How do you feel about using Google services?

[Alrescha]

When everyone in my house had iphones I could always do that with my teenaged son. I could always track him without him knowing it.......
So easy to do.....My wife never knew I knew where was all the time! It was kinda creepy sometimes.

Well, there certainly is a creepy factor here, but I do not see that Apple is the significant player...

Now you hate Google.

I said "I do not like them very much anymore". You have somehow turned that into "outrage", "hate", and "agenda". Forgive me for being blunt, but you are making stuff up.

that why your motives are suspect.

You really should have read the link to Ad Hominem. Attacking people (or their motives) rather than their argument is considered poor technique; Regardless of a persons's motives, facts are facts. When you stop responding to the facts and start attacking the person that is a pretty good indication that using the facts is not working out very well for you.

while Apple does the same or worse

Seriously? After five pages and 125 posts, we are back to something that was debunked on page three? How depressing. Time to move on. I hope my contributions to this thread have been helpful or informative to someone.

A.


I apologize for my indulgence, but a final postscript, solely for its entertainment value:

If I disagree with you i am brainwashed?
Nice way to just file away any rational discussion....

Wow.....you ignore all the facts in front of you....i guess it is true what they say about that Kool-Aid.

just showing you the hypocrisy

You might want to look up the definition of "hypocrisy". And then "irony".

 

[jamezr]

Well, there certainly is a creepy factor here, but I do not see that Apple is the significant player...



I said "I do not like them very much anymore". You have somehow turned that into "outrage", "hate", and "agenda". Forgive me for being blunt, but you are making stuff up.



You really should have read the link to Ad Hominem. Attacking people (or their motives) rather than their argument is considered poor technique; Regardless of a persons's motives, facts are facts. When you stop responding to the facts and start attacking the person that is a pretty good indication that using the facts is not working out very well for you.



Seriously? After five pages and 125 posts, we are back to something that was debunked on page three? How depressing. Time to move on. I hope my contributions to this thread have been helpful or informative to someone.

A.

Wow.....you ignore all the facts in front of you....i guess it is true what they say about that Kool-Aid. Your objection to Google's company's privacy issues are noted....but your example of Apple being the good example is just pure fanboyism. I have provided links to the ACLU having privacy warnings about Siri...you ignore them. You self admitted to liking Google ONLY when they had a partnership with Apple. When they no longer had a partnership...well now you dislike Google and extoll the virtues of Apple and post how evil Google is. Apple fanboy much? You had no issue with Google and privacy issues when they were in Apple's good graces.....but after the partnership with Apple dissolved.....now Google has privacy issues. Yeah....your motives are pure......Not attacking your motives.....just showing you the hypocrisy of it and how you flipflopped. By your own words......

 

[MikeyMike01]

I used to use 100% Google for everything possible. Then I began to understand their business model.

Nowadays I use nothing but YouTube and search.

Sometimes I wish I could return to such naïve days.

 

[Oletros]

I think it was highly inappropriate for Google to go into direct competition with Apple while the Google CEO was on Apple's board of directors. One has to wonder if the timing of Google's purchase of Android and Schmidt joining the board of directors was just a bit too convenient.

Google bought Android in 2005, Steve Jobs invited Eric Schmidt to join Apple board in 2006.

Perhaps you think Jobs was stupid and he didn't knew that Google had bought a mobile company one year earlier.

----------

As demonstrated in this thread, Google does stuff that nobody else does. See: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/19272112/

Nobody has a parental status demography? Really?

And, by the way, it is totally false the thing that link says about sharing the information with advertisers

 

[kdarling]

Hate is such a strong word. I think it was highly inappropriate for Google to go into direct competition with Apple while the Google CEO was on Apple's board of directors. One has to wonder if the timing of Google's purchase of Android and Schmidt joining the board of directors was just a bit too convenient.

Google bought Android long before Schmidt was invited to the Apple board.

If anything, Jobs invited Schmidt to get inside info on Android plans, to influence Google to not compete with Apple, and to get Google's help with hugely important apps such as Search, Maps and YouTube.

People also forget that there were other people who sat on both boards.

As for being inappropriate, what do you think of the fact that Tim Cook is on the Nike board, and they recently decided to stop working on their Fuelband?

