I can't imagine depending on Google to store anything. They shouldn't be able to even see what links you save.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Yeah, this is incredibly intrusive
My work, which is supposed to keep things private for customers, stores so much on Gmail and Google Drive. It's comical to me.
As someone who just converted from Chrome to Firefox 1-2 months ago: what alternative can you recommend to Google Drive? I wouldn't miss everything from it, but being able to easily share data (so that they can play videos, audio files or documents without having to manually download them) is one of them.
Protonmail has smaller cloud storage, but you have to pay for it. A thumb drive will work.
For storage, for free options I'd recommend filen.io, which gives you 10GB free. If you're open to other paid options, proton drive and infomaniak drive seem alright.
Just skimming the alternativeto entries for google photos, the open source alternatives to Google photos look like they tend to be either paid or self hosted. Stingle Photos has a free 1GB tier you could try out. Otherwise, paid options include Stingle, ente, and seafile, and self hosted options include immich and Nextcloud (which is also a drive alternative).
This feels like a corporation complying with their obligations under the DMCA.
To maintain their safe harbor status, companies have to remove allegedly infringing content in response to a properly filed takedown notice. This does include links stored in google's search results. This is what a company like google has to do when storing user data on servers in any country that signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty.
They don't seem to be doing this in a malicious way. They have done their duty and removed the offending links from their service. But they quite kindly chose to notify the user by email, including the exact URL that was removed. The user can store that link elsewhere.
It would have been far easier to remove the link silently.
See, this is why I like reading comments. Cooler heads prevail. Thank you for the context.
D I T C H
C H R O M E
And stop using chromium browsers too!
No point in ditching chrome just to use chrome with a different coat of paint.
Yep! A few months ago I moved from Brave to Firefox since Brave can’t be trusted
isn't it alright if you use ungoogled-chromium? It sends 0 requests outward so it's completely safe.
I'm pretty sure the other browsers have to comply too
I'm hosting my own sync servers with bookmarks for firefox, if I don't delete it nobody will.
Don't rely on to save your stuff.
I don't use this (Google Saved?) and I'm unfamiliar with it, is it similar to Pocket?
Is it this: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9217379
Maybe it will make people see Google for what they are. So many are stuck in some kind of illusion.
I think because the moment you admit to yourself that Google is not so good a company, you are forced to recognize most are not and that is too much for many to swallow.
They're an advertising company that tries to collect information about targets through products those targets use. That's it
I signed up for a Google Ads account for a non-profit I volunteer with. I had to verify the organization with governing documents, okay, fair enough. They also "require" my drivers license or passport. Excuse me? We will no longer have a Google Ads account after Sept 15 (the cut off to verify my identity).
Honestly, the only useful Google service these days is gmail. And that’s only because I don’t want to deal with changing providers after 15 years.
I wish other providers had the tab system that Gmail has, I'd switch in a heartbeat if it did. Folders just aren't as convenient.
There's gotta be an app for that, though that could ve dangerous since you're letting it access your Gmail.
Yeah, the issue is with going through every service you've used that you might use again and changing the email. That can take many hours, depending on how many sites you have an infrequent need to use.
It took me about 6 months to de-gmail. Well worth it in the end. Im with paid protonmail now.
You can 'future proof' your mail by using your own domain and use it with your proton account.
So if you want or need to change your mail provider or self host in the future, you just need to redirect your domain to your new provider.
It's wierd. 4 Days ago I got an email saying they removed a link from my saved websites. Only the link, in the email, was of a reddit post from 8 years ago on how to plug in speakers into a Motherboard I used to have??? How is that piracy? Its on the buildapc subreddit.
You should be asking how the fuck do these cunts still have a reputation that you are supporting?
Googles new, but not announced motto is, "We are the evil".
it also removed all of my saved places from google maps. thanks i like it
I don't think that's related
They had the pirate chests locations.
it isn't but nobody is going to post a news article about it so I'm just fucked
Oh boy, I'm feeling ultra smug now. Been using a Keepass database synced via Syncthing for about 3 years now
I use it too...but I like to spell it KeepAss.
Thank you dear friend, I'll be using that from now on as well. KeepAss!
kinda makes sense. it's like if a youtube video or soundcloud track gets DCMA'd then they're going to remove the link.
if it was you actual browser bookmark i would understand the outrage.
im still on FF tho
Isn't removing the bookmarks from people's browser what they're mad about? Now that Google is selling content through YouTube TV, I'll bet they crack down hard on piracy. The old reddit /r/NFLstreams moved to a site a lot of people know. Now that Google owns Sunday ticket, I will not be surprised if it gets DDoS'd to shit this year and becomes borderline unusable. We'll find out next week I guess.
It’s not from the browser. As stated in the article:
Initially, it was suggested that this removal impacted Google’s synched Chrome bookmarks but further research reveals that’s not the case. Instead, the removals apply to Google’s saved feature.
It’s a feature specific to the google app that lets you share collections of bookmarks:
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/13128452?hl=en
They don’t want people sharing links to pirate sites.
It’s still bad, but saying they are going through bookmarks in chrome and deleting them is misinformation.
Would have been nice to have amended the headline to reflect the actual story.
Just yesterday I saw a post that they did in fact remove bookmark and notified user about it with detail
A users bookmarks on the browser, and a collection saved on google, are different things. One is private, the other can be shared.
ITT: nobody actually reading the article
Initially, it was suggested that this removal impacted Google’s synched Chrome bookmarks but further research reveals that’s not the case. Instead, the removals apply to Google’s saved feature.
This Google service allows users to save and organize links, similar to what Pinterest does. These link collections can be private or shared with third parties.