to have a lot of
capital. There is always something that _could_ happen, that you might have
prevented if you had just a bit more _money_. And sliding rapidly down that
slope as early as 2007 (when I asked my question) it continues to be the goto
answer to this day.

~~~
mapgrep
>"There is no "patent" on... creating a more durable (and by that I mean self
sustainable) service which has the same capability."

I'd love to hear why you believe going from a decentralized open shared system
like RSS to a centralized proprietary system controlled by one corporation
(Google+) is even conceivably more "durable."

I'd bet $100 that Google+ sharing will be dead and buried long before RSS goes
anywhere.

~~~
endlessvoid94
I trust google to build good infrastructure more than I trust the collective
developer community. That's one reason -- whatever they build will be more
robust, flexible, and extensible. And immediately adopted by hundreds of
millions of people automatically.

I guess that's not the same as "durable", but playing devil's advocate, those
seem like good reasons to me.

~~~
Periodic
The RSS system was partially so painful because it was so fragmented. Some
pages had links to feeds, some used the proper meta tags, some just didn't
have them because they lost control of the presentation of the content. Some
were headline only, some were snippets, some were full-article. And every few
months one of my feeds would change location so I'd have go set up the new
feed. Sometimes they'd just go dark because their provider had an error and
the blog author might not even know.

In short, the RSS system had lots of nice properties, but it just wasn't
compelling, partially because it was so fragmented.

Google will generally make robust infrastructure that exists much longer than
most small sites. I'm willing to put some trust in them, though I personally
dislike G+.

------
DanBC
Honestly: Google isn't that bad. This article mentions a few things, and
specifically mentions Google. But really many other companies and websites are
doing similar things.

I've been railing against anything other than pure HTML, CSS, and perhaps
Javascript for years. I've obviously lost that argument a long time ago. But
it's not Google who killed that model of the web. If anything Google is
helping by helping to kill Flash.

Sites have been blocking based on browser type for years. They've even used
sneaky tricks to avoid users changing the agentid string.
([https://groups.google.com/group/alt.sysadmin.recovery/msg/7e...](https://groups.google.com/group/alt.sysadmin.recovery/msg/7e6d6a94db0c84bb))
- that website (the Argos website) worked perfectly well in Opera.

~~~
Periodic
I noticed a decent number of sites ditching RSS because it was too hard to
monetize. RSS feeds were fairly low interaction. You read the article, you go
to the next, you're done with them. This means you're not going to their site
and getting the ad impressions, seeing the related links, noticing the
comments, etc.

I personally think that an HTTP meta tag would be the right way to link to a
G+ page. And heck, this is a browser extension, so I don't even have to
install it if I don't want it. But it's not like this is a nefarious plot by
Google to destroy the web as we know it.

------
bpatrianakos
The author is reaching here. Us nerds need to remember the web isn't just for
us, at least not for B2C businesses. Google isn't doing this to squash
competing technologies and take over the web... on purpose. What's going on is
that only nerds like us give a damn about RSS. Everyone else wants to just
point and click around and have stuff work. Google+ and some pointing and
clicking around = a lot of happy normal people. Seriously, meta tags? Again,
who's gonna do that except me and everyone else in this thread? Techie folks
like us tend to really overestimate our importance and how many of us there
are. There's a lot but we're nothing compared non-technical folks.

Google isn't for us. It's for your parents. But that's alright because there's
a whole world wide web out there without Google and Google really can't do
much to actually kill any technology. RSS exists guys, there's just no Google
Reader anymore. The cool thing is that if you actually care about this stuff
then you're probably in a position to know how to build it. Google caters to
those who don't know or care to build stuff. Why would you blame a company for
catering to its customers?

------
BenoitEssiambre
I have always been somewhat of a Google fanboy except for a few misgivings
about their worrisome breadth of infiltration into people's live and things
like the iGoogle shutdown but the Reader situation has been a huge slap in the
face that made me lose a lot of faith in them.

There is a huge war between Facebook and Google for global control of the most
popular social graph and as much as I like Zuckerberg as a person, I was
rooting for G+ for its streamlined interface and perceived lesser level of
evil. Now I'm not so sure.

I think there should be a third option in the form of a decentralized social
protocol.

I think there is market for a "social rss" where you could choose amongst a
number for providers, "Google Readers" for social if you will, that could
connect to each other. That way people could choose their frontend and the way
they consume their friends social feeds. This would open competition and give
people choices of different user interfaces, layouts and themes.

