I get what you’re saying, but the renaming itself is entirely an act of emotion and reaction, with no trace of logic, too. It’s pretty much all we should expect to see from anyone for a while.
They are a private organization with the right to say “lol that’s nice”, and leave it as the gulf of mexico. Executive orders direct government policy.
The USA is now part of a list of "sensitive countries" with authoritarian states with their own version of reality. When users in one of the countries on this list visit Google sites, they see that government's version of reality. This is nothing new. Google does it all the time with disputed territories. It's only news because it's the first time the US has an authoritarian government.
Here's how it looks when visiting from a Mexican device with the language set to Australian English while located in Hungary.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to post this somewhere else:
“The opposition party is the media,” Steve Bannon, who helped run Trump’s 2016 campaign, told PBS Frontline five years ago. “And the media can only — because they’re dumb and they’re lazy — they can only focus on one thing at a time.”
So the solution, per Bannon? Overwhelm them.
“All we have to do is flood the zone,” he said. “Every day we hit them with three things. They’ll bite on one, and we’ll get all of our stuff done, bang, bang, bang. These guys will never — will never be able to recover. But we’ve got to start with muzzle velocity.”
Then you must not be paying much attention, or have an understanding of how capitalism functions (nor of how and why it inevitably decays in to fascism).
It's even weirder because America doesn't mean just the United States
Geographically, America is too ambiguous of a name for the Gulf of Mexico
Wouldn't the Gulf of California also qualify as being the Gulf of America?
The Caribbean Sea?
Basically every river system from the Mississippi and and the Amazon are also "American" from northernmost point of North America to the southernmost point of South America, it's all "America"
Naming the Gulf of Mexico "America" is almost as bad as naming a country "earth"
Mexico's full name is ”The United States of Mexico", I think they should rename their map's version to Gulf of The United States just to add to the confusion and make the point these things, like all facts, are useless when people suffer no consequences from making them up.
Yes, agreed. He seems to regard life as a zero-sum game, in which he can't win unless someone else loses, so he doesn't understand the concept of win-win. It's a kind of cognitive bias which is a serious weakness in someone who apparently imagines himself to be a master of 'the art of the deal'.
Yeah, it's even better than GMaps for me, because GMaps doesn't have bike navigation (where I live) while Organic Maps has all the bike lanes marked and navigatable.
Yeah it's way better for biking and walking. I also find the map a lot more coherent, with GMaps I often had to resort to the satellite view to see what's going on.
Google maps was exactly like that before it became the defacto navigation software for most of the planet and we all started answering innocent little questions for our new overlords.
I really feel like OSM is on the verge of becoming top tier, we just need a bit more momentum to push it there.
And unlike their competitors, it's highly unlikely you will see anything in any media publication to push users towards them. Google had multiple ad campaigns for maps before it replaced things like Garmin GPS and in car GPS. Garmin and TomTom sold millions of dedicated GPS devices before Google killed their business model.
The fact it doesn’t show you the best match of your search based on distance by your location (or is because)
That highly depends on the search engine you're using, OsmAnd for example sorts the search results by distance to your location.
It doesn’t show the 2 places I sent ~1 month ago or they’re hard to find (available on site, not on organic maps)
That's an Organic Maps problem, they only update the OSM database once a month, and you have to click the update button manually when they do so.
I kinda recommend against Organic Maps at this point. It's a dumbed-down app with bad routing, bad search, and slow updates. The only thing it has going for it is that it has the best UI/UX (especially for new users) compared to other FOSS openstreetmap apps. If you're ok with proprietary nonsense, mapy.cz is a lot more fleshed out, and otherwise you should just learn and configure OsmAnd for yourself.
I use Organic Map and both my locations are on the site and if I open the location through the app, I see it but searching lead to no results. No idea why, maybe I can see them because I'm the author?
That's an Organic Maps problem, they only update the OSM database once a month, and you have to click the update button manually when they do so.
I thought was more. But it's up to date and I still can't see the place I uploaded more than 1 month ago, sadly.
Eh I strongly prefer FOSS apps, OrganicMap was a cool project, can't find a Google maps alternative FOSS and reliable
Just use OsmAnd. It's old-school in terms of its UI and can be clunky, but it's FOSS, has hourly map updates (free for OSM contributors), and a lot of customization and features.
This is the only problem I have. It's great but has a very old UI and some elements are very ugly... i mean, the battery icon is so damn huge! Maybe I could fork and update it myself ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Tip on using StreetComplete: Don't be afraid to turn off a bunch of things. If you leave everything on you'll often find yourself standing around one place instead of enjoying more of the area and answering a smaller set of questions.
It's kind of a malicious compliance thing. The new name will not show up on any map renders, moreover it's not likely to be shown in most apps even if you select the object (because official_name:* is not supported by most apps).
Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Executive orders aren't laws, they're just memos stating what the federal government will do. Google decided to bend the knee for the new king.
For U.S. Google Map users only, the body of water formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico will now appear as the Gulf of America when using the navigational service.
The change comes just several weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order for the gulf to be renamed and on Sunday declared February 9 was officially Gulf of America Day.
Following the order, Google stated that it has a longstanding practice of implementing name changes when done by official government sources.
No better time than the present to switch to OpenStreetMap
For Android, I use OsmAnd~ which uses OpenStreetMap data and allows you to download maps to calculate routes offline, something Google Maps couldn't do for routes by foot and by bike last time I tried.
It also has better coverage for some small paths in natural areas like forests. Give it a try!
The Maya referred to the Gulf as Chactemal, meaning "the red place," likely referencing the reddish hues of the water at sunset or its fertile coastlines. Indigenous names were often descriptive, reflecting geographical features or spiritual beliefs tied to the environment. Unfortunately, much of this indigenous nomenclature was lost or overwritten during European colonization.
Link. I'm sure there are better ones. Hard to find good sources.
Time for a repeat comment: Organic Maps does everything Google Maps does (except traffic conditions), and is FOSS. Please encourage places to contribute business information to Open Street Maps.
"Except traffic" is not a little thing. It's like putting up an ad for a house with all the features you'd expect, except a roof.
With my daily commute, there are a dozen routes I can take and traffic conditions make it so that from day to day, there can be an hour difference between different routes. It's literally the only reason I use navigation apps over a cheap GPS unit with no live online connection requirement to navigate.
Or you can do it like News stations do and just use a fucking camera feed and police acanner to have someone say "hey - there's a lot of cars at Interstate 99 and Main" or "There's reports of a wreck at 300 Elm street".
In order to do this at scale, that's a lot of someones who all need to be paid. You'd need several people, per city, to manually review traffic cameras and manually issue reports.
Unless you want to pay $200/mo for traffic updates, you can't do this using humans.
Growing up, we had 5 TV stations and 20 radio stations that managed to do it just off of cereal advertisements. I'd gladly pay 5 bucks a month for it, and with millions of people in the metro area just having 1% of people use a $5/month service you'd be looking at 6 figures a month, which is plenty to pay for the service.
The only way to know if it would work would be to roll the dice and make a startup. You'll need enough cash to cover a year or two of projected operations, the capital to develop the application and infrastructure in addition to the money required to advertise the service.
At the same time you have to realize that your proposition for potential customers is 'You can pay us $5 to get the service that Google gives you for free and it only works in this one metro area.' De-googling is a popular topic on nerd social media but the average person would gladly trade all of their privacy to pay less money.
If we could magic wand a company into existence and capture all of the privacy focused customer base in a large metro area then yeah, the company could pay the operating expenses. But going from 'This is a cool idea' to 'We have a successful service that has a positive cash flow' is a hard, capital intensive, process.
I think a municipal economic development corporation grant could be an answer.
EDCs exist in lots of cities. The usual setup is they're given a percentage of local sales tax, and they provide grants to businesses to move into town or start up. When the business is sucessful, they'll end up paying back more in taxes than was given to them initially, both through direct taxes, but also by providing higher-paying jobs for residents, who will pay more in their property taxes and spend money at local businesses, bringing in more sales tax.
The EDC could pay for the startup to provide the service locally, and then it can spread to other cities, who can either pay for it as a municipal service, or through subscriptions.
I think this is important. That said, traffic info is the whole ballgame for many people. People who live, work, and drive in metro areas frequently use map applications even when driving everyday routes to avoid traffic.
I don’t see Google/Waze/Apple maps getting any less popular unless there is a FOSS alternative that includes live traffic, which does not seem possible while remaining free. People will choose free every time, especially since Google maps works so well.
Personally, I would pay some amount for a privacy-minded alternative, something like OrganicMaps with live traffic. But I doubt it could ever attain the user base it would need to provide accurate traffic info.
Yea, I really wish I had more spare time. Algorithms like this are an area of expertise for me, and I'd love to build an anonymized service that works with Organic Maps. It's annoying when I know it is something I could make that would support high volume, but just don't have time for (mainly because of all the ongoing optimization it would require).
Sure, sure. As long as you can trust Google's custom silicon and custom security processor.
I sure as fuck don't, regardless of what Graphene OS claims. They are going to need to go to much greater lengths to assure me of that, and I can pretty much guarantee the Graphene devs won't be able to do that.
Honestly? In 2025? In the real world?
Apple is the only alternative. And it really actually hurts my soul to type this reply out.
I hate Apple. I think they are clowns. I hate closed platforms, and I think Mac's are trash because of it. I have used every single version of Android. All of them, even pre-stable.
The only alternative to Google is 2025, in regards to a mobile OS that works with my services and devices that I already own is iOS. The only way to get that is to buy a phone from Apple. And 'normies' care VERY MUCH about being able to use their already purchased shit.
I wish Europe or Asia would actually try to compete against US big tech. It's a very strange marketplace, nearly the entire planet trusts US companies with basically their entire infrastructure. The only major players in computing are US based companies, aside from MAYBE Canonical/Ubuntu.
In the mobile market, I don't see a way out of the duopoly at the current moment. If my phone died today I would replace it with an iPhone. And I wouldn't be happy about it.
