Tag: google
Make your Gmail more private
Proton, the Swiss encrypted and privacy-aware email service, now lets you read and reply to your Gmail emails from within Proton. If you're looking to wean yourself off Gmail, or just curious about trying an alternative, this could be a good place to start: anyone you reply to will still receive your messages as Gmail,...
Social mediaâs dirty secret: they donât use it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ebMm8stexM "But when you frame it that way, you understand that social media isn't the problem: the extractive profit motive is the problem. And then, banning under-16s is like putting a plaster on a bullet wound. Sure, maybe it helps a bit, but you're still bleeding out. The real question is, how do you stop...
Eric Seidel - Flutter, Shorebird
Eric Seidel, Flutter co-creator and Shorebird founder, traces his journey from WebKit at Apple to solving Flutter's code push challenges for instant app updates.
The mad kingâs digital killswitch
"The very worst-case speculative scenario for Huawei-as-Chinese-Trojan-horse is infinitely better than the non-speculative, real ways in which the US has killswitched and bugged the world's devices." Cory Doctorow explains why responsible governments should have to accelerate their countries' independence from US tech and not just Russian gas. pluralistic.net
Darth Android
"Tech bosses are fundamentally at war with the idea that our digital devices contain general purpose computers. The general-purposeness of computers â the fact that they are all Turing-complete, universal von Neumann machines â has created tech bosses' fortunes, but now that these fortunes have been attained, the tech sector would like to abolish that...
Snip Snip
A new lawsuit by a major publishing conglomerate takes aim at Googleâs AI summariesâand hints at the many ways that Google undermines its own mission by forcing unwanted features on its users.
The AdTech Underbelly
Ever wonder why online advertising is so confusing, complicated, and privacy-threatening? A new book by an industry insider helps explain whyâand how Google put its giant hand on the scale.
One Extra Click
Google announces a plan to add yet another barrier to the ease of getting an ultra-simple Web search. Great.
Could &udm=14 Break?
That popular single-serving site I built to work around Googleâs AI snippets could, unfortunately, see an infusion of AI soon. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
My Big Dumb Webmail Client
They say you donât know what emailâs all about until youâve built a webmail client of your own. I guess I kind of get it now.
Re-Googling
I'm leaning into Google services when, at least in the circles I frequent, doing so is, frankly, seen negatively or simply out of the realm of consideration. But, hear me out.
Letâs Bring Back Small Tools
Thoughts on the misadventure of udm14, or what I hope to gain from successfully reviving the single-serving site for a couple of weeks.
Does One Line Fix Google?
Forget AI. Google just created a version of its search engine free of all the extra junk it has added over the past decade-plus. All you have to do is add \"udm=14\" to the search URL.
Search is dead â long live curation
Google has planted a flag in the ground, declaring AI the future and ushering in what is best characterized as a disinterest in investing in traditional web search. It's strange to see a company shift to become yet another platform seeking to trap users and scrape whatever they can from the web along the way.
Cache Clearing
Google appears to hide away an important feature from its search engineâan easily accessible cache of search results. (Itâs still there, if you know where to look.)
Waking Up The Regulators
While regulators have long struggled with how to attack big tech, a landmark ruling and a big disclosure suggests that big tech is finally getting noticed. Finally.
Jell-O In A Sack
Google claims that its Core Web Vitals initiative has saved users 10,000 years of collective waiting time. The problem is, they sloughed those costs and headaches onto developers.
Vlad A. Ionescu - Earthly
Vlad Ionescu explores Earthly's containerized build automation and the business challenges of creating developer-friendly CI tools.
The Technorati Generation
The search engine that kept up at the speed of blogging created a âsearch warâ with Google. But eventually, the speed of blogging just wasnât fast enough.
A Linux Labor of Love
The JingPad A1, a flashy new tablet from Linux-land, shows a ton of potential, though you might want to wait for a few rounds of software updates first.
Respect Your Power Users
Pondering why, in the internet era, it has become so common for big tech companies to treat their power users like dirt. (Yes, this is about Google Reader.)
Epic MegaFight
Why did Epic Games decide to go scorched-earth on the App Store model last week with Fortnite? Perhaps it reflects the companyâs shareware roots.
The Backlink Economy
Businesses want to show up on the front page of a specific search term, and theyâre willing to annoy you to get a backlink from you. Please never do this.
Extreme Googling
Itâs easy to forget given its size, but Google fundamentally changed our relationship with information. Two decades later, weâre still feeling the effects.
Googleâs Zombie
Why FeedBurner, a service that Google once bought for $100 million, has become the one service it literally canât kill. Here's why the service lingers.
Search By Text
Before the search giant shot for the moon, Google occasionally had to accept the limitations of consumer technology. So they bent the rules instead.
The Windex Problem
The problem with information literacy we have in the age of Google: We give up too early. Itâs an issue research librarians are struggling to tackle.
Down With Snippet View
The limitations of Google Books can be seen in the way that it handles obscure trade publications. Everyone who made that old magazine? Probably dead.
Google's new obsession with your photos
'Sergey Brin says that Google wants to be the third half of your brain,' [Pedro] Domingos says. 'But now think about it: Do you really want the third half of your brain to make a living by showing you ads? I don't.'
Leaving Google Apps for Fastmail
I recently began a process of re-evaluating the web services I use, the companies that provide them and an evaluation of where I store important data. I had used Google services extensively with Gmail handling my email, my contacts synced through Google contacts, calendars in Google calendar and documents in a Google Drive (I had used Google Reader extensively but switched to a Fever installation following Reader's demise).
Using The Google Weather API - Pros And Cons So Far
Comparing Google's undocumented weather endpoint with Yahoo's WOEID-based API and WeatherBug, with notes on city/ZIP lookups and response speed.