For public posts the implementation could be fairly straightforward. I assume
other providers would periodically fetch friends posts, upvotes, downvotes and
other social interactions from other networks.

When it comes to private content, the providers would probably have to send
things only to other trusted providers that promise to show it only to the
correct "circles". However, I don't see it as a big deal since privacy in G+
and Facebook is already somewhat of an illusion because it only takes one
amongst hundreds of friends to share your stuff outside the network. Maybe
your friends would need to authenticate into your network and do email
verification at least once. Maybe they could use a Mozilla Persona
authentication?

There are companies that could do this without too much effort. Tumblr already
publishes rss of their user's feed, they would only need to add the ability to
consume rss and push for an upgrade of the rss protocol to support social
features.

Digg has shown interest in doing an rss reader, why shouldn't they work on
upgrading the protocol to include more social features?

Other web based rss reader companies could do it.

A new team from this community.

Or even better, cooperation of all of the above!

~~~
BariumBlue
>I think there should be a third option in the form of a decentralized social
protocol.

You mean something like diaspora? <https://joindiaspora.com/>

~~~
freshhawk
diaspora hasn't ever been a viable product, and the project itself is
completely stalled now isn't it?

------
jmilloy
Wait, you're not a Google fan anymore because you have to use Google in order
to use a Google service? You're complaining that you have to use Chrome in
order to use a Chrome add-on? And that you have to use Google+ in order to get
Google+ notifications? You can add Google+ pages to your circles without this
add-on; you don't like Google anymore because they're offering the ease of
doing this in a single click in a particular browser, but you have to send
them some data?

If the content you're interested in is only available through Google+, that's
not Google's fault. Complain instead to the website owner who decided to have
content on their Google+ page.

------
zmmmmm
The web had the feature and it failed: everyone flocked to Facebook and
Twitter to live within their happy walled gardens.

What do you want Google to do - sacrifice their business to pursue some
ideological point about how geeks think the web should be? Google is being
reactive here. The web already lost this feature, because us (we geeks) failed
to make a distributed, federated model appetizing enough for Grandma and Aunt
Maud to use. I think there's still opportunity for a federated model to arise
and beat the pants off Facebook and Twitter (and G+ for that matter) but it's
not going to happen as long as we're all in denial about the flaws of the old
model.

------
Shooti
Given its a extension for universal access to the G+ notification count,
people who go out of there way to install this and keep it have not only
bought into the notion of the G+ stream, but like it enough that they want
more convenient access to it.

With this as a premise, an optional feature inside an already optional
extension to scope out more content for the stream just seems to be a logical
extension for the enthusiasts who use it.

Even supposing the only content on the G+ page was exact reshares of articles,
it isn't an exact 1-to-1 match with an RSS subscription since it also augments
the users search results, populates contact details into the Android People
app/address book as well as any other integrations they add to circles.

I don't really get the significance of the article, though maybe it's because
I've (mostly) got over my Reader mourning phase.

------
felipebueno
I used to be a Google fan as well. Not a BIG fan but a fan. In late 2010 I
decided it was time to move on from Google. It took a while but I already went
back to Firefox (nightly), started moving my emails to fasmail.fm (with my own
domain so I'm not tied to anyone), I'm trying to use only DuckDuckGo (it's
difficult... I have to admit that Google is unbeatable yet), stopped using
google+ and Google Reader (since 2011), avoiding Google Talk, Analytics and
Web Master Tools, etc. I think I'll make it to the end of this year. They are
evil.

~~~
lawdawg
Is this the tech version of Poe's Law? Or is it the new version of tin-foil-
hatism?

You guys have a very, very strange definition of "evil". Google may not be
perfect, and sure they deserve some harsh criticism and mocking from time to
time for their choice of unofficial motto, but come on people, get a grip.

~~~
myko
I think felipebueno was being sarcastic, just did a poor job of getting that
across. It doesn't look like a serious comment to me.

~~~
felipebueno
Yeah, it was a (poor) joke =P. But I really don't like Google anymore and I'm
going to avoid their stuff.

------
endlessvoid94
Waiting around for people to embed metadata in their webpages is a terrible
business strategy.

This is way better for google than something like an embedded RSS feed. This
lets google generate the equivalent automatically, without webmasters needing
to do anything.

Yes, this occurs at the expense of other things (annoying developers). But
that's the reason.

------
angryasian
lets all stop with all the fear mongering. Do you guys really believe that
every time a site loads a facebook or twitter widget they aren't tracking you
either. I can name 1000 other trackers that sites actually do install and that
do genuinely sell your information. There are a handful of widgets that do the
same thing for twitter and facebook so lets just stop the bs.