Nah. Fuck Apple! I know it may be too much but they're dead to me after I bought AN OFFICIAL REFURBISHED Apple device for my dad (old had problems) and received it with a motherboard problem (?), it couldn't read the sim for more than 1 hour straight. Contacted support multiple times and "Try this useless troubleshooting steps you already tried countless times" or "The sim is ruined so it doesn't touch the sim pins correctly (or some bs like that) " or "It's your carrier" or "From our remote tests, the phone works perfectly" or other Apple shit I forgot. After my last call I said "You either take my phone and check it or refund me", they took it to check if was the phone, got it back ~2 days later FUCKING WORKING as it should. I guess was really the sim, not the phone 🤔🤔
The worst part is: They didn't even care to give me something in return for the trouble! No, not money but they could've extended my warranty for a month or 2 as an apology but "Nah, we can't. Fuck you now"
I'm reading this as Apple fixed your refurbished phone like you asked them to.
I do not see how you should be entitled to extra warranty because of this, or any other compensation. I can assure you that Google would also not extend your warranty for an issue of this nature. My friend is dealing with pixel warranty support as we speak and it sure as hell doesn't sound any better.
I totally understand 'writing off' a company after you feel personally wronged by them, but I wasn't including warranty issues on refurbished phones in my requirements for my next mobile device. You asked what the alternative is and realistically that's the only one for 99.99% of the population.
My choice is to just not have a smartphone. Something like an old Nokia is what I use, CatB40 specifically but the company licensed to make those no longer exists. I hope Cat find someone else and they still make a line of dumb phones not just smartphones but I don't really expect it any time soon.
If mine dies probably just get a regular dumbphone for like £10. Can't collect much data if all it's capable of doing is calls and SMS which I rarely even use.
That's super cool for you. If I didn't work in IT I might try to achieve something similar.
But honestly suggesting that the average person on the street go back in time almost 20 years in regards to their mobile device is just going to get you laughed out of the room.
Do you use mobile banking? Do you carry a camera around with you at all times? Do you listen to music?
For me music is a big one, I'm not listening to any god damned radio commercials and I don't have CD player in my car anymore. How would you entertain yourself on a long car ride alone in this scenario?
Do you have any IoT or smart home devices? How do you interact with them?
I know a few people that are a bit older than me that don't 'get' smartphones but then use a tablet on the couch pretty often.
My uncle doesn't have a smartphone, and is kinda smug about it, but also doesn't really leave the house without his android tablet.
I guess if you don't actually want to do any computing on the go a dumb phone is fine for short texts and phone calls, but finding one that works with 5G is another challenge these days.
Leaked Cellbrite docs indicated they couldn't get in. I'd consider that pretty reasonable assurance. If you're implying that Google has a backdoor... I think the argument against large/unstable conspiracies would apply.
This is so much horseshit I can't even begin to unpack it. You really think those docs aren't edited? They are 100% verified truth? That is a hunch at best.
And so is my claim, it's a 'vibe'. I have zero proof of my claims, but I wouldn't do anything I consider 'secure' on any Android device.
There is no fucking way in hell I would consider any Android device a secure device, in any way shape or form. It is, at best, a controlled device that most users do not have control over.
And claiming that anyone that doesn't buy into the cellblite 'leaks' is a conspiracy theorist is also horseshit. (Or any leaks for that matter)
You can literally monitor the outbound DNS on a pixel with graphene and no apps and you'll see zero DNS requests to any Google servers. Quit spredding FUD
This will be a problem until a non-google open OS is adopted for mobile phones. Right now that list is incredibly short and nothing competes in the flagship department. I don't see it changing anytime soon because gen x and millenials may be the last generations that have a signifigant portion of itself that has a grasp of how computers work beyond "tap app icon, app does things".
Thing I took for granted like how a file system works is lost on my kids (late Z early alpha). Explaining what a file extension is like teaching a new language. I used to think "training wheels" for learning computering via tablets and phones and touch screens were a good thing but there is nothing that compels people today to shed themselves of them. It feels very reminiscent of my childhood and teaching my boomer dad how to right click. I think computer literacy needs to be required education, but I'm afraid that the definition for computer literacy might be meaningless nowadays if it doesn't go beyond open app store, install app, run app.
US public education computer literacy is dead, and it's not going to get better for at least 5+ years, best case scenario.
Even if the person that is elected after Trump is a Democrat, it will take years to rebuild to where we were before big tech started bribing school IT departments.
You think Apple/Google/Microsoft give a flying fuck about computer literacy being taught in schools? Because that's who currently decide the computer literacy program that the public school will provide. Whichever vendor they decide to go with.
At this point I'm not convinced that Google is a better choice than the others, but it's also akin to choosing the least shitty sandwich at a shit-sandwich buffet.
In hindsight, this has been a downward trend since the proliferation of smart phones circa 2012. Google (android) isn't the best choice, but it is much better being open source over other ecosystems namely Apple. There is also an issue I strongly suspect that wireless carriers wouldn't allow open hardware/software on their networks because they have baked in restrictions in the major OSes on how you can access the network like tethering. I don't expect that to change for the better either because even when net neutrality was a thing wireless was exempt from the rules. Kinda reminds me how back in the day ISPs had to be forced to offer naked DSL (internet from the phone company without requiring phone service). This all has deep issues that won't be resolved anytime soon if ever. I'm putting my money on Linux becoming an actual threat to Microsoft and Apple in the desktop, laptop, handheld space and then that spreading into the mobile and tablet space. Depending on how Apple and Google antitrust situations are handled, we could start to see a shift by the end of the decade at best. This is why the tech sector will cozy up and do the bidding of whoever is in power. They won't run the risk of drawing the ire of the government to break up their monopolies so long as the party in power believes tech companies are in their party's pocket. This shift happened when Biden's election was inevitable toward Democrat favored polices and it's happening now for Republican favord polices since the last Biden Trump debate made a Trump victory inevitable.
My points are the tech sector is blatantly doing whatever it can to keep its power and change won't happen quickly if it happens at all.
This trend started waaaay before 2012.
When I graduated highschool the only computer class that was offered was a basic MS Office and advanced MS office.
The people making these type of decisions for public schools are rarely tech literate themselves, they physically cannot make an informed choice.
This will not be resolved until big tech is dissolved, or strong regulations are pushed by the voting population.
If anyone wants their children to be tech literate I recommend getting your kids in front of a keyboard and mouse instead of a touchscreen as early as you would allow them to use a tablet. The tablet will be easier for both of you, and that's exactly what they want.
Isn't that just Google with an extra MITM for everything? Sure it protects your privacy a little bit but the same bad actors are still getting their ad revenue from your searches, correct?
Or do I just not understand how start page works?
Fuck Google and Samsung and everyone else who is preinstalled on my phone from the factory. I switched my phone OS to an AOSP GSI without the Google mobile services. Will probably be switching to WordPress from Blogger.
You should probably do some research on WordPress before migrating.
Personally I wouldn't touch WordPress with somebody else's 10ft pole right now, the drama is an extreme turnoff. I've tried every AI chat bot except Automattics because I'm not interested in their games. Plenty of other great blogging platforms to choose from.
That's probably true and totally fair.
I've heard good things about Ghost lately.
Personally I'm looking into SSG's for a new blog, a bit of setup but after that I really like the workflow. I'm trying out Zola right now.
Good luck!
GrapheneOS has the option to run sandboxed google play services which you can then download any google play store app. This allows for much greater security as the apps cannot see the other apps you download. Also, you could use Aurora Store which allows play store app downloads without a google account.
There are issues that can pop up and is something you'd need to look into on app by app basis. Lately, it seems they have most banking apps working though.
I feel like my local bank etc. is relatively shitty in terms of software, so I am expecting it to not work anywhere other than android & iOS.
Local map apps and local messaging app is the bigger issue for me, though.
You can install any app on GOS. You can use sandboxed google play to use the gplay store as normal, or Aurora Store if you just want gplay apps but not services.
You can get by for most apps with MicroG which is a cut down implementation of play services but some apps will absolutely refuse to run on a non-factory Android image.
Last time I was on a custom ROM I got most things to work to some extent but some jush didn't work e.g. NFC payments via Google Pay.
IIRC there's legislation being discussed in the EU that could compel Google to offer hardware signatures for custom ROMs in future.
F-droid works on any Android phone, doesnt need to be GrapheneOS. I have installed in on regular installs plenty of times.
i know its not as easy / inconvenient, but is there any way to use the companies website instead of the app? For example, i usually log into my banks website to check things or to make a transfer between accounts. Yes you cant scan a check or make desposits, but i also not use a lot of companies App's in the first place. I just dont understand why everyone needs apps - do you really need an app for your ISP?
Yeah, I meant that most apps are not available from F-droid.
Local messaging app does not support web version. Silly/outrageous, I know; guess they want iron grip on the data. What can I do though, when everyone uses it.
You do not use banking through mobile at all? Seems that would be inconvenient at times.
As already commented, the vast majority of apps are fine with Graphene and its optional sandboxed Play Services. Mainly some banking apps can be tricky, but otherwise you're good. You can also use alternatives like Aurora Store rather than Google directly to get your existing apps which aren't on F-Droid; the only real exception there is paid ones.
I got a Pixel and made the switch over about a year ago, and it has been pretty smooth sailing. I also really do appreciate having full control over which permissions to allow each app. I know some people do prefer to run Google's stock camera app or keyboard, but it's easy enough to not give those network access to phone home.
Same as almost everyone, I need some apps that just won't work, even with sandbox GSM and Play (ie: banking apps, ev charging, my kids' school reporting app), so I just have a sub-200 dollars phone just for that (One Plus n200 is now 84 dollars).
Since I only use apps when there's no other option (web version and PWA for everything else), it's actually refreshing. I charge my car at home unless I'm on a road trip, and only use banking apps 1 day of the month to get paid and pay bills. Outside of that, I'm home free with everything self hosted and absolutely no social networks other than Lemmy and Mastodon.
Unfortunately, if you want privacy, you need to compromise. However, absolutely nothing will make me drop my GrapheneOS use for everything else.
