‘Morale is at an all-time low’: Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and ‘eroded’ culture::An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai’s lack of “visionary leadership.”
‘Morale is at an all-time low’: Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and ‘eroded’ culture::An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai’s lack of “visionary leadership.”
Google’s decisions in the time Pichai has been CEO, have been anti-consumer all the way. Not the fun conpany it used to be, now users are being forced out of adblockers and a products promise is abandoned way too often.
I am probably the perfect google customer. I used google search when it still had an exclamation point. I got my gmail account by invite in ‘04. Downloaded chrome on day one. I used nexus/pixel phones almost exclusively
Today, ddg search on Firefox. I am using an iPhone. I still have the gmail account but I am slowly migrating away from it. I am done with google. They don’t produce anything that has any value for me anymore.
Big oof on the iphone, mate. You can have an android phone with CFW that doesn’t have all of the google telemetry and bloatware.
Seems like a lot of work to have a phone that just works and is easy
What works on iPhone though? You can’t even change your ringtone to your own sound without having to draw your wallet.
Just stick with bloatware android then
That’s not true at all. GarageBand will let you make tones directly on the device if you want to.
That said, yeah, get a grapheneos device and cut google out completely, it works just fine.
I haven’t remotely cared about a custom ringtone in about 14 years.
This is entirely and completely false.
Same, but opera/firefox, Zenfone, and proton Mail. Not really a fan of apple either
I’m doing all the same as you
What I’m not moving away from though is Google Maps and Photos. No good alternatives exist
For photos, I have been using Immich, and have been very impressed. It has pretty much all the features I want (automatic backup, chronological timeline, mobile/web app, face tagging, semantic search, albums, sharing, etc). It’s a server you self-host though, so setting it up might be a pain if you’ve never done something like that before.
This looks good as a self hosted option, but I want something hosted.
Pay for a cloud server and install it? There’s a hosted option 😀
Lol I’ve been a software developer for 20 years, I’m well aware of what it takes to maintain a server. Which is exactly why I would rather pay someone else to do it
Amazon photos?
This is super neat
About Maps, same here. Even looked into paid alternatives, and… There’s not really much of value. I’m disappointed.
Ente? Just started subscribing though… seems good. 99c for base plan is pretty attractive.
Looks promising, I’ll keep my eye on it, might give it a go with some photos to test it out. I wish it weren’t e2e encrypted though, I actually like a lot of the features Google provides (tagging/grouping by feature, looking back, etc)
What are you switching to for email?
I moved to proton mail personally after having Gmail since forever.
Took a year and I pay 40usd per year but worth it
How safe / stable is proton mail? Say they go under in 5 years are you just fucked? Or is your setup such that you could move easily? Also is your email just xxxx@proton.com? Or something longer?
I don’t have a crystal ball but Proton is the go-to, privacy-focused email provider. They are based in Switzerland.
They likely have a way for you to export your emails if they go under or use a desktop email client to archive them.
It’s less the backup more all the stuff linked to your account. All the sign-ups if they go down fast… You’re fucked 😕
I pay for LastPass and would never go back. I know there are other options that people will point out but I’m too invested now haha.
I highly recommend getting LastPass or something similar. It was much easier to make the transition away from google products
As a former LastPass customer, I’m telling you to move over the BitWarden. LastPass has had bad security break-ins.
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Close, it’s proton.me
Or @pm.me, even shorter
Woah, didn’t know that one. Thank you.
I have my own domain. So I’d lose my emails but I could just move the address. I’d recommend that for sure. In case you want to move to another mail provider down the line it’s super simple.
I think it’s a bit extra to have a custom domain but it’s super worth it.
I’m exactly in the same boat, been considering migrating to protonmail. Have moved everything else to alternatives except gmail.
Slowly working on hosting my own. Stuff like this is not fast for me since I am a hobbyist and not in tech professionally. But, I’m getting there.
I just switched to getting my own domain and hosting it as a bundle with the domain provider. The Web client sucks, but I use thunderbird anyways.
That is a better idea than me foolishly trying to get all of it running out of my basement. So many little things that lead to other little things. Right now, my “ditch gmail” project is a build my own router with openwrt project.
Fuggen rabbit holes man.
You can start one on a cloud hosting service tomorrow, and then if at some point you want to move to “on premises” hosting (as in, a Raspberry Pi in your basement) then you can migrate over easily enough. That’s the whole point of self-hosting; all of the data is yours to manipulate and move around as much as you like.
I would not recommend self hosting at all. The bigger providers usually don’t even accept mail from unknown servers/domains.
Same. I have my name as my gmail and get an absurd amount of missent emails.
Hey twin!!