I don’t even use google. We are not the same
To search, no. But YouTube and Maps are hard to replace
Sometimes, sacrifices are necessary.
I gave up social media over a decade ago, and after a few weeks forgot all about it. Found other ways to fill my down time.
This past spring, dove into LineageOS, not using MicroG or anything. All FOSS or at least open source + Proton (along with SimpleLogin for aliases). No MS (besides work), no Google, no banking apps (use browser). Hell, I don’t even have a SIM in my phone. I use jmp.chat (phone #) + Snikket (XMPP sever) and Cheogram (communication app for SMS and calls). Sure, explaining that sounds excessive, but to the average person, I’ve got 99%the same functionality everyone else does.
I get no more spam calls, my battery lasts 2-4 days depending on usage, WAY less email, and I’ve not received any emails or alerts about data breaches (so far).
Lemmy isn’t social media?
I’ve tried alternatives to Maps but honestly nothing comes close.
All bank accounts I have require a phone to log in.
Lemmy is more like a large forum or series of forms. Most people are in communities because of common interest whereas social media is more like looking at people around you or whom you’re friends with. It’s also anonymous where SM is people standing on their little soap boxes subconsciously screaming, “look at me!”.
I’m not saying map replacements are phenomenal. But CoMaps is using Open Street Maps, and for my measly little area I contribute a lot of data because POI are lacking. But for most use cases, its perfectly capable.
While yes, most/all banks require a phone number to login, they can’t force you to use the app. My banks require phone numbers for the text verification. Better than nothing but still shitty MFA. So I login through the browser, not app, and I have a VoIP # for text verification codes to go to. Also, the browser UI is close enough to the mobile app it’s easy enough.
I tried CoMaps and on my first test I navigated to the airport and it says there’s no metro connection (there is metro + bus). There’s obviously no photos or reviews for anything neither.
For banks, I have 2 that only work through the app, the others I could maybe set up to use SMS instead of the app, but then I wouldn’t be able to use it when I’m traveling abroad
You can always fill your area in Comaps. The more people use and contribute the better for all.
For me Comaps is enough. Before going somewhere new If i cant find it on OSM i search it online and add itCo maps doesnt work for people in the US that aren’t new York city or Los Angeles folks.
Herewego is far better for me.
HEREWeGo was awesome for nav. That’s all I use it for, not reviews, pics, etc.
However, I no longer recommend it because Nokia sold HERE Maps to Uber and after the update it received (several years ago) it felt clunky and slower. I’m guessing adding in telemetrics and tracking stuff for their benefit was the reason, so I quit using it.
I drive an early 2010s car with navi and no telemetry/SIM so I’m happy to still use that. I paid $100 to get the update DVD-ROM for roads and POI.
Agreed, CoMaps is rough right now in US rural areas especially, however, for my county, I update POIs as I can, and download maps for offline use when I visit somewhere. Purely maps, POI info I look up or rely on referral for feedback. No Google reviews, no Yelp, nada.
For purely navigation, Herewego seems to work. But again, no photos, reviews or any info about a place. So for me, it won’t replace Google.
Assumptions:
- You dont have a lot of people to converse with. I need 5 messaging apps to talk to people becuase they all use a different (shitty) one and won’t just change to Signal.
- You dont travel much or live in the US where WiFi is rare in any area outside heavy urban.
Otherwise, that’s cool you can do that. If I did, I’d be talking to maybe 1 other IRL person who even knows wtf xmpp is.
XMPP is what WhatsApp is based on, and is heavily used outside the US.
I use Cheogram for XMPP & SMS/MMS, but because I have the “us number” through jmp.chat I can text regular people in their phones, too. Or call through the standard phone app. I use Signal and SimpleX too, but nobody I personally know uses Simplex.
I use “WiFi” but I hotspot my work phone and use a VPN with a custom set profile and no split tunnel.
Yeah in the US no one uses xmpp.
Ah that’s cool! I should see how that works.
Ohh that solution makes sense. Not all of us have a work phone.
Yeah it only made sense to piggy back on my work phone for now. I want to by a SIM from Calyx and run a hotspot officially since I’ve got the Orbic and Moxee hotspots for Rayhunter already.