I get it that's not optimal, but the alternative, in my opinion is even worse.
Good luck degoogling, and I wish you enjoy the mental health improvement once you do.
For most of those things you could probably use the browser on a degoogled phone? I can't speak to your specific banking or university apps.
You might want to set up a separate work profile to sandbox that browser usage and/or dodgy apps (see Shelter if you can't do this through the Android settings).
How do people feel about e/OS? I just started playing around with it on an old phone and it seems to work with most apps, including banking and Google apps (their store has an optional Google login).
Depends what your reason for using it is I suppose. pricyguides.org only recommends GrapheneOS as an alternative for privacy and security reasons, but it requires a Pixel device unfortunately.
“There's no saving America -- we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. Burn it down! And from the ashes, a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed!”
Something adjacent to degoogling: I am concerned that Microsoft would collaborate with the Trump Regime. I never used Linux before, but I am now downloading Ubuntu. It feels like that I should do a dual-boot setup and get ready to abandon Windows if I hear about MS HQ in Washington having a DOGE presence.
Here's hoping that Europe and the Blue States are watching Microsoft for anything weird.
It's not google's fault. It was told to do so and has. Does anyone seriously expect them not to have done this?
Every American company, or company doing business in America, needs to toe the line of an unpredictable and vindictive president, especially one as fat and tempting as Google.
Now there'll be a disconnect in mapping between what some sources say and what others do, but anyone with a little history knowledge knows this isn't the first time.
When they start rounding up trans people and deporting them to concentration camps, I'll remember that the person shoving me into the train is just trying to keep his head down and weather the storm.
look, if you're a soulless corporation just trying to deliver profits to shareholders, this is 100% the right move.
the problem is not refusing to go along with some meaningless gesture based in ignorant nationalism. the problem is that we live in capitalism, where the right move is always the one that delivers profits. decisions lacking humanity are always going to get made. focusing on this nothingburger just distracts from the bigger picture.
i'm not defending them. i'm just trying to temper your expectations. there's a lot of uproar of pikachu shocked face stuff. it's all symptoms of the illness. you will be slapping band aids on shit forever if you don't attack the root cause of the illness.
sometimes i think you all just want stuff to be outraged over. maybe you just like to post about it and get upvotes. maybe you just want to be part of an in-group.
does that assumption bother you? because it bothers me that you think i'm pro-capitalism just because i won't join in on your circle jerk.
sure. whatever. fuck google. i'm definitely not here to defend google.
it's beginning to look like there is no helping you people though. it's like you all just got here and you're trying to convince the oldest grognard how bad things are. like, motherfucker, i've been here since 9/11.
IIRC Google shows different names and borders depending on the location you're accessing it from. They just follow whatever the local government thinks is right.
There's no thought in our government, so they're already messing that one up. Also, it's just the president who cares (and I guess some people who voted for him).
I'd imagine a majority of people here aren't calling it the new name (or even know the name changed).
Slow your horses there partner. That sounds an awful lot like facts and logic. We don't do that stuff here, so quit using that brain of yours. Take the outrage bait and join in on this circlejerk.
Yes, big international companies bowing down to local authoritarian governments.... nothing outrageous going on there in the world. This definitely hasn't helped dictators remain in power or target citizens, jerk away!
Use that logic to form sarcastic, misconstrued, and dangerous viewpoints and throw facts out the window! How fun!
You access Google maps from different locations and you'll see names and border changes.
Because, and this might surprise a sheltered yanks such as yourself. There's a whole world outside your borders, and different cultures call different locations different names.
You guys have got way bigger fish to fry than this.
Live in the south Bud, your yank shit can go out the window. We have bigger fish to fry than the worlds largest company that influences elections and controls our data and produces algorithm's to ensure our behavior?
The point is Google has always done this shit, just because someones been pissing in your cornflakes every morning doesn't mean you can't get upset when they eat asparagus. Or better yet, maybe care they're pissing in your shit to begin with?
It's not about "bigger fish to fry", ain't no one frying fish in this fucker. We're just talking and spreading awareness, idk wtf you're doing here besides complaining about people being aware (this is a degoogle community after all).
Holy hell, talk about projection with your sheltered remarks. Did you try searching for persian arabian gulf before commenting? "I haven't seen anyone complaining about one thing, so no one should be complaining about this thing." You're seriously saying this?
"I deem anyone not agreeing with me as a sheltered yank, I am definitely not a sheltered southerner with a bias"
I wish I could actually add anything to this conversation but your last response was just a "nuh uh!" with more insults sprinkled in (I guess to make you feel better about yourself? how's that going?). You've wasted time proclaiming this is a waste of time. Glad you got bigger fish to fry, can't wait for what great subject we should be focusing on with our comments.
I guess everyone would benefit from seeing your comment history and all the great fish frying you're doing. Us plebs talking about such mundane things is such a waste since you've highlighted it for the community. I imagine there's a whole plethora of comments you made about Google that will help lead us into a better future.
I just did literally the only thing I CAN do, which is rate it 1 star and call out their spinelessness. I'm sure this token, irrelevant act will be ignored at best or manually removed at worst. But until they drag me off to the gulag I'm absolutely not going to shut up and play along.
Fuck Trump, Musk, their MAGA cult, and anyone who enables or colludes with them or fails to fight back.
Can someone explain the 4D chess going on here? AFAIK this was just tweet diplomacy, the US hasn't passed anything about this. So why would google want to handle all the complaints and backlash they'll take for this?
You have to zoom in sooo much too for it to say Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). Weird. Makes no sense why Google would do this except to schmooze up to Little-Hands Trump.
CEO publicly praised Trump and the Republican party. It's not the political alignment you'd want from the CEO of a service where privacy is their main selling-point.
CEO went full maga, was given an opportunity to correct, then doubled down. After receiving blowback he tripled down and then started lashing out at customers using official channels.
So if I open an account with Posteo and then configure it so I’m using Apple’s Mail app on my mobile devices to read the email, am I defeating the privacy and/encription entirely?
Posteo does not have a dedicated email client.
No, not entirely. Posteo uses at least strong TLS (transport route encryption), meaning the message can hardly be intercepted between your (posteo) mailserver and the recipient mailserver. Everything else is unencrypted: the emails rest unencrypted on the posteo server (unless you activate crypt sorage, easy to do) and on the recipient server (e.g. Gmail). The latter will analyse your emails even if you never consented.
All this can be stopped using Posteo, though. They provide a lot of tools help on this on their homepage.
Look for PGP and inbound encryption.
He praised Trump publically, not a great look, but whatever, then tried to say he was not being political, while being even more political. His PR department swooped in to Reddit and started posting straw man attacks. I don't trust their CEO at this point. If it were any other just email company, I'd be down with it, but their whole schtick is security and privacy, and apparently, they're led by an idiot.
If I'm taking my shit out of google, I'm not taking to some place that's positioned to be more of the same if I can help it, and they really appear to be more of the same.
Personally I don't think it's that bad. It was absolutely misleading but not a lie.
I mostly care about no logging policies when it comes to VPN and as long as the content of the emails are encrypted/not logged, I don't mind that much.
That CEO is the same guy that's going to decide when and when not to sell your data. That is the CEO who's boot licking and courting governments for favors and won't think twice about selling you down the river.
Based on his Twitter affirmations, If Trump said hey I want you to give me the data on this guy disable is encryption without him knowing it and give it to me he wouldn't even bat an eye.
I think you absolutely should care about the political opinions of the CEO considering it's a private company and the CEO most likely gets to dictate the political leaning of the company. It's not like Twitter turned to shit simply because Musk bought it. It turned to shit because (among other things) Musk made business decisions based on his political opinions.
You could argue you don't need to care because their political opinions aren't influencing their business right now, but don't you think it might be a bit too late to care when the business starts to reflect the politics of the CEO? For example if tomorrow Trumps wants to know the contents of your email and the CEO decides to appease Trump you might start to care about the political h
I will cross that road when there is a good reason to do that.
I simply won't switch just because of someone's opinions that don't affect me.
I don't have time for that shit.
I'd really love for someone to come up with a phone OS that I could use on my cell phone. Mine runs on Android and I want to dump all things Google! I read that they have an exclusive deal with reddit where ALL data on reddit would be made available to them for training their AI algorithms. I went on perplexity.ai to check for this and here's the response I received to my query:
The deal between Reddit and Google to share data for AI training and search purposes will likely have significant impacts on Reddit user privacy:
Increased data sharing: Google will have exclusive access to Reddit's Data API, allowing them to collect real-time, structured content from the platform13. This means more user-generated content and activity data will be shared with a third party.
Enhanced user profiling: Google will use this data to improve its AI models and search capabilities, potentially leading to more accurate user profiling across Google's services36.
Potential for more personalized advertising: With access to Reddit's data, Google may be able to create more detailed user profiles, potentially leading to more targeted advertising both on and off Reddit26.
Reduced anonymity: While Reddit has traditionally allowed for relative anonymity, this data sharing could make it easier to connect Reddit activity with other online identities13.
Increased scrutiny of user content: As Reddit seeks to maintain its value for AI training, there may be stricter moderation and potential removal of certain types of content or communities4.
Changes to user agreements: Reddit may update its privacy policy and user agreement to reflect this new data sharing arrangement, potentially granting themselves broader rights to use and share user data6.
It's important to note that while Reddit claims it does not sell personal information to third parties, this deal represents a significant change in how user data is shared and utilized23. Users concerned about privacy may need to be more cautious about the information they share on the platform and may want to review their privacy settings regularly.
P.S.: Ignore the weird numbers as those are reference links. I copy-pasted this stuff.
Google goes full mask off. What a terrible look.
This is it, this is what I needed to see to make the final push to move away from Google. My next phone will probably be an iPhone, and I'm not excited about it.
I've almost completely degoogled my android device, I'm testing immich right now and the only things left that I rely on are maps and YouTube. I also buy a lot of my ebooks and comics from Google, but never again.
