Notices by Rafael Bonifaz (rbonifaz@mastodon.social), page 31

I was wrong about Google and Facebook: there’s nothing wrong with them (so say we all)

https://ar.al/2019/01/11/i-was-wrong-about-google-and-facebook-theres-nothing-wrong-with-them-so-say-we-all/

It’s always difficult admitting you’re wrong. But sometimes you have to in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. So, today, I admit that I was wrong about Google, Facebook, & surveillance capitalism in general being toxic for our human rights and democracy … it simply cannot be true given how they are endorsed by some of the most well-respected organisations in the world.

Whoever made this is a genius.

"Yalp Store lets you download apps directly from Google Play Store as apk files. It can search for updates of installed apps and lets you search for other apps. Yalp saves downloaded apks to your default download folder."

Yalp is available from F-Droid.

You can use the Play Store without a Google account but you cannot download paid apps. Yalp also handles the updates too.

#fuckgoogle

You have a limited amount of time in this world. You decide whether to spend it being “neutral” (legitimising trillion-dollar surveillance capitalists) or working with those of us trying to raise awareness about their abuses so we can actually regulate them and get funding for ethical alternatives that don’t rely on them. If you’re doing the former don’t you dare criticise those doing the latter. We’re not the ones punching down and we don’t owe you an explanation for doing the right thing.

https://twitter.com/TheHackersNews/status/1083283501061980160
“Google Public DNS Service (8.8.8.8) Now Supports DNS-over-TLS #Security Feature […] It not just helps in hiding your web-browsing history from ISPs and eavesdroppers, but also prevents DNS spoofing attacks.”

Am I the only paranoid guy who thinks that if I'm asking Google for a domain name, I'm effectively telling Google I'm accessing said domain?

ping @aral