Seems to be a habit of Apple to try to get close to their coming competition.

 

[Alrescha]

I think some of your opinions need a more factual basis.

I think you can do better than taking the one post where I used the phrase "tinfoil hat" and decide that is the one that needs serious discussion.

As for being inappropriate, do you think it's bad that Tim Cook is on the Nike board and that company recently decided to stop working on their Fuelband?

It could easily be a coordinated effort between the two companies. It is not obvious to me that it is bad. Are you suggesting that it comparable to Google making smartphones? It is not like Apple is going into the shoe business.

A.

 

[Alrescha]

Nobody has a parental status demography? Really?

Why reference a post of mine, and then ask an unrelated question? Why imply that I have said something that I have not? That some company might do a little tracking of its own visitors or its own customers is not the issue.

I will summarize my concerns one last time, for the sake of folks who may not have connected the dots:

• Google, through its ubiquitous network of web properties (like doubleclick, google analytics, youtube, etc) has the ability to track people pretty much wherever they go on the web. I have used Amazon and NewEgg as examples that people might relate to.
  
  
• This ability is unique to Google. It is not limited to referrer data, as some have suggested. Except for some very special cases, Amazon does not know that you went to Newegg yesterday.
  
  
• When you sign up for a Google service, one in which you provide your personal information, Google now has the ability to take all that previously collected data (which we might have considered harmless) and link it to you.
  
  
• Google stores this information for as long as they can. They have publicly stated that they wish they could keep it longer.
  
  
• No other company can do this. No other company is in a position to do so. Attempting to equate this huge data-collection engine to some company's tracking of its visitors is doing people a disservice.

Last but not least, unlike the fictional characterization that some people attribute to me, I am not screaming "Google is evil!" I am not telling people that they should not use Google services. That is up to them. I just think that people should know what they are getting into.

A.

 

[paulbennett95]

I don't have any Google Apps on my Nexus 5 anymore, don't trust Google with my data.

On the plus side, my phone loses 1% battery every 3 hours when the screen is off, no silly Google Play Services eating my battery

 

[Oletros]

It could easily be a coordinated effort between the two companies. It is not obvious to me that it is bad. Are you suggesting that it comparable to Google making smartphones? It is not like Apple is going into the shoe business.

A.

Are you aware that Google bought Android before they didn't knew anything about the iPhone or this just doesn't fit in your narrative?

 

[bnmcj1]

Very good. Can't beat Googles coding and speed. I use as many services as possible at Google.

 

[Alrescha]

Are you aware that Google bought Android before they didn't knew anything about the iPhone or this just doesn't fit in your narrative?

Edit: You have stated something as a fact that you cannot possibly know.

I do not see how it is relevant to the bullet points I presented. Could you address any of those things rather than taking the one post where I said "tinfoil hat" and trying to make an issue out of it? Or does that not fit in with your goals?

What is the problem? Are you uncomfortable with dealing directly with the issue? Do you not have any facts to bring to the table?

A.

 

[kevinof]

Absolutely. Will consume as many google services as I can. Love what they've done for us consumers. Sign me up for more please!

Very good. Can't beat Googles coding and speed. I use as many services as possible at Google.

 

[Oletros]

Edit: You have stated something as a fact that you cannot possibly know.

I do not see how it is relevant to bullet the points I presented. Could you address any of those things rather than taking the one post where I said "tinfoil hat" and trying to make an issue out of it? Or does that not fit in with your goals?

What is the problem? Are you uncomfortable with dealing directly with the issue? Do you not have any facts to bring to the table?

A.

Uncomfortable with your "not liking someone" even when half the thing you say are false? No, it is funny how people like you tries to bend reality to fit his narrative.


You hate Google, no, excuse me, you don't hate Google, you just don't like any ****ing thing they do, well, it is your prerogative, you can dislike what you want. It won't change reality.

Have a nice day

 

[Alrescha]

No, it is funny how people like you tries to bend reality to fit his narrative.

I think we have covered ad hominem already.

 

[bnmcj1]

Absolutely. Will consume as many google services as I can. Love what they've done for us consumers. Sign me up for more please!