There's no way I'm buying a phone that's supported by Google after this change. There's no way I'm spending any amount of money on Google play at this point, or any other Google owned platform. Zero. And it really sucks, because android is the closest thing we have to an open phone platform. Maybe someday a GNU/Linux phone will actually be viable, but today it isn't and that only leaves me running to Apple as a savior. It's too bad that Google can't compete on a technology level, instead of gargling Trump's balls.
Also, why do you leave your de-googled device? Just don't pay for stuff on their store and use alternative stores with anonymous access like Aurora store or just go full f-droid.
I use iodéOS and am very happy with it. Easy de-googled life.
Grayjay is nice, not perfect but getting better all the time.
I won't buy a new device because of this, I unfortunately just purchased a new phone on a Black Friday deal.
But there is no way in hell I'm going to inflate android's user base with my next device purchase. That's where I draw the line, no more Google hardware or software purchases. Zero.
I'm sure as fuck not buying a Pixel, or buying anything through Google's marketplace. I'm not buying another Android device, and I'm not sure if there is anything that could change my mind at this point. Google is dead to me after this.
It's important to remember that Google is an adtech business first and foremost. It's basically the only way they can generate cash.
ADtech relies on user counts and active users to negotiate prices and other business deals. I'm not helping Google facilitate those business practices in the future.
Buying a used pixel and putting Graphene on it sounds great in principle, but you are 110% adding yourself to the pool of Google pixel users, inflating the value of Google's advertising business. You don't get to opt out of that user count, even if you are 101% 'degoogled' your are going to be counted as a Google phone owner. Because you would be.
That's where I draw the line, no more Google hardware or software purchases. Zero. I'm sure as fuck not buying a Pixel, or buying anything through Google's marketplace
Refurbished? I get what you mean but at the same time you can still have a Google phone without paying Google. That's what I did with my Pixel 8 and I'm happy with it, I kinda miss a few features of my Samsung phone but nothing crazy (face unlock and auto unlock if pin is correct)
Edit: Uh I just read the second half 🤦♂️ I don't really see the problem here
You cannot purchase a Pixel without positively affecting Google's profit margins. It's not possible, you own a pixel you are a Google phone owner. If you are a Google phone owner you count towards their user counts, which directly affects the price they can negotiate for their ad business. The larger their userbase is, the more they can charge. The more ad business they get the more leverage they have.
It doesn't matter that you block everything from Google at that point. It doesn't matter that you purchased your phone from somebody other than Google, regardless of the new/used condition. You can never interact with Google in any way shape or form, but the fact that you own a Google phone is giving them more leverage and more power.
I know I'm getting down votes all over this thread for holding this position, I don't care and I think it's important for people to be honest with themselves. Graphene might be a great option, it might even be the best option today from a privacy standpoint, but it doesn't mean that there aren't huge issues with buying a phone from Google to get it. It also doesn't mean that the entire android community should give up on making something that works on non-Google devices, which is unfortunately how I feel at this point. If you don't want to buy a pixel then the Android community is almost completely worthless in 2025. And at that point I might as well run an iPhone.
I'm not trying to say anyone is a bad person for making these choices. 'There is no ethical consumption under capitalism'. I'm saying that my choice going forward is to not give that company any more money or power if I can help it. And the most effective way I can do that is to not purchase anything they have their hands in.
I'm also not claiming that the other options are good either, but at this point it's becoming harder for me to ignore this crap.
Nobody cares if you care about ads.
The largest companies humanity have ever known are ADtech businesses.
You completely missed my point because of your apple hatred, literally the definition of a fanboy.
I have never owned an apple product but I'm not going to deny the reality of the situation to justify my past purchases.
I fully believe that combination works well.
I also fully believe that if you asked a random person off the street to trade in their smartphone for two devices that only have partial functionality you would get told to go F yourself.
I don't think it's a 'valid' option in 2025, and I would love to know what the average person on the street would say if they actually hear you out on all the benefits.
I'm a 'tech enthusiast' I guess and a long time FOSS lover. I have been daily driving Linux for over 15 years at this point. I'm not sure if I would put up with two half-phones in my pockets all day everyday, and I know my friends would laugh at the idea.
I almost purchased a PinePhone on more than a few orders from the Pine store but I keep holding off for thing to become stable enough to use the phone as a phone.
I prefer OrganicMap. Free and Open source made with the help of the community. Your suggestion is only play store and as a degoogled user I don't have access to it (Aurora store, I know but still). Not sure which one is better in terms of UI/UX but the fact It's not open source is a no go for me
this is only effective in the US btw, this doesn't apply outside of the US, why google has done this? Probably the appease trump, and honestly, anything that keeps trump busy that isn't overthrowing the US government is good in my books.
This move makes zero sense to me. Why, change it? It's not it's official name or international recognized name so wtf
And it will undoubtedly pay off for them. This is the first brazenly tech oligarchy-driven administration.
Remember who was at Trump’s inauguration? Musk, obviously, but also:
.
Trump, a populist president, is flanked by tech billionaires at his inauguration
Tim Apple isn’t your friend, either. No oligarch is.
I was hoping Apple wouldn’t be there considering Tim is openly gay
Openly gay, but secretly a billionaire.
He donated to Trump right from his pockets. He’s a traitor.
To be clear, they've changed names in line with official government policy before, not just for Trump's admin.
Yeah but that makes too much sense for emotional & reactional people that don't rely on logic
I get what you’re saying, but the renaming itself is entirely an act of emotion and reaction, with no trace of logic, too. It’s pretty much all we should expect to see from anyone for a while.
They are a private organization with the right to say “lol that’s nice”, and leave it as the gulf of mexico. Executive orders direct government policy.
If something as ridiculous currys favor and infkuence with Trump the USA is truly coming to an end.
I'll remind you of freedom fries.
It's not coming to an end as in no longer existing, but it absolutely is as a world power. Maybe it will be for the better in the long run.
The USA is now part of a list of "sensitive countries" with authoritarian states with their own version of reality. When users in one of the countries on this list visit Google sites, they see that government's version of reality. This is nothing new. Google does it all the time with disputed territories. It's only news because it's the first time the US has an authoritarian government.
Here's how it looks when visiting from a Mexican device with the language set to Australian English while located in Hungary.
Edit: undoxxed myself lol
In Google maps set to Polish while in the UK, it shows
Zatoka Meksykańska (Zatoka Amerykańska)
Which translates to
Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)
Google maps set to Danish in Denmark is the exact same 🤦♂️
But who would want to play golf there
Distraction from:
Edit: That's why trump did it. All tech companies are in his hands now.
No, there are no smokescreens. Trump is literally this stupid. Don't attribute to maliciousness what can be attributed to narcissism.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to post this somewhere else:
https://www.npr.org/2025/02/07/nx-s1-5289315/trump-week-in-review
Oh that makes sense. Like when muskrat tried to get out of Twitter suis because the name changed.
pleasing the power, so they remove any law that protect our privacy against google prying eye
It could be simply because they can do it, peasant
Thayana good point. I need to remember my place in this world 🤣
Should look up what they want to rename Greenland
SMH..... Red, White and Blue-land.....
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/1161
Ass kissing pure and simple. Kneel to the dictator level shit.
Then you must not be paying much attention, or have an understanding of how capitalism functions (nor of how and why it inevitably decays in to fascism).
I also find the word "America" too latino. wouldn't it be better to change it with an English word?
White supremacy.
It's even weirder because America doesn't mean just the United States
Geographically, America is too ambiguous of a name for the Gulf of Mexico
Wouldn't the Gulf of California also qualify as being the Gulf of America?
The Caribbean Sea?
Basically every river system from the Mississippi and and the Amazon are also "American" from northernmost point of North America to the southernmost point of South America, it's all "America"
Naming the Gulf of Mexico "America" is almost as bad as naming a country "earth"
Hey since America is the center of the earth, we should change it to the Gulf of Central America!
Mexico's full name is ”The United States of Mexico", I think they should rename their map's version to Gulf of The United States just to add to the confusion and make the point these things, like all facts, are useless when people suffer no consequences from making them up.
Perfect naming, you have my vote!
Really, we could just call it the Gulf of the Americas. That would be perfectly correct in every way.
Hmmm, good point. The Caribbean Sea will now be known as the Sea of the Americas, lol. Idk, I was trying to unite everyone.
Question for all non-US natives. When somebody tells you they are from America do you think the continent or the USA?
Saddly the US because those fuckers are just so loud and never shut the fuck up.
And that's the point of my question, and this change. Trump feels like he won, because he took something away from Mexico.
Yes, agreed. He seems to regard life as a zero-sum game, in which he can't win unless someone else loses, so he doesn't understand the concept of win-win. It's a kind of cognitive bias which is a serious weakness in someone who apparently imagines himself to be a master of 'the art of the deal'.
Everyone knows what you mean if you say you're American
Organic Maps:
Organic Maps is really cool :-)
Yeah, it's even better than GMaps for me, because GMaps doesn't have bike navigation (where I live) while Organic Maps has all the bike lanes marked and navigatable.
Yeah it's way better for biking and walking. I also find the map a lot more coherent, with GMaps I often had to resort to the satellite view to see what's going on.
Organic maps updates its dataset once a month or so. It will eventually be updated to the gulf of America, as it is now, technically named the gullf of America in America. See discussion here: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/gulf-of-america-gulf-of-mexico/124571
Seems like that it is going to be not renamed but they're adding a "official" tagged name, which is the Gulf of America.
Meanwhile on Openstreetmap:
Showing just enough acknowledgement to confirm they've discussed the executive order, but they aren't going to follow it.
Ooh I would LOVE to do it and I did that with 2 places but I don't like:
Google maps was exactly like that before it became the defacto navigation software for most of the planet and we all started answering innocent little questions for our new overlords. I really feel like OSM is on the verge of becoming top tier, we just need a bit more momentum to push it there. And unlike their competitors, it's highly unlikely you will see anything in any media publication to push users towards them. Google had multiple ad campaigns for maps before it replaced things like Garmin GPS and in car GPS. Garmin and TomTom sold millions of dedicated GPS devices before Google killed their business model.