~~~
jodrellblank
"Because Facebook tracks you, mentioning Google's tracking is fearmongering
bs". I don't follow your argument.

I do, however, follow the like-button-blocker ShareMeNot

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/sharemenot/>

<http://sharemenot.cs.washington.edu/>

~~~
angryasian
it is fear mongering because the entire point of the article is to point out
another widget/tracker, when its absolutely nothing new. Event their +1 button
probably does the same thing. So the author wants to obviously use googles
name to get more page views when this is nothing new and has been done for
years by facebook and twitter.

~~~
jodrellblank
But that's not the point.

The point is claiming that Google took one existing open thing (RSS), killed
it off, and replaced it with a Google-proprietary alternative. The spying
agitating part is just side-complaining.

~~~
angryasian
What are you talking about rss is not killed off, ask the feedly team rss is
still alive and well. Point me to any site and I will show you their rss feed.
The reality is most sites aggregate their content using twitter, rss,
facebook.. so they are encouraging you to aggregate it in the same way. Really
we have an issue with that.

------
mthoms
Nitpick: the extension would not need to send every URL visited to Google.
Just the ones where it detects a G+ widget. And by serving you the widget in
the first place Google already knows that you've visited that page.

(Unless I misunderstand what the extension actually does)

~~~
emiliobumachar
It's much like facebook's "like" button. It informs fb you've visited the page
even if you don't click it.

------
sanjiallblue
I think this blogger isn't understanding a fundamental reality of corporate
structure that has little to do with some pie-eyed plan for what Google thinks
the web "needs".

This behavior isn't indicative of any design to "improve" the web, which I
think could be said that a fair majority of programmers desire on a personal
level and indeed what most laymen would admit to wanting as well.

This has to do with Google focusing on brand homogenization. This is
marketing, not web fundamentals. It's a company trying to extend, homogenize
and monetize its brand and the services its brand can offer under those
circumstances.

I also thinks this differs in nature from the path Microsoft took with its OS
strategy, though there are certainly some similarities.

Is corporatism infesting Google? Of course it is! That's what happens when a
corporation grows to the size Google has over the past decade. Now, this is in
no way meant to be in any way a defense of corporate culture or an argument
against lobbying tech companies to do what's best for the web. We generally
want to see the web evolve in a positive way.

However, if you're expecting that from a major corporation that at the end of
the day has responsibilities to shareholders... well, to say the least you're
going to be disappointed.

Positive evolution will generally come from non-profits, because they can take
risks. I defy any programmer to point to one of these tech giants and say they
"definitively moved the web in a positive direction". Google's the absolute
closest you could get using such a narrow criteria and that's largely due to
their innovations in search that stem from their less profit-focused days and
their more recent Google Fiber efforts. Even then, Google Fiber is an
extension of Google's long-term corporate goals.

The only point I want to argue is that we need to look at this situation
through a realistic lens. When we lose sight of the realities of Corporate
America and its relationship with technology, that's the point when we start
engaging in counterproductive hyperbole.

------
bitwize
It's the 2013 version of Netscape's "What's New" and "What's Cool" buttons.

Holy shit, nothing HAS changed. It just has a different skin on it.

~~~
sesqu
What did those buttons do? I was always curious, but not curious enough to
press them.

~~~
bitwize
They took you to pages of interesting web links curated by Netscape, on their
servers. The URLs were hardcoded into the binary.

~~~
sesqu
How curious. thanks.

------
bruceb
So google tells business hey setup a google+ account for your business to show
yourself off...accept if a person is on their iPhone and comes to your google+
page they have to have google+ installed. How many are not going to bother
installing the app and not come back to your google+ page?

There is a difference between highly suggesting consumers use your product
which google used to do and requiring they use your product. Sadly google has
crossed that line.

------
metaphorm
I'm not so fond of Google+ either, but really this is a lame post. RSS was
just not that good of a technology and has been in zombie status for a couple
of years now already. Its about time somebody took steps to put it out of its
misery.

Google+ is a shitty replacement for RSS and I don't even think its going to
catch on, but at least now we have more of an opportunity to try and get open
content syndication right.

