The answer is: stop using The Clown for all of your private data.
You know with 1.8billion accounts worldwide, and so far 2 anecdotes of people who have had problems (there's one in the comments section), that's one frigging reliable and trustworthy clown.
This will almost certainly change in the next 5-10 years. Because Google is so big and prevalent, many countries will likely introduce laws governing their behavior akin to a utility.
Just as a telephone or hydro provider can't arbitrarily disconnect a customer, Google will eventually be fined for each infraction. Of course they can pull out of such markets at great cost, but since their only motivator is profit, they'll likely build out a new arbitration center and obe
Tomorrow Slashdot will probably run another story about cashless society, and how 95% of people are okay with that since they can pay with their smart phone, handling cash is a pain, and it's a "total non-issue". I'll once again point out that I don't own a smart phone, and people will treat me like some kind of neanderthal.
At the moment I'm still independent of all this social crap, but it's getting harder and harder to accomplish the basics every day.
Yeah... I am not a huge fan of regulation, but speaking as someone who has a shit ton of stuff on Google ( which I am now backing up!!!) This is not cool and they have become, almost like a utility! There must be some rules.
Yeah... I am not a huge fan of regulation, but speaking as someone who has a shit ton of stuff on Google ( which I am now backing up!!!) This is not cool and they have become, almost like a utility! There must be some rules.
I'm not a huge fan of regulation either but sometimes it is necessary. Big tech has become much too powerful.
I'm not a huge fan of regulation either but sometimes it is necessary.
This is why you need strong anti-trust regulation before a company gets too big. Waiting too long means that the organization gathers enough power to disrupt peoples lives, even when breaking them up. Effective action is early action.
Yeah... I am not a huge fan of regulation, but speaking as someone who has a shit ton of stuff on Google ( which I am now backing up!!!) This is not cool and they have become, almost like a utility! There must be some rules.
Uhm, you're a huge fan of regulation, you're at the extreme end of the possible range of supporting regulation, or not supporting regulation. Don't be a moronic hypocrit.
As for treating them as a "utility," that would simply force you to go back to storing your own damn emails somewhere, or paying for email service. Which you can already do now, without dreaming of regulations to force them to only sell you the services you claim to want.
It is as if convenience is an addiction, and you're begging to be sa
Agreed. In the mean time I keep my Google accounts backed up on a daily basis to try to limit the damage.
- Thunderbird opens at 4 AM on a cron job, closed at 5 AM (use nircmd on Windows to do a graceful shutdown), data files backed up Jottacloud at 5:15 AM. Thunderbird automatically syncs via IMAP.
- Google calendar via Powershell equivalent of wget/curl, also scheduled and backed up off site.
- Google Photos is currently impossible to backup automatically.
This article made me look into this again, there are in fact ways to backup Google Photos.
Rclone claims to be able to do it, will test later. There is also gphotos-sync.
For Google Drive you can use the official sync client or you can use something like Duplicati. Google Drive also backs up your Google Docs, although I'm not sure how useful the format they come in is. Need to check if LibreOffice can open them, certainly any scripts in Sheets won't work.
I don't think there is an automatic solution for Maps a
The problem is really not just the data though. The issue Google is also your identity provider.
Even if you are not using google authentication to log into other services, if you don't have your password you might not be able to recover those accounts at all if you lose your @gmail address.
Its one of the reason I bought my own domain even though I use Google for mail. At least I can point my MX back to my own mail server or someone other provider if Google ever decides to make gmail/domains go away or kicks me off. Backing up my mail and other data itself is really the least bad part of potentially getting frozen out of Google,
I thought Google Photos was a backup? Ie, picture is on your phone, then backed up to the cloud, but the photos are still on your phone. Otherwise how would you show those photos to anyone? "Here, have a look at the cutest pictures of my grandkids! Hold on,... hold on... says it's downloading... this is going to be great... Marge, where are you going?"
You can keep the photos on your phone but you can also opt to delete local copies of older ones to free up space. My original Pixel XL was only 32GB so I did that.
I was going to say "why not back them up", but I think some people mistakenly think Google is a backup. Google can't even properly keep their own applications from going away and vanishing.
My question is why? Why is your Google account your main data repository? If you read their terms of service there is nothing in it for you. People may find value in Google services as a backup but as a main personal repository for your data, it just doesn't make any sense.
Thinking of Google as an email provider, or Facebook as an IRC provider, is like thinking of McDonalds as a toy store (due to the toy included in Happy Meals). If their bait--oops--services get regulated due to people taking them seriously, then they'll just drop them if the regulations are too painful. These "services" aren't their real business; they're just tricks to figure out what ads would best target you. How did people forget that so quickly? The entire point of gmail is to le
Time to declare Google a utility (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we have reached the point where Google should be regulated as a utility. A utility can just shut down your services at will.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Google is free to do what it wants. The answer is: stop using The Clown for all of your private data. This goes for all providers.
Use The Clown, expect a circus.
Re: (Score:2)
The answer is: stop using The Clown for all of your private data.
You know with 1.8billion accounts worldwide, and so far 2 anecdotes of people who have had problems (there's one in the comments section), that's one frigging reliable and trustworthy clown.
Re: (Score:3)
Google is free to do what it wants.