Its a great app but has some problems I can't just ignore, the ones mentioned above are what I need and I can't get it working
That highly depends on the search engine you're using, OsmAnd for example sorts the search results by distance to your location.
That's an Organic Maps problem, they only update the OSM database once a month, and you have to click the update button manually when they do so.
I kinda recommend against Organic Maps at this point. It's a dumbed-down app with bad routing, bad search, and slow updates. The only thing it has going for it is that it has the best UI/UX (especially for new users) compared to other FOSS openstreetmap apps. If you're ok with proprietary nonsense, mapy.cz is a lot more fleshed out, and otherwise you should just learn and configure OsmAnd for yourself.
I use Organic Map and both my locations are on the site and if I open the location through the app, I see it but searching lead to no results. No idea why, maybe I can see them because I'm the author?
I thought was more. But it's up to date and I still can't see the place I uploaded more than 1 month ago, sadly.
Eh I strongly prefer FOSS apps, OrganicMap was a cool project, can't find a Google maps alternative FOSS and reliable
Someone at OM forgot to click the "reindex-db" this morning 🤣
Maybe ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I wish OM was a little better in terms of places + db updates
Just use OsmAnd. It's old-school in terms of its UI and can be clunky, but it's FOSS, has hourly map updates (free for OSM contributors), and a lot of customization and features.
This is the only problem I have. It's great but has a very old UI and some elements are very ugly... i mean, the battery icon is so damn huge! Maybe I could fork and update it myself ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I'm gonna download StreetComplete, it's a neat incentive for exercise.
Tip on using StreetComplete: Don't be afraid to turn off a bunch of things. If you leave everything on you'll often find yourself standing around one place instead of enjoying more of the area and answering a smaller set of questions.
That's pretty cool, I didn't know about that app before you brought it up. Downloaded already!
Surely that is following it? Change the name in American. Leave it the same in English.
It's kind of a malicious compliance thing. The new name will not show up on any map renders, moreover it's not likely to be shown in most apps even if you select the object (because
official_name:*is not supported by most apps).Ahh nice, I like it
Even in the UK they have put Gulf of America.
The UK Government doesn't recognize that name and have officially stated they wont (at least in the short term)
I live in the US and I won't recognize the name either.
Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Executive orders aren't laws, they're just memos stating what the federal government will do. Google decided to bend the knee for the new king.
It's the same in every language, or at least in russian and french.
Everyone should report it as bug.
UK should sue them..
Lmfao, as if Keith would dare stand up to a mega corporation, or a fascist for that matter.. I give it a week, at absolute most.
No better time than the present to switch to OpenStreetMap
For Android, I use OsmAnd~ which uses OpenStreetMap data and allows you to download maps to calculate routes offline, something Google Maps couldn't do for routes by foot and by bike last time I tried.
It also has better coverage for some small paths in natural areas like forests. Give it a try!
I will continue deadnaming the gulf with the name assigned at birth. It's just going through a phase.
It probably had names before but what did the Mayans call it?
Apparently...
Link. I'm sure there are better ones. Hard to find good sources.
Planet America, orbiting the American sun, in the galaxy called America
The Galaxy of (truth, Justice, and) the American Way!
Time for a repeat comment: Organic Maps does everything Google Maps does (except traffic conditions), and is FOSS. Please encourage places to contribute business information to Open Street Maps.
"Except traffic" is not a little thing. It's like putting up an ad for a house with all the features you'd expect, except a roof.
With my daily commute, there are a dozen routes I can take and traffic conditions make it so that from day to day, there can be an hour difference between different routes. It's literally the only reason I use navigation apps over a cheap GPS unit with no live online connection requirement to navigate.
Traffic condition can only be provided if you track millions of phones. I don't want that, so I opt out. I don't want Google to manage traffic for me.
Or you can do it like News stations do and just use a fucking camera feed and police acanner to have someone say "hey - there's a lot of cars at Interstate 99 and Main" or "There's reports of a wreck at 300 Elm street".
Traffic reporting doesn't require device-level tracking.
In order to do this at scale, that's a lot of someones who all need to be paid. You'd need several people, per city, to manually review traffic cameras and manually issue reports.
Unless you want to pay $200/mo for traffic updates, you can't do this using humans.
Growing up, we had 5 TV stations and 20 radio stations that managed to do it just off of cereal advertisements. I'd gladly pay 5 bucks a month for it, and with millions of people in the metro area just having 1% of people use a $5/month service you'd be looking at 6 figures a month, which is plenty to pay for the service.
The only way to know if it would work would be to roll the dice and make a startup. You'll need enough cash to cover a year or two of projected operations, the capital to develop the application and infrastructure in addition to the money required to advertise the service.
At the same time you have to realize that your proposition for potential customers is 'You can pay us $5 to get the service that Google gives you for free and it only works in this one metro area.' De-googling is a popular topic on nerd social media but the average person would gladly trade all of their privacy to pay less money.
If we could magic wand a company into existence and capture all of the privacy focused customer base in a large metro area then yeah, the company could pay the operating expenses. But going from 'This is a cool idea' to 'We have a successful service that has a positive cash flow' is a hard, capital intensive, process.
I think a municipal economic development corporation grant could be an answer.
EDCs exist in lots of cities. The usual setup is they're given a percentage of local sales tax, and they provide grants to businesses to move into town or start up. When the business is sucessful, they'll end up paying back more in taxes than was given to them initially, both through direct taxes, but also by providing higher-paying jobs for residents, who will pay more in their property taxes and spend money at local businesses, bringing in more sales tax.
The EDC could pay for the startup to provide the service locally, and then it can spread to other cities, who can either pay for it as a municipal service, or through subscriptions.
I think this is important. That said, traffic info is the whole ballgame for many people. People who live, work, and drive in metro areas frequently use map applications even when driving everyday routes to avoid traffic.
I don’t see Google/Waze/Apple maps getting any less popular unless there is a FOSS alternative that includes live traffic, which does not seem possible while remaining free. People will choose free every time, especially since Google maps works so well.
Personally, I would pay some amount for a privacy-minded alternative, something like OrganicMaps with live traffic. But I doubt it could ever attain the user base it would need to provide accurate traffic info.
Yea, I really wish I had more spare time. Algorithms like this are an area of expertise for me, and I'd love to build an anonymized service that works with Organic Maps. It's annoying when I know it is something I could make that would support high volume, but just don't have time for (mainly because of all the ongoing optimization it would require).
Talking about FOSS; I prefer OsmAnd because its licence is GPLv3, as opposed to the Apache 2 licence from Organic Maps.
Yup, big OsmAnd fan, too. We use it for backpacking and biking, but have found OM to be more driver friendly, which is why I recommended it here.
Also doesn't do public transport routes
Using the website from outside of the US shows it with its proper name, but then the asshat version in parentheses.
Same in the US when you zoom out.
Might be caching though, those tiles are probably cached.
Yeah, same here in Australia.
Yes, Tim Apple bent the knee, but the company seems to be holding steadfast.
Edit God dammit, they changed it. Cowards.
In Taiwan it says:
Gulf of Mexico(Gulf of America)
Same here in Canada, though I get the American version with an American VPN.
Same for me in Australia
Same for me in the US!
Degoogled since 2018
hardcore mode, google domains blocked by DNS
YouTube scrap data
GrapheneOS with used Pixel
It's a funny irony but a Pixel with GrapheneOS is the gold standard for mobile device security. Buy it secondhand and cut out their profit.
Sure, sure. As long as you can trust Google's custom silicon and custom security processor. I sure as fuck don't, regardless of what Graphene OS claims. They are going to need to go to much greater lengths to assure me of that, and I can pretty much guarantee the Graphene devs won't be able to do that.
What's the alternative?
For me Linux has been working pretty well
Linux on a mobile phone? Which device? Which Distribution? What works 'pretty well? What doesn't work all that well?
On a phone ?
Fairphone: https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/
Honestly? In 2025? In the real world? Apple is the only alternative. And it really actually hurts my soul to type this reply out. I hate Apple. I think they are clowns. I hate closed platforms, and I think Mac's are trash because of it. I have used every single version of Android. All of them, even pre-stable. The only alternative to Google is 2025, in regards to a mobile OS that works with my services and devices that I already own is iOS. The only way to get that is to buy a phone from Apple. And 'normies' care VERY MUCH about being able to use their already purchased shit. I wish Europe or Asia would actually try to compete against US big tech. It's a very strange marketplace, nearly the entire planet trusts US companies with basically their entire infrastructure. The only major players in computing are US based companies, aside from MAYBE Canonical/Ubuntu. In the mobile market, I don't see a way out of the duopoly at the current moment. If my phone died today I would replace it with an iPhone. And I wouldn't be happy about it.
Nah. If it's a choice between GrapheneOS on a pixel or an iPhone I'd take my chances with the pixel.
It would be pretty easy to detect if there was unexpected traffic with any google services.
You do you but IMO Graphene is your best chance in 2025.
Why? Not trying to be a dick about it, I just want to hear your justification. Thanks.
Nah. Fuck Apple! I know it may be too much but they're dead to me after I bought AN OFFICIAL REFURBISHED Apple device for my dad (old had problems) and received it with a motherboard problem (?), it couldn't read the sim for more than 1 hour straight. Contacted support multiple times and "Try this useless troubleshooting steps you already tried countless times" or "The sim is ruined so it doesn't touch the sim pins correctly (or some bs like that) " or "It's your carrier" or "From our remote tests, the phone works perfectly" or other Apple shit I forgot. After my last call I said "You either take my phone and check it or refund me", they took it to check if was the phone, got it back ~2 days later FUCKING WORKING as it should. I guess was really the sim, not the phone 🤔🤔
The worst part is: They didn't even care to give me something in return for the trouble! No, not money but they could've extended my warranty for a month or 2 as an apology but "Nah, we can't. Fuck you now"
I'm reading this as Apple fixed your refurbished phone like you asked them to. I do not see how you should be entitled to extra warranty because of this, or any other compensation. I can assure you that Google would also not extend your warranty for an issue of this nature. My friend is dealing with pixel warranty support as we speak and it sure as hell doesn't sound any better. I totally understand 'writing off' a company after you feel personally wronged by them, but I wasn't including warranty issues on refurbished phones in my requirements for my next mobile device. You asked what the alternative is and realistically that's the only one for 99.99% of the population.
