Think about it, Google Maps is (I think) the biggest collection of map data and information on locations everywhere around the world, yet I don’t want an advertising company knowing that I just went to a fast food place.
YouTube is an endless trove of video content that anyone can contribute to, yet I’d much rather not give an advertiser information on every little interest that I have in video.
It’s so bad for you, but it’s so good.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but you can use Google Maps without GPS and in Incognito mode, and you can watch YouTube without being logged in and/or not saving your watch history. You’re in complete control over the info you give Google. You can fully enjoy their services without the ickyness you described.
They can fingerprint your browser and (very) probably your hardware, along with ip, location, and other leaked data, allowing them to reliably identify you whether you’re logged in or not.
At this point, it’s more of a symbolic protest.Good thing for Google that they can still track you in a number of other ways.
Oh, definitely. I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but there’s room for a middle ground between selling your soul to Google and avoiding their services like the plague.
They have some good apps, but at the same time you can’t guarantee any sort of longevity with them. I think they’re going to pull the plug on Assistant soon, because it’s been in maintenance mode for a couple of years and the service is getting really bad.
That’s my issue. Privacy aside, for a time Google was making really good free services. Then they started abandoning everything. Why did we need Allo and Duo when hangouts existed, why did they basically abandon voice for years, etc.
I can’t trust that any of their apps will exist in a year besides the main ones like Maps so why would I use them.
Right, it makes no sense. I think the goal with Allo and Duo was to provide competition to Facetime and iMessages, but they could’ve just revamped the Hangouts app. Allo shut down, and Duo has been rebranded to Google Meet. Hangouts is still around, now called Google Chat, and sits in Gmail apparently.
I actually think OpenStreetMaps have much more content. In my town Google shows roads and houses. OSM shows me everything down to fences, entrances, beach boardwalks, positions of every single trailer in our nearby tourist housing and more. This is critical when you’re a delivery guy and you need to know where the entrance to the gated facility is. I used Waze to drive, and then OSM Viewer to walk. Even when you zoom in on an empty spot in Google, OSM shows type of land, elevation, where the trees are if there are any, who is the owner of the land if it’s owned by a company. I also like that it shows what factories are called and their land border, instead of just unnamed boxes. Worked for me both in Ukraine and in Ireland.
I prefer to use OSM personally because of the significantly higher level of detail.
I use Gmaps in a private tab to plan my routes though if I need to use public transport to get somewhere
Is Open Street Maps app called OsmAnd?
Yes that’s one of the apps. There are others that I can’t think of off the top of my head at the moment.
Organic Maps is another OSM GPS app, maybe it’s the one you’re thinking of?
Organic Maps is OSM-based? I switched to it for a few months for the reasons stated above, but it really did not work out for me. Mainly because it was lacking a lot of major locations and facilities in my city, and I could never reliably ask for indications. Plus it had no info on public transportation other than the subway, which was unfortunate. I guess it was because I’m in Europe? Either way I eventually had to switch back to GMaps 😔
Yeah, it is (website). OSM relies on the community and it’s very common stuff is missing. I’ve started editing there exactly 2 weeks and added a lot of POIs on my city.
If you wanna have a headstart in contributing to OSM, you can check out their wiki or you could use a app like StreetComplete that brings some gamifying aspects by sending out quests.
OsmAnd is a viewer app, OSM themselves only have the API and a website
But I think it’s a good one
My youtube front page just shows random foxnews, joe rogan, andrew tate, prager u, copaganda, hunter biden’s laptop, china, tiktokers, all bunch of things I have no interest in. There are no republicans or nationalists in my household. Don’t know why these shit keep showing up.
Sometimes these kind of channels show up in my recommended videos. When they show up I click on “do not recommend this channel”.
Yikes… I hope you find your way out of that hole, maybe starting over may help? I know seperate channels on the same account have different recommended pages, so that might work.
I am not even logged in. I clear my entire browser every day and youtube still tries to shove propaganda. I use Firefox + uBlock Origin on Android. Seems like if you dont use an account, they just show what the average person watches, which is apparantly right wing shit.
This is disconcerting to say the least 😑
Ouch. On desktop I use YouTube in a logged out container tab - after watching a LTT and TLE video my feed usually falls in line.
There is occasionally some disturbing stuff on the homepage which is a little offputting. Funny thing is, in NewPipe on my phone I see no such content!
I use Brave browser, and am never logged in to YT (You Tube) because I’ve never even made an account with them, and when I use YT on Brave, after I’m done I wipe the browser history, and then it resets everything. So I have never run into problems with YT trying to suggest me stuff with each ‘new’ initial time I then hop back on YT through Brave browser.
I dont think the suggestions are even based on history, its just the default “trending” page. Well its not like that every day, sometimes I get random news, like submarine implosion, but often it’s just cringy shit like minecraft challenges, something something sniperwolf, reaction videos, “life hacks”, nothing meaningful, then you get bad days when its hyper political stuff.
At this point I have been ignoreing the default trending videos for many years, I only search channels I like, such as science channels, tech, gaming.
Ah, I see what you’re saying, I get the same as you on the trending page as well. With that all in mind then it’s like you stated; it’s all about whatever is trending for whatever those reasons may be.
Guess the best anyone can do at this point is ignore the suggestions like you are doing or stop using the site?
My roomie keeps getting videos and adverts about visiting Dubai/UAE/Qatar etc.
We’re both LGBTQ+ so that wouldn’t end well.
Oh no 😳
My guess is that it’s because the area we live in has a decently sized immigrant population, usually Middle East/North African.
Those countries are probably a lot more appealing to them than they are to us, but the algorithm lumps us all in in the same demographic.
That’s a nightmare. You could try starting clean and going to your Google account settings and completely wiping your view history. You might be able to do it from the YouTube site, but I’m not sure. Hopefully that’ll help a little? Edit: just saw you weren’t even logged in! In that case…no idea. Best of luck 🤞✊
It just shows up because it’s popular and they don’t reasonably know what you like.
Yes, I too covered Google’s craziness on my blog. But indeed, people respect their privacy when they are in eye to eye, while when we are in online-they don’t see the backstage bounty process, so they sign up without caring about their privacy.
Check out my detailed post on why privacy matters: https://technomagnus.vercel.app/posts/why-privacy-matters