This will almost certainly change in the next 5-10 years. Because Google is so big and prevalent, many countries will likely introduce laws governing their behavior akin to a utility.
Just as a telephone or hydro provider can't arbitrarily disconnect a customer, Google will eventually be fined for each infraction. Of course they can pull out of such markets at great cost, but since their only motivator is profit, they'll likely build out a new arbitration center and obe
Re: (Score:2)
Tomorrow Slashdot will probably run another story about cashless society, and how 95% of people are okay with that since they can pay with their smart phone, handling cash is a pain, and it's a "total non-issue". I'll once again point out that I don't own a smart phone, and people will treat me like some kind of neanderthal.
At the moment I'm still independent of all this social crap, but it's getting harder and harder to accomplish the basics every day.
Re: (Score:2)
A utility is also regulated by laws as well, that's why they can't shut off "at will" services to someone who needs them for medical reasons.
Re:Time to declare Google a utility (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah... I am not a huge fan of regulation, but speaking as someone who has a shit ton of stuff on Google ( which I am now backing up!!!) This is not cool and they have become, almost like a utility! There must be some rules.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah... I am not a huge fan of regulation, but speaking as someone who has a shit ton of stuff on Google ( which I am now backing up!!!) This is not cool and they have become, almost like a utility! There must be some rules.
I'm not a huge fan of regulation either but sometimes it is necessary. Big tech has become much too powerful.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not a huge fan of regulation either but sometimes it is necessary.
This is why you need strong anti-trust regulation before a company gets too big. Waiting too long means that the organization gathers enough power to disrupt peoples lives, even when breaking them up. Effective action is early action.
Re: (Score:2)
I dont favor regulation. Let others use Googles oppressiveness as an opportunity to create user respecting alternatives
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is avoiding regulatory capture. If you want to campaign to make them a public utility, take strong steps to prevent that from happening.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah... I am not a huge fan of regulation, but speaking as someone who has a shit ton of stuff on Google ( which I am now backing up!!!) This is not cool and they have become, almost like a utility! There must be some rules.
Uhm, you're a huge fan of regulation, you're at the extreme end of the possible range of supporting regulation, or not supporting regulation. Don't be a moronic hypocrit.
As for treating them as a "utility," that would simply force you to go back to storing your own damn emails somewhere, or paying for email service. Which you can already do now, without dreaming of regulations to force them to only sell you the services you claim to want.
It is as if convenience is an addiction, and you're begging to be sa
Re:Time to declare Google a utility (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. In the mean time I keep my Google accounts backed up on a daily basis to try to limit the damage.
- Thunderbird opens at 4 AM on a cron job, closed at 5 AM (use nircmd on Windows to do a graceful shutdown), data files backed up Jottacloud at 5:15 AM. Thunderbird automatically syncs via IMAP.
- Google calendar via Powershell equivalent of wget/curl, also scheduled and backed up off site.
- Google Photos is currently impossible to backup automatically.
Re: (Score:3)
This article made me look into this again, there are in fact ways to backup Google Photos.
Rclone claims to be able to do it, will test later. There is also gphotos-sync.
For Google Drive you can use the official sync client or you can use something like Duplicati. Google Drive also backs up your Google Docs, although I'm not sure how useful the format they come in is. Need to check if LibreOffice can open them, certainly any scripts in Sheets won't work.
I don't think there is an automatic solution for Maps a
Re:Time to declare Google a utility (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is really not just the data though. The issue Google is also your identity provider.
Even if you are not using google authentication to log into other services, if you don't have your password you might not be able to recover those accounts at all if you lose your @gmail address.
Its one of the reason I bought my own domain even though I use Google for mail. At least I can point my MX back to my own mail server or someone other provider if Google ever decides to make gmail/domains go away or kicks me off. Backing up my mail and other data itself is really the least bad part of potentially getting frozen out of Google,
Re: (Score:2)
I thought Google Photos was a backup? Ie, picture is on your phone, then backed up to the cloud, but the photos are still on your phone. Otherwise how would you show those photos to anyone? "Here, have a look at the cutest pictures of my grandkids! Hold on, ... hold on... says it's downloading... this is going to be great... Marge, where are you going?"
Re: (Score:2)
You can keep the photos on your phone but you can also opt to delete local copies of older ones to free up space. My original Pixel XL was only 32GB so I did that.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to say "why not back them up", but I think some people mistakenly think Google is a backup. Google can't even properly keep their own applications from going away and vanishing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
My question is why? Why is your Google account your main data repository? If you read their terms of service there is nothing in it for you. People may find value in Google services as a backup but as a main personal repository for your data, it just doesn't make any sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Gmail is actually good. Best search function, saves me doing any organisation. Adequate in other areas.
Google photos is good. I can search for things like "cat" or "PCB" and the image recognition actually works.
Google Docs is decent, in particular having portable spreadsheets I can work on from anywhere, even my phone, is really handy.
Re: (Score:1)
An advertising utility?
Thinking of Google as an email provider, or Facebook as an IRC provider, is like thinking of McDonalds as a toy store (due to the toy included in Happy Meals). If their bait--oops--services get regulated due to people taking them seriously, then they'll just drop them if the regulations are too painful. These "services" aren't their real business; they're just tricks to figure out what ads would best target you. How did people forget that so quickly? The entire point of gmail is to le