My choice is to just not have a smartphone. Something like an old Nokia is what I use, CatB40 specifically but the company licensed to make those no longer exists. I hope Cat find someone else and they still make a line of dumb phones not just smartphones but I don't really expect it any time soon.
If mine dies probably just get a regular dumbphone for like £10. Can't collect much data if all it's capable of doing is calls and SMS which I rarely even use.
That's super cool for you. If I didn't work in IT I might try to achieve something similar. But honestly suggesting that the average person on the street go back in time almost 20 years in regards to their mobile device is just going to get you laughed out of the room. Do you use mobile banking? Do you carry a camera around with you at all times? Do you listen to music? For me music is a big one, I'm not listening to any god damned radio commercials and I don't have CD player in my car anymore. How would you entertain yourself on a long car ride alone in this scenario? Do you have any IoT or smart home devices? How do you interact with them? I know a few people that are a bit older than me that don't 'get' smartphones but then use a tablet on the couch pretty often. My uncle doesn't have a smartphone, and is kinda smug about it, but also doesn't really leave the house without his android tablet. I guess if you don't actually want to do any computing on the go a dumb phone is fine for short texts and phone calls, but finding one that works with 5G is another challenge these days.
Leaked Cellbrite docs indicated they couldn't get in. I'd consider that pretty reasonable assurance. If you're implying that Google has a backdoor... I think the argument against large/unstable conspiracies would apply.
This is so much horseshit I can't even begin to unpack it. You really think those docs aren't edited? They are 100% verified truth? That is a hunch at best. And so is my claim, it's a 'vibe'. I have zero proof of my claims, but I wouldn't do anything I consider 'secure' on any Android device.
There is no fucking way in hell I would consider any Android device a secure device, in any way shape or form. It is, at best, a controlled device that most users do not have control over.
And claiming that anyone that doesn't buy into the cellblite 'leaks' is a conspiracy theorist is also horseshit. (Or any leaks for that matter)
You can literally monitor the outbound DNS on a pixel with graphene and no apps and you'll see zero DNS requests to any Google servers. Quit spredding FUD
100% These people think they are sticking it to Google by buying a pixel and installing a custom ROM. Instead they just inflated Google's user count.
This will be a problem until a non-google open OS is adopted for mobile phones. Right now that list is incredibly short and nothing competes in the flagship department. I don't see it changing anytime soon because gen x and millenials may be the last generations that have a signifigant portion of itself that has a grasp of how computers work beyond "tap app icon, app does things".
Thing I took for granted like how a file system works is lost on my kids (late Z early alpha). Explaining what a file extension is like teaching a new language. I used to think "training wheels" for learning computering via tablets and phones and touch screens were a good thing but there is nothing that compels people today to shed themselves of them. It feels very reminiscent of my childhood and teaching my boomer dad how to right click. I think computer literacy needs to be required education, but I'm afraid that the definition for computer literacy might be meaningless nowadays if it doesn't go beyond open app store, install app, run app.
US public education computer literacy is dead, and it's not going to get better for at least 5+ years, best case scenario. Even if the person that is elected after Trump is a Democrat, it will take years to rebuild to where we were before big tech started bribing school IT departments. You think Apple/Google/Microsoft give a flying fuck about computer literacy being taught in schools? Because that's who currently decide the computer literacy program that the public school will provide. Whichever vendor they decide to go with. At this point I'm not convinced that Google is a better choice than the others, but it's also akin to choosing the least shitty sandwich at a shit-sandwich buffet.
In hindsight, this has been a downward trend since the proliferation of smart phones circa 2012. Google (android) isn't the best choice, but it is much better being open source over other ecosystems namely Apple. There is also an issue I strongly suspect that wireless carriers wouldn't allow open hardware/software on their networks because they have baked in restrictions in the major OSes on how you can access the network like tethering. I don't expect that to change for the better either because even when net neutrality was a thing wireless was exempt from the rules. Kinda reminds me how back in the day ISPs had to be forced to offer naked DSL (internet from the phone company without requiring phone service). This all has deep issues that won't be resolved anytime soon if ever. I'm putting my money on Linux becoming an actual threat to Microsoft and Apple in the desktop, laptop, handheld space and then that spreading into the mobile and tablet space. Depending on how Apple and Google antitrust situations are handled, we could start to see a shift by the end of the decade at best. This is why the tech sector will cozy up and do the bidding of whoever is in power. They won't run the risk of drawing the ire of the government to break up their monopolies so long as the party in power believes tech companies are in their party's pocket. This shift happened when Biden's election was inevitable toward Democrat favored polices and it's happening now for Republican favord polices since the last Biden Trump debate made a Trump victory inevitable.
My points are the tech sector is blatantly doing whatever it can to keep its power and change won't happen quickly if it happens at all.
This trend started waaaay before 2012. When I graduated highschool the only computer class that was offered was a basic MS Office and advanced MS office. The people making these type of decisions for public schools are rarely tech literate themselves, they physically cannot make an informed choice. This will not be resolved until big tech is dissolved, or strong regulations are pushed by the voting population. If anyone wants their children to be tech literate I recommend getting your kids in front of a keyboard and mouse instead of a touchscreen as early as you would allow them to use a tablet. The tablet will be easier for both of you, and that's exactly what they want.
GrapheneOS is not a custom ROM and I bought my phone second-hand, so I didn't give my money directly to Google
Preferred search engine?
Self hosted Searxng for me
I've been using startpage floor about a year now, has worked great.
Isn't that just Google with an extra MITM for everything? Sure it protects your privacy a little bit but the same bad actors are still getting their ad revenue from your searches, correct? Or do I just not understand how start page works?
Meanwhile in the UK
This is pathetic and reeks of insecurity big time. Hope that this debacle improves your QoL, Americans.
Mexico should rename "America"
The irony is that it doesn't specify which America.
Fuck Google and Samsung and everyone else who is preinstalled on my phone from the factory. I switched my phone OS to an AOSP GSI without the Google mobile services. Will probably be switching to WordPress from Blogger.
You should probably do some research on WordPress before migrating. Personally I wouldn't touch WordPress with somebody else's 10ft pole right now, the drama is an extreme turnoff. I've tried every AI chat bot except Automattics because I'm not interested in their games. Plenty of other great blogging platforms to choose from.
I mentioned it because it is the closest thing to Blogger.
That's probably true and totally fair. I've heard good things about Ghost lately. Personally I'm looking into SSG's for a new blog, a bit of setup but after that I really like the workflow. I'm trying out Zola right now. Good luck!
How about Concrete5 instead?
https://github.com/concretecms/concretecms
Though there's an option to write Pandoc-based static site blog.
America is so fucking weird!
Only most of us. Please send help.
Putin is on the way 😝
Ufff, I guess I should have added a “/s” 🤣
Now I look like a tankie
I wish I could degoogle my android phone. Sadly, it would mean many of the apps I use would stop working..
As far as I understand, only F-droid apps would work on e.g. GrapheneOS - is this wrong? I believe there would be issues with
I feel so sad that I am locked to the platform..
EDIT: Just checked, seems like everything is reported to work except for local banking app. Sadly, it is too convenient to ditch..
Yeah but some apps just do not have website equivalent, which is the main issue. For instance, the local messaging app does not have web version.
On the Magic Earth app, does it show multiple alternative routes? I found Organic maps problematic in that it only gave a single route.
GrapheneOS has the option to run sandboxed google play services which you can then download any google play store app. This allows for much greater security as the apps cannot see the other apps you download. Also, you could use Aurora Store which allows play store app downloads without a google account.
There are issues that can pop up and is something you'd need to look into on app by app basis. Lately, it seems they have most banking apps working though.
I feel like my local bank etc. is relatively shitty in terms of software, so I am expecting it to not work anywhere other than android & iOS. Local map apps and local messaging app is the bigger issue for me, though.
Yea it can be tricky. If you have the time to test it out its worth the privacy upgrade.
Just be sure you have an accurate image of your default OS, for your carrier if applicable, so you can revert.
You should check out Sapio maybe someone has already checked if your banking app works!
You can install any app on GOS. You can use sandboxed google play to use the gplay store as normal, or Aurora Store if you just want gplay apps but not services.
You can get by for most apps with MicroG which is a cut down implementation of play services but some apps will absolutely refuse to run on a non-factory Android image.
Last time I was on a custom ROM I got most things to work to some extent but some jush didn't work e.g. NFC payments via Google Pay.
IIRC there's legislation being discussed in the EU that could compel Google to offer hardware signatures for custom ROMs in future.
F-droid works on any Android phone, doesnt need to be GrapheneOS. I have installed in on regular installs plenty of times.
i know its not as easy / inconvenient, but is there any way to use the companies website instead of the app? For example, i usually log into my banks website to check things or to make a transfer between accounts. Yes you cant scan a check or make desposits, but i also not use a lot of companies App's in the first place. I just dont understand why everyone needs apps - do you really need an app for your ISP?
Yeah, I meant that most apps are not available from F-droid.
Local messaging app does not support web version. Silly/outrageous, I know; guess they want iron grip on the data. What can I do though, when everyone uses it.
You do not use banking through mobile at all? Seems that would be inconvenient at times.
As already commented, the vast majority of apps are fine with Graphene and its optional sandboxed Play Services. Mainly some banking apps can be tricky, but otherwise you're good. You can also use alternatives like Aurora Store rather than Google directly to get your existing apps which aren't on F-Droid; the only real exception there is paid ones.
I got a Pixel and made the switch over about a year ago, and it has been pretty smooth sailing. I also really do appreciate having full control over which permissions to allow each app. I know some people do prefer to run Google's stock camera app or keyboard, but it's easy enough to not give those network access to phone home.
Same as almost everyone, I need some apps that just won't work, even with sandbox GSM and Play (ie: banking apps, ev charging, my kids' school reporting app), so I just have a sub-200 dollars phone just for that (One Plus n200 is now 84 dollars).