Edit: my work phone has unlimited data and hotspot because I’m in IT. I really only go to work and home so I don’t use much data out and about. Now that I’m strictly F-Droid apps, too, I’ve noticed my monthly data used to be 12-15GB and now it’s around 6-8 over hotspot. So, far less background data from all the apps!
Inb4 several suggestions for both of those things that leave a lot to be desired in feature parity, but that lemmings will insist are better nonetheless.
You can change the language by going into advanced tools but it’s a bit buried because Google search fucking sucks now. The results will suck regardless of which language you choose. They show you what they want you to see, not what you are actually looking for.
And it doesn’t work half the time. I don’t know how Google decided a profile that’s been using English for thirty years suddenly really wanted to see everything in Swedish but it would NOT accept it without swapping to another server first.
My current problem with Google (and a problem that I never thought I would have wtfuck) is when I watch some YouTube videos in French the AI auto translates the goddamn audio to English. I don’t want an AI audio translation of the fucking audio and there is no way to set the default not to do that. I have to manually go into the video EVERY TIME IT DOES IT to put it back to the original sound. It’ll create new audio but I can’t get half the videos to show the in language subtitles for non-english videos. SO DUMB.
This is one of the stupidest “features” in the history of computing. It’s like google doesn’t believe in bilingual people. “If you speak English, there’s no way you could also understand French!”
Which is extra ironic since it’s all programmed by bi+lingual Indians lol.
bi+lingual
is that a type of lgbtq+?
YouTube does not autotranslate for any language which is set in your Google profile. It’s hidden as hell, but for me adding e.g. English there made all the English videos not being ai translated anymore.
If you’re watching on mobile, YouTube Morphe has the option to disable the audio translation. You can even make a dedicated button for it in the player in case it gets toggled on again. The app also blocks ads and has SponsorBlock, DeArrow, and an AI slop filter built right in.
solution: newpipe/freetube
I wonder if anyone’s made an extension to automatically disable AI auto dub?
Does the “app language” not do this for you?
You use google
I usw duckduckgo
We are not the same
You use DuckDuckGo - I use SearXNG
We are not the same
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I told it not to Aggregate DDG. Also having more than DDG is not the same as just having DDG right?
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I feel this is a meme the average sketchy VPN company would share in their social media to catch users.
Because even for that multi billion dollar company their developers still don’t understand that country isn’t equal to language preference. This has been an issue since the 90’s that still isn’t solved.
You understood it wrong. The setting is in the browser itself. Just use anything except google. Maybe one day they will see the 0.001% dip in search and change it
Some streaming services only offer translation subtitles related to the primary language of where you are.
So if I’m in Germany and want to watch a Swedish crime drama all i can get are German subs.
But if i use a vpn to say I’m in England… the English subs are magically available.
(Provided they also have the license to play the show in England).
Last I checked
hl=enfrom 20 years ago still works reliably across all products, but I can see the new slop slowly creeping up in everything, enjoy it while the slop haven’t reached that part.Click on your profile bubble. On Mobile it’s in the top right hand corner. Go to settings. Go to other settings. Language and region can be set manually.
Language and region can be set manually.
But not separately. You can’t have the interface in English while on a non English speaking region.
And you can only set one language / region. I’m interested in results in a number of languages (ordered by priority), untranslated unless I fucking ask for a translation, and from a number of possibly unrelated regions (also ordered by priority).
And my region / language isn’t an option anyway, so it’s either the wrong, English speaking, region, or the closest region but the wrong language.
The whole concept is so profoundly imperialist and ignorant it makes me sick. Whoever perpetrated it is so tragically miseducated they can’t even conceive the notion that their users might be able to understand more than one language, or be interested in more than one culture or region.
I use a plugin for that:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stay-in-my-language-google/
I download all my podcasts with the VPN on my phone set to France or Ireland. The ads are adorably useless and a pleasure to hear.
Seems like a good workaround. Why is the superior tone necessary?
You still use google?
How about https://www.google.com/preferences?lang=1 ???
