Our Orwellian tech reality: “Enhanced ad privacy” is Google-speak for “more ways to spy on you serve you targeted ads.” More at The Register: Google Chrome pushes ahead with targeted ads based on your browser history and at Ars Technica: Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome.
less google
Good Luck with the Extortion, YouTube
YouTube is testing a “three strikes” policy to somehow block people from watching videos when they’re using an ad blocker. I wish them good luck with using another Silicon Mobster* tactic — this time, to extort users into signing up for YouTube Premium.
Scanned & Flagged & Deleted
Ironic how everyone was crying out loud when Apple merely announced that they would scan photos stored in iCloud for child abuse — when Google has been employing such technology for a much longer time already.
Do The Internet a Favor: Switch to Firefox
Yesterday, I saw with some astonishment that Microsoft’s Chromium-based browser “Edge” has surpassed Safari in popularity, and is now in the 2nd place in desktop browser market share.
Feeds! Feeds! (News Explorer)
After all these years that have passed since Google killed their “Reader”, I’ve found a replacement that makes me truly happy:
Google’s Chrome Bait & Switch
Now that Google dominates the browser market with Chrome (in other words: enough people have taken the bait), it is time for Google to flip the switch and make even more money: Google Just Gave 2 Billion Chrome Users A Reason To Switch To Firefox This comment by one of the developers of uBlock Origin …
That was Google+
On April 1st, Google+ became one more tombstone on Google’s product and service graveyard (two sites: Google Cemetery, Google Graveyard). Many claimed that it has been a ghost town for quite a while already, and in the last 2-3 years, I did see more old friends and acquaintances disappear from Google+ than I saw new ones joining. My “Reading circle” contained 100 people – in the end only three of them still posted something.
Own your content
OK – Dennis Cooper is perhaps a bit confused* about things but well, he’s an artist. 😀 Anyway, this is a perfect example to illustrate what I’m very passionate about: getting your own domain, your own web hosting, and putting your valuable content online in an open system, like WordPress. Why WordPress? It’s described in …
Further experiences with mailbox.org
It has been more than a year since I published my article “Six months with mailbox.org” and it remains a very popular post here on my personal blog. Time to write a little update about some further experiences and shed some light on more of their features that I/we didn’t use when we first began to use the service.
Six Months with mailbox.org
When I began using mailbox.org first it was available in German only. It’s available in English now, I’m a user for about half a year, and I think it’s a highly attractive and affordable alternative to established mail/calendar/contacts/storage providers. Time for a little review.