Since I only use apps when there's no other option (web version and PWA for everything else), it's actually refreshing. I charge my car at home unless I'm on a road trip, and only use banking apps 1 day of the month to get paid and pay bills. Outside of that, I'm home free with everything self hosted and absolutely no social networks other than Lemmy and Mastodon.
Unfortunately, if you want privacy, you need to compromise. However, absolutely nothing will make me drop my GrapheneOS use for everything else.
I get it that's not optimal, but the alternative, in my opinion is even worse.
Good luck degoogling, and I wish you enjoy the mental health improvement once you do.
For most of those things you could probably use the browser on a degoogled phone? I can't speak to your specific banking or university apps.
You might want to set up a separate work profile to sandbox that browser usage and/or dodgy apps (see Shelter if you can't do this through the Android settings).
How do people feel about e/OS? I just started playing around with it on an old phone and it seems to work with most apps, including banking and Google apps (their store has an optional Google login).
Depends what your reason for using it is I suppose. pricyguides.org only recommends GrapheneOS as an alternative for privacy and security reasons, but it requires a Pixel device unfortunately.
For route finding, what about GraphHopper Maps?
“There's no saving America -- we need to pull it out by the roots. Wipe the slate clean. Burn it down! And from the ashes, a new America will be born. Evolved, but untamed!”
— Senator Armstrong.
Time to make the mother of all omelettes. Can't fret over every egg!
Something adjacent to degoogling: I am concerned that Microsoft would collaborate with the Trump Regime. I never used Linux before, but I am now downloading Ubuntu. It feels like that I should do a dual-boot setup and get ready to abandon Windows if I hear about MS HQ in Washington having a DOGE presence.
Here's hoping that Europe and the Blue States are watching Microsoft for anything weird.
It's not google's fault. It was told to do so and has. Does anyone seriously expect them not to have done this?
Every American company, or company doing business in America, needs to toe the line of an unpredictable and vindictive president, especially one as fat and tempting as Google.
Now there'll be a disconnect in mapping between what some sources say and what others do, but anyone with a little history knowledge knows this isn't the first time.
There's no legal requirement to comply.
This is voluntary
Yeah, right. Of course it is. Ever tell a dictator no? They're very forgiving.
look, fuck google for many reasons, but not this. this is just keeping your head down and trying to survive the shit storm.
When they start rounding up trans people and deporting them to concentration camps, I'll remember that the person shoving me into the train is just trying to keep his head down and weather the storm.
oh, i can hear the violins playing now.
of course you made this into something about trans people when it will likely be anyone who opposes them. ya'll are gonna get slaughtered. wise up.
Their stated policy is to put trans people and illegal immigrants in camps.
They're the first group being targeted.
cool. you got your breaking point. my breaking point was years ago. catch up.
What is your point?
look, if you're a soulless corporation just trying to deliver profits to shareholders, this is 100% the right move.
the problem is not refusing to go along with some meaningless gesture based in ignorant nationalism. the problem is that we live in capitalism, where the right move is always the one that delivers profits. decisions lacking humanity are always going to get made. focusing on this nothingburger just distracts from the bigger picture.
if you want results, destroy capitalism.
i'm not defending them. i'm just trying to temper your expectations. there's a lot of uproar of pikachu shocked face stuff. it's all symptoms of the illness. you will be slapping band aids on shit forever if you don't attack the root cause of the illness.
sometimes i think you all just want stuff to be outraged over. maybe you just like to post about it and get upvotes. maybe you just want to be part of an in-group.
does that assumption bother you? because it bothers me that you think i'm pro-capitalism just because i won't join in on your circle jerk.
In nazi Germany they had a name for those who kept their heads down and tried to survive the shitstorm. They were called Nazis.
Anne Frank wasn't "keeping her head down to avoid the shitstorm" so I wouldn't say that's even close to equivalent.
not true. You should read what's written back then
not all Germans were considered NAZIs. Heck, not all Germans were even considered Germans.
Why is everything black/white with lemmings?
ooo. somebody's looking to score some upvotes for their virtue signaling.
well, i'll tell ya what boss... how about you get out there and start killing nazi's then. otherwise you are one (by your own reasoning)
That's what a nazi would say.
Don't worry, I'm already on the case.
good.
and if you're implying that i'm the problem, then by all means, come and get me. i'd love to give you a lesson in getting shit done.
We found an Internet tough guy, everyone back up! While we were busy virtue signaling this guy studied deez nuts.
The 2nd richest company on the planet is not afraid of the US government they own.
sure. whatever. fuck google. i'm definitely not here to defend google.
it's beginning to look like there is no helping you people though. it's like you all just got here and you're trying to convince the oldest grognard how bad things are. like, motherfucker, i've been here since 9/11.
You cry like a baby
Waaaaaa
Waaaaaaaaaa
The renaming only applies to US federal agencies. Google is (supposedly) not a federal agency, so yes, it is their fault.
That would make sense if they didn't also change in Europe...
How could they change it in Europe? It's in the Americas?
(Yeah, I'm being facetious, but changing maps depending on where you read them is just adding another layer of confusion)
Just checked. You can even select it, but cannot report an error at that location. But you can leave reviews, so…
IIRC Google shows different names and borders depending on the location you're accessing it from. They just follow whatever the local government thinks is right.
In Portugal, it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”
In Germany, it is still "Golf von Mexiko".
Edit: when you zoom in, it is the same as in Portugal.
Same in Canada.
That has to be illegal..
There's no thought in our government, so they're already messing that one up. Also, it's just the president who cares (and I guess some people who voted for him).
I'd imagine a majority of people here aren't calling it the new name (or even know the name changed).
I've always heard locals just call it "the Gulf."
Slow your horses there partner. That sounds an awful lot like facts and logic. We don't do that stuff here, so quit using that brain of yours. Take the outrage bait and join in on this circlejerk.
You're right. No more braining!
Yes, big international companies bowing down to local authoritarian governments.... nothing outrageous going on there in the world. This definitely hasn't helped dictators remain in power or target citizens, jerk away!
Use that logic to form sarcastic, misconstrued, and dangerous viewpoints and throw facts out the window! How fun!
Lad. Google has always done this.
You access Google maps from different locations and you'll see names and border changes.
Because, and this might surprise a sheltered yanks such as yourself. There's a whole world outside your borders, and different cultures call different locations different names.
You guys have got way bigger fish to fry than this.
Live in the south Bud, your yank shit can go out the window. We have bigger fish to fry than the worlds largest company that influences elections and controls our data and produces algorithm's to ensure our behavior?
The point is Google has always done this shit, just because someones been pissing in your cornflakes every morning doesn't mean you can't get upset when they eat asparagus. Or better yet, maybe care they're pissing in your shit to begin with?
It's not about "bigger fish to fry", ain't no one frying fish in this fucker. We're just talking and spreading awareness, idk wtf you're doing here besides complaining about people being aware (this is a degoogle community after all).
And there's way more important thing to complain about when it comes to Google then something as routine as this.
The only thing you are spreading awareness about, is how sheltered you are.
This same thing has been done for the Persian/Arabian Gulf, something that I can't help be suspicious that it's never been brought up.
Holy hell, talk about projection with your sheltered remarks. Did you try searching for persian arabian gulf before commenting? "I haven't seen anyone complaining about one thing, so no one should be complaining about this thing." You're seriously saying this?
"I deem anyone not agreeing with me as a sheltered yank, I am definitely not a sheltered southerner with a bias"
I wish I could actually add anything to this conversation but your last response was just a "nuh uh!" with more insults sprinkled in (I guess to make you feel better about yourself? how's that going?). You've wasted time proclaiming this is a waste of time. Glad you got bigger fish to fry, can't wait for what great subject we should be focusing on with our comments.
I guess everyone would benefit from seeing your comment history and all the great fish frying you're doing. Us plebs talking about such mundane things is such a waste since you've highlighted it for the community. I imagine there's a whole plethora of comments you made about Google that will help lead us into a better future.
Typical sheltered yank. Only complaining when something affects you.
Something actually relevant to Google? And not standard operating procedure.
I would hate to see what would happen when you learn about how Google maps handles all the disputed borders in the world.
I just did literally the only thing I CAN do, which is rate it 1 star and call out their spinelessness. I'm sure this token, irrelevant act will be ignored at best or manually removed at worst. But until they drag me off to the gulag I'm absolutely not going to shut up and play along.
Fuck Trump, Musk, their MAGA cult, and anyone who enables or colludes with them or fails to fight back.
Can someone explain the 4D chess going on here? AFAIK this was just tweet diplomacy, the US hasn't passed anything about this. So why would google want to handle all the complaints and backlash they'll take for this?
I think something official was actually signed in the last few days. Dumbest timeline.
Because it's worth getting on trump's "good side", per Ajit Pai's reasoning
backlash? where? did google received any complaint ever?
From official heads of state even: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/mexico-president-presents-letter-google-about-gulf-mexico-name-change-2025-01-30/
For me it's extra strange. If I zoom out, I see "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)". However when I zoom in it changes to just "Guild of America".
I'm American also in the US.
You have to zoom in sooo much too for it to say Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America). Weird. Makes no sense why Google would do this except to schmooze up to Little-Hands Trump.
If you zoom in to 1m resolution and then slowly zoom out, you'll see the name change back and forth several times. Very odd.
So it's as stable as our government right now?
It's the same for europeans, just in a different language.
I'm trying to, but Proton made me throw up in my mouth a little.
Now I have the option to do everything I was doing, but poorly AND spread across 3 vendors.
What's wrong with proton? It works pretty well for me.
CEO publicly praised Trump and the Republican party. It's not the political alignment you'd want from the CEO of a service where privacy is their main selling-point.
CEO went full maga, was given an opportunity to correct, then doubled down. After receiving blowback he tripled down and then started lashing out at customers using official channels.
damn, i only followed the dramma for the first couple posts, do you mind posting a link to read the third one?