~~~
voyou
"RSS was just not that good of a technology"

What was wrong with it? I mean there were problems with the twenty slightly
different versions, or whatever, but they were solved by Atom. What do you
want in open content syndication that wouldn't naturally build on Atom?

~~~
metaphorm
lack of rich media support kept RSS limited to text based reader applications
and therefore a less appealing option vs. just bookmarking actual websites and
reading them in a browser (or mobile browser).

dependence on aggregation tools running clientside also meant that operating
an RSS reader had just as much overhead for the user as just using their
browser already does. if its a worse experience than reading in the browser,
and is equally complicated to do then there's no good reason to prefer RSS
over a browser.

a replacement technology should, in my mind, not be something that competes
with the browser experience (as RSS/Atom did). at this moment I don't think
there's a compelling use case for a replacement at all which is why we're not
actually seeing active development of one. what I expect will happen is that
more and more websites will eventually implement RESTful API's and then we'll
just have the option of syndicating over REST calls instead of relying on RSS.

------
heja2009
I find it really depressing that this discussion immediately degrades into
Apple vs Google, people feel a need to state that they are or have been a
"fan" of Google before giving their statement and similar. If we want to
really discuss about what a desirable future for the web is, how to further
that cause, and who might be allies and foes we first have to overcome these
attitudes.

------
druska
Google tracking codes are on a majority of sites anyway, and you probably find
the sites using Google. They already know which URLs you go to.

~~~
acqq
Exactly. Only a few sites don't already notify your visit to Google. And if
you already use Chrome every keypress in the address bar is already sent to
Google. In some old times Google didn't get a notification about what you
clicked after search. Now they do.

------
mdellabitta
There's a false equivalence fallacy the author commits here where he assumes
that the effort required to get a useful number of websites that also have
Google+ pages to commit to embedding a specific tag is equal to the effort
required to create this Chrome plugin that phones home, or that either of
those two tasks could be accomplished by the same people.

------
liotier
For a little background about where this rant comes from : the article's
author was also the author of a nice feed aggregator - and he is a good guy.

Anyone who has been invested in developing stream infrastructure to break
through the silos that web sites used to be can only be aghast at the
regressive trend pushed by large social walled gardens.

------
o0-0o
FREEDOM.

As long as things stay free, Google and anyone else are free to do what they
want. There is also a corollary here: Every form of refuge has it's price.

Democracy and republics are not perfect, but name a better system that has
worked.

------
voyou
This does suggest that they really did shut down Reader in order to push
people to use Google+. This suggests that somebody at Google is a fucking
idiot, because Google+ is in no way a substitute for Reader. Google+ (like
Facebook or Twitter) gives me a stream of stuff that's happened recently -
it's ephemeral, in that if I don't make a conscious effort to bookmark
something I see there, I'll forget it. An RSS reader, on the other hand,
remembers (and categorizes) everything unless I make a conscious choice to
mark it as forgettable.

------
fotoblur
_My personal stream was my RSS feed, you want me to replace it with a Google+
profile._ Interesting I wrote about this just about a year ago: Social
Networks Killed the Content Providers
([http://www.lanceramoth.com/blog/2012/05/social-networks-
kill...](http://www.lanceramoth.com/blog/2012/05/social-networks-killed-the-
content-providers))

I also introduced the idea of Personal Digital Asset (PDA). Would love to know
what you think.

------
api
It's not Google's problem, or Facebook's or Microsoft's or anyone else's. The
problem is architectural. With NAT and firewalls we have created a net that
does not permit _easy_ lateral communication. As a result, all communication
must go through something in the "cloud" -- some third party. This is
inherently favorable to monopolies for several reasons.

IPv6 and killing the in-network firewall would change things immensely.

------
felipelalli
If you don't like, make it better.

------
umsm
I don't know if people know this or not, but all of these "social" features
invade our privacy without us having to install an extension. The social
javascript embedded into the web page automatically communicates with each
service it's from.

------
namuol
All this Apple vs Google talk is tiresome.

People: complaining about Google doesn't mean praise for Apple, or vice versa.

Defending Google's recent follies by comparing them to Apple is like telling
someone to leave America if they don't like the PATRIOT Act.

------
flaktrak
The fuhrer.. err I mean Larry Page has declared G+ or die! So expect more to
go that competes or can't intergrate G+ properly. Google long ago lost the "Do
no evil" moniker.

------
nano111
Google is also starting to screw with the search results ... personalized
search results for example... Maybe Mozilla should start a search engine

~~~
o0-0o
In order to get truly relevant search results, I have to log out of Google. I
really don't think they _know_ what I want to find, and likely never will.

~~~
mieubrisse
If you don't like it (as neither you nor I do), then turn it off. Start a
search, go to the "Search Settings" in the top right corner, then "Do not use
personal search results".