Yup. I do not want to settle with the code of Apple, MS, Dropbox and so on, when we talk online services. Google has (IMO) the best mail, the best maps, the best calendar, Google Now and so on. I have yet to see anything come even close in terms of speed and cross platform availability. I simply do not want to use any other than Google Services, if it is possible.

 

[Internaut]

Since the Big Brother side is supposed to be anonymised, I don't mind that aspect of Google. However, for the main services (mail, calendar and so on) I have a bias towards Microsoft. I've had my Hotmail address pretty much from the beginning, and the product has better cross platform compatibility* than iCloud or Google, especially since Google pulled the plug on Active Sync for none paying Gmail users.

* Push email on my Windows Phone, Android Phone and iPad, plus decent client for Windows 8.1, and a very usable web interface.

 

[jamezr]

Since the Big Brother side is supposed to be anonymised, I don't mind that aspect of Google. However, for the main services (mail, calendar and so on) I have a bias towards Microsoft. I've had my Hotmail address pretty much from the beginning, and the product has better cross platform compatibility* than iCloud or Google, especially since Google pulled the plug on Active Sync for none paying Gmail users.

* Push email on my Windows Phone, Android Phone and iPad, plus decent client for Windows 8.1, and a very usable web interface.

Have to agree on Hotmail and MS services....they have been topnotch for me. I have had a Hotmail account since....geez the nineties.

 

[shirleyuguest]

duckduckgo | aviator

I'm surprised that in this discussion nobody has mentioned the duckduckgo search engine or the Whitehat Aviator browser.

 

[0dev]

I'm surprised that in this discussion nobody has mentioned the duckduckgo search engine or the Whitehat Aviator browser.

I'm pretty sure I did mention DuckDuckGo, I use it a lot and only use Google if DDG can't find the results I need, which unfortunately happens too often unless I'm doing a very common search.

Whitehat Aviator is just Chromium with different default settings and an ad blocker.

 

[Technarchy]

The stuff I use from Google works. That's the extent of it really.

When something comes along that is better, I will change without regret.

Context: I used AOL, Yahoo, and MSN at one time, and now I don't, and I don't have any real emotional reaction to changing either.

 

[Lloydbm41]

Yep, they have iPhones. And they have purposely turned on "Find my friends" or "Find my iPhone". Do you think that is the same thing as Google tracking you when you go shopping at Amazon or NewEgg?
.

Do you think it is the same thing as Apple tracking you for food, clothing or whatever with iBeacon and sharing your movements with those retailers? Or building indoor maps and databases without your knowledge? Ironic how when Apple does the same things as Google, it is somehow okay?

 

[ozaz]

I don't have any Google Apps on my Nexus 5 anymore, don't trust Google with my data.

On the plus side, my phone loses 1% battery every 3 hours when the screen is off, no silly Google Play Services eating my battery

Out of curiosity, what do you use for maps and navigation?
I wouldn't know what to use on Android other than google maps.

I know there are lots of free open street maps apps, but is the accuracy of OSM good enough?

 

[jhtrico1850]

Out of curiosity, what do you use for maps and navigation?
I wouldn't know what to use on Android other than google maps.

I know there are lots of free open street maps apps, but is the accuracy of OSM good enough?

Waze's pretty fun, even though it's owned by Google. Not that that's a bad thing

 

[Vegastouch]

Originally Posted by paulbennett95 View Post
I don't have any Google Apps on my Nexus 5 anymore, don't trust Google with my data.

On the plus side, my phone loses 1% battery every 3 hours when the screen is off, no silly Google Play Services eating my battery

On the down side, your Nexus 5 now rendered back to 2007. I cant imagine making it weak like that and not using the good things it has built in but thats me. What you now have is a faster Nexus 1.

 

[MikeyMike01]

This thread is about "just" our opinions.







Personally, I appreciate the fact that my phone can tell me that without Apple having to know where I am. Or, as I turn onto my street, the lights in my home turn on - all without Apple (or anyone else) needing to know where I am.



Google would have you believe that they need to know all your personal details in order to provide you services. The truth is that they want that data. Apple has demonstrated that not only does Apple not need to know, they do not even want to know.



A.

I couldn't agree more with this post.

I like Android, but I really don't want to use Google services.