Use Posteo, amazing company and business model
So if I open an account with Posteo and then configure it so I’m using Apple’s Mail app on my mobile devices to read the email, am I defeating the privacy and/encription entirely? Posteo does not have a dedicated email client.
No, not entirely. Posteo uses at least strong TLS (transport route encryption), meaning the message can hardly be intercepted between your (posteo) mailserver and the recipient mailserver. Everything else is unencrypted: the emails rest unencrypted on the posteo server (unless you activate crypt sorage, easy to do) and on the recipient server (e.g. Gmail). The latter will analyse your emails even if you never consented. All this can be stopped using Posteo, though. They provide a lot of tools help on this on their homepage. Look for PGP and inbound encryption.
I’m not sure if this covers everything, I don’t have access to Reddit. https://sh.itjust.works/post/31843393
True, works fine.
Then they said they didn't log IP's then handed over one of their users IP's that got an activist locked up.
There there was the bootlicking incident (it's a paywall but you get the gist before it disappears)
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
He praised Trump publically, not a great look, but whatever, then tried to say he was not being political, while being even more political. His PR department swooped in to Reddit and started posting straw man attacks. I don't trust their CEO at this point. If it were any other just email company, I'd be down with it, but their whole schtick is security and privacy, and apparently, they're led by an idiot.
If I'm taking my shit out of google, I'm not taking to some place that's positioned to be more of the same if I can help it, and they really appear to be more of the same.
Ah alright. I personally don't care that much about the CEOs political opinions as long as that isn't reflected in the business itself.
I had to look for more information on the IP logging thing since I didn't know much about it. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/privacy-focused-protonmail-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/
Personally I don't think it's that bad. It was absolutely misleading but not a lie.
I mostly care about no logging policies when it comes to VPN and as long as the content of the emails are encrypted/not logged, I don't mind that much.
That CEO is the same guy that's going to decide when and when not to sell your data. That is the CEO who's boot licking and courting governments for favors and won't think twice about selling you down the river.
Based on his Twitter affirmations, If Trump said hey I want you to give me the data on this guy disable is encryption without him knowing it and give it to me he wouldn't even bat an eye.
That's not who I want protecting my data
I think you absolutely should care about the political opinions of the CEO considering it's a private company and the CEO most likely gets to dictate the political leaning of the company. It's not like Twitter turned to shit simply because Musk bought it. It turned to shit because (among other things) Musk made business decisions based on his political opinions.
You could argue you don't need to care because their political opinions aren't influencing their business right now, but don't you think it might be a bit too late to care when the business starts to reflect the politics of the CEO? For example if tomorrow Trumps wants to know the contents of your email and the CEO decides to appease Trump you might start to care about the political h
I will cross that road when there is a good reason to do that. I simply won't switch just because of someone's opinions that don't affect me. I don't have time for that shit.
I guess I can live with calling it "Gulf of America" if we also rename "Gulf of California" to "Gulf of Mexico"
Hahaha I thought Google was benevolently collecting my personal data for my own good. I consented right? /s
Organic Maps is still keeping it real for me
I'd really love for someone to come up with a phone OS that I could use on my cell phone. Mine runs on Android and I want to dump all things Google! I read that they have an exclusive deal with reddit where ALL data on reddit would be made available to them for training their AI algorithms. I went on perplexity.ai to check for this and here's the response I received to my query: The deal between Reddit and Google to share data for AI training and search purposes will likely have significant impacts on Reddit user privacy:
Take the plunge. De-Google.
The rixh are trying to achieve world domination before we collectively strip them of their excess wealth to fix wealth inequality and dethrone them.
I wish i were kidding...
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
No bad ideas, right? How about the United States of Mexico?
ecosia all the way
Google has the ability to stand up to trump. To destroy him, frankly.
But they'd have to not be little bitches, so I guess they don't.
Next thing you know they'll change Canada's name to Not-yet-United States of America
Anything but google.
Poop. I was hoping I could leave a review but can't
I wonder how location dependent it is?
UnGoogled everything is an improvement. Hard to do tho with employers.
This will make groceries cheaper
Im calling it the golf of low egg prices :3
Google goes full mask off. What a terrible look. This is it, this is what I needed to see to make the final push to move away from Google. My next phone will probably be an iPhone, and I'm not excited about it. I've almost completely degoogled my android device, I'm testing immich right now and the only things left that I rely on are maps and YouTube. I also buy a lot of my ebooks and comics from Google, but never again. There's no way I'm buying a phone that's supported by Google after this change. There's no way I'm spending any amount of money on Google play at this point, or any other Google owned platform. Zero. And it really sucks, because android is the closest thing we have to an open phone platform. Maybe someday a GNU/Linux phone will actually be viable, but today it isn't and that only leaves me running to Apple as a savior. It's too bad that Google can't compete on a technology level, instead of gargling Trump's balls.
Buy a second hand Pixel and flash GrapheneOS on it.
For replacing youtube, use https://grayjay.app/
Also, why do you leave your de-googled device? Just don't pay for stuff on their store and use alternative stores with anonymous access like Aurora store or just go full f-droid.
I use iodéOS and am very happy with it. Easy de-googled life.
Grayjay is nice, not perfect but getting better all the time. I won't buy a new device because of this, I unfortunately just purchased a new phone on a Black Friday deal. But there is no way in hell I'm going to inflate android's user base with my next device purchase. That's where I draw the line, no more Google hardware or software purchases. Zero. I'm sure as fuck not buying a Pixel, or buying anything through Google's marketplace. I'm not buying another Android device, and I'm not sure if there is anything that could change my mind at this point. Google is dead to me after this.
It's important to remember that Google is an adtech business first and foremost. It's basically the only way they can generate cash. ADtech relies on user counts and active users to negotiate prices and other business deals. I'm not helping Google facilitate those business practices in the future. Buying a used pixel and putting Graphene on it sounds great in principle, but you are 110% adding yourself to the pool of Google pixel users, inflating the value of Google's advertising business. You don't get to opt out of that user count, even if you are 101% 'degoogled' your are going to be counted as a Google phone owner. Because you would be.
Refurbished? I get what you mean but at the same time you can still have a Google phone without paying Google. That's what I did with my Pixel 8 and I'm happy with it, I kinda miss a few features of my Samsung phone but nothing crazy (face unlock and auto unlock if pin is correct)
Edit: Uh I just read the second half 🤦♂️ I don't really see the problem here
You cannot purchase a Pixel without positively affecting Google's profit margins. It's not possible, you own a pixel you are a Google phone owner. If you are a Google phone owner you count towards their user counts, which directly affects the price they can negotiate for their ad business. The larger their userbase is, the more they can charge. The more ad business they get the more leverage they have. It doesn't matter that you block everything from Google at that point. It doesn't matter that you purchased your phone from somebody other than Google, regardless of the new/used condition. You can never interact with Google in any way shape or form, but the fact that you own a Google phone is giving them more leverage and more power. I know I'm getting down votes all over this thread for holding this position, I don't care and I think it's important for people to be honest with themselves. Graphene might be a great option, it might even be the best option today from a privacy standpoint, but it doesn't mean that there aren't huge issues with buying a phone from Google to get it. It also doesn't mean that the entire android community should give up on making something that works on non-Google devices, which is unfortunately how I feel at this point. If you don't want to buy a pixel then the Android community is almost completely worthless in 2025. And at that point I might as well run an iPhone. I'm not trying to say anyone is a bad person for making these choices. 'There is no ethical consumption under capitalism'. I'm saying that my choice going forward is to not give that company any more money or power if I can help it. And the most effective way I can do that is to not purchase anything they have their hands in.
I'm also not claiming that the other options are good either, but at this point it's becoming harder for me to ignore this crap.
I don't care about ads, I block them since 2020 and everyone should do that, period. Apple is a no go for the reason I said below
Nobody cares if you care about ads. The largest companies humanity have ever known are ADtech businesses.
You completely missed my point because of your apple hatred, literally the definition of a fanboy. I have never owned an apple product but I'm not going to deny the reality of the situation to justify my past purchases.
Fanboy of what?
Apple is not better than Google btw
Pinephone + dumb phone is a valid option though. The only thing my pinephone struggled with was calls/sms, so the dumb phone handles that.
How do they get malware, you don't even connect them to the internet
I fully believe that combination works well. I also fully believe that if you asked a random person off the street to trade in their smartphone for two devices that only have partial functionality you would get told to go F yourself. I don't think it's a 'valid' option in 2025, and I would love to know what the average person on the street would say if they actually hear you out on all the benefits. I'm a 'tech enthusiast' I guess and a long time FOSS lover. I have been daily driving Linux for over 15 years at this point. I'm not sure if I would put up with two half-phones in my pockets all day everyday, and I know my friends would laugh at the idea. I almost purchased a PinePhone on more than a few orders from the Pine store but I keep holding off for thing to become stable enough to use the phone as a phone.
Yeah I now only use the dumb phone on a day to day.
Surely it’s only “Gulf of America” from the southern tip of Florida across to the Mexican border?
🙃
HERE WeGo still has Gulf of Mexico. Use HERE WeGo instead of Google shit.
I prefer OrganicMap. Free and Open source made with the help of the community. Your suggestion is only play store and as a degoogled user I don't have access to it (Aurora store, I know but still). Not sure which one is better in terms of UI/UX but the fact It's not open source is a no go for me
Open Steet Maps also shows Gulf of Mexico. Most maps seem to get their data either from Osm, Bing or Google.
Wake up people, it's always been the Gulf of America. /s
this is only effective in the US btw, this doesn't apply outside of the US, why google has done this? Probably the appease trump, and honestly, anything that keeps trump busy that isn't overthrowing the US government is good in my books.
Australia google maps user here:
I am getting it shown as "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)".
Osmand+ still gulf of mexico... Just sayin.
I've reported an issue. Enough people do it they might do something.
Deleted.
Hmmmm what's the Alternative ?
Bing, Brave, Baidu, Naver, Yandex etc..... ?
When will Lemmy users stop talking about politics. It's getting old fast
Where are you located? I'm still seeing the correct name and I'm in the USA
Not sure if memeing or serious