------
danbmil99
Google+ is the Bob of our times

------
sahaj
I wish Google would charge me for Reader. I'd be willing to pay up to
$50/year.

------
yanw
Chrome never implemented RSS auto discovery.

Everyone else has a "walled garden" why must Google be different? and why
should they - arguably the least “walled” of said gardens - suffer the
"openness" brunt?

The fact that they are not investing in RSS tools doesn't mean they're against
them, it's just not in their interest anymore, and so I come to the conclusion
that this is yet another Google Reader lament, and I thought we've already had
our fill of these on the HN front page.

It’s the same discussion all over again, If you've not found a Reader
replacement by now, or at least had your eyes on a couple of replacement
candidates then you're just being stubborn.

Google lets you export your feeds and that is why they are not "evil", not
because they refuse to indefinitely maintain a service that isn't of interest
to them.

Also the crux or that post is an opt in feature that you have to install as a
browser extension, if you don't like it then avoid the extension, but then how
is it any different than Facebook's 'like' buttons or any of the other social
widgets that are cluttering the web?!

~~~
jmillikin

      > Chrome never implemented RSS auto discovery.
    

Chrome has an official extension for RSS auto-discovery:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rss-
subscription-e...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rss-subscription-
extensio/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd?hl=en)

The Chrome team argues that not enough people use RSS to justify having an
icon in the URL bar by default. I personally think this is somewhat circular
reasoning ("People don't use RSS, so we won't show an icon letting them know
about RSS"), but sadly other browsers such as Firefox have followed their lead
and removed RSS notifications by default.

Also, whether or not the browser implements native RSS auto-discovery is
irrelevant to the point of the article. The Chrome extension in the article
could be easily implemented by checking for a special <link> element, so that
no URLs need to be sent back to Google just to know that the page is Plus-
enabled.

However, off the top of my head, there's a good reason why this wouldn't do
much good. The advertised functionality of the Google+ extension requires
details about the Google+ stream that the page links to. If the extension
checked for a <link>, it would still need to send the URL in that link to
Google to get those stream details. The privacy improvement seems marginal.

In the end, I think this complaint is better served by declaring that the URLs
aren't recorded. Google's DNS and Omnibox already have similar declarations,
so it wouldn't be unprecedented.

~~~
azakai
> sadly other browsers such as Firefox have followed their lead and removed
> RSS notifications by default.

? I am on Firefox, no addons, and I have a menu item Bookmarks->Subscribe to
this page which detects RSS/Atom.

~~~
jmillikin
Firefox used to have an RSS icon in the address bar when a page referenced an
RSS feed. This was an easy way to notify the user that a particular page
supported RSS.

The icon was removed in Firefox 4, causing much annoyance among people who use
RSS (c.f. [http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/firefox-4-ditches-the-
rss-b...](http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/01/firefox-4-ditches-the-rss-button-
heres-how-to-get-it-back/) )

~~~
azakai
Oh ok, that is definitely a change then, but it's a minor UI change of moving
a button into a menu.

------
yanw
So don't install the extension then.

Who are these low karma users who keep submitting these Google bashing/feigned
indignation posts?!

~~~
Steko
"So don't install the extension then."

So if a crack house opens up in your neighborhood the proper response is not
invite them to the barbecue? Shouldn't we also use our voices to call
attention to things we want changed?

"Who are these low karma users who keep submitting these Google
bashing/feigned indignation post?!"

If you think HN is a haven for Google bashing you are hilariously off base.

~~~
yanw
How is that analogy valid?! why install a browser extension when you're not
interested in its functionality?

~~~
Steko
Because he talks about more than just this browser extension. Spoilers, I read
to the end:

 _My personal stream was my RSS feed, you want me to replace it with a Google+
profile. My news aggregator was the RSS aggregator of my choice, you want me
to use a semi-read-only version called Google+. My browser would auto-discover
the stream related to any page I visited and would allow me to subscribe to
it, now you want me to use a Google+ chrome plugin which in addition kills my
privacy.

Everyting worked quite well, and you could pick our side and help us make it
better -that’s what you’d do back in the “don’t be evil” days.

Oh, right, I forgot: You killed RSS auto-discovery in chrome, Google reader is
dead, and Feedburner is a living dead. I get it._

~~~
yanw
No one is forcing him or you to use any of these things. It's just another
Google Reader lament.

~~~
Steko
It's the latest in a string of moves that show a clear shift at Google away
from supporting the open web. Thank god for Mozilla.

~~~
lawdawg
And Mozilla thanks Google for it's continued existence. Funny how it all works
out in the end.

