Google is an advertisement driven ecosystem that relies excessively on tracking it?s users through IP based location and personally identifiable cookies. Although it claims that it’s data is anonymous; it strips off the IP address but the information can still be reconstructed to personally identify users. Google has been repeatedly hacked and repeatedly discloses information to regimes that are likely to target an individual; contrast to their unofficial motto ?do no evil?. This is not in consonance with their actions; they have been recently fined millions of dollars by FTC, USA for breaching Safari users privacy by circumventing in built browser protection.
This reviewer was dependent on Google for email, newsreader and search. His digital life was stolen, e-mail wiped clean off the contents (extending back to couple of years with no way to reclaim it) and subsequently became acutely privacy aware of digital tracking. A conscious effort was made to shift over to alternative providers and here is a chronicle of how unique choices were identified and executed. Email/newsreader have been central to Google?s efforts to profile users and it’s social forays have been dismal failure. Therefore, alternative email/ search/ RSS Reader websites are suggested. (Disclosure: This reviewer is not associated with any of the companies listed or holds any pecuniary interests.)
Although the premise of ?free? email is enticing, it comes at a huge privacy cost. This reviewer recommends Fastmail with open source mail client Thunderbird for offline access and back up of email. Fastmail offers standards compliant IMAP access in contrast to broken functionality by Gmail. Subsequently, your correspondent found it prudent to buy a custom domain. This evolved with usage of BlackBerry and over-the-air (OTA) sync with contacts, calendar and instant push email through hosted exchange solution provided by Intermedia Exchange. It has been sheer delight with them; never faced a downtime, exceptional service as any support ticket raised is usually answered in less than an hour, extensive documentation on hosted Wiki and email migration was done at no extra cost. Presently, this reviewer uses Thunderbird with DavMail on Linux Mint to interface with Hosted Exchange service and instant over the air sync with BlackBerry and Linux Mint Desktop in a matter of seconds.
Search
Internet search requires relevance and not keywords based delivery of search. Google fails where Duckduckgo (DDG) excels. A queer name for an excellent search engine as reviewers default choice, this service is privacy aware and avoids logging of data of any kind. It offers more functionality for advanced users by means of ?goodies? and bang syntaxes. The interface is clutter free and results are devoid of spam unlike Google which is riddled with it. It made it to the top 50 best list of websites in Time Magazine (2011) and has generous recommendations from Techmeme and Quora.
Feed Reader
Unknown to many, for information starved junkies XML/RSS Feeds remain the most innovative product ever on the interweb. This reviewer has a healthy disdain for newer social protocols like Twitter/Facebook which have done nothing to address critical issue of information overload. He instead remains critically dependent on robust PubSubHubbub protocol that allows instant delivery of web based content to news readers. Google Reader was the last bastion of decency in otherwise pathetic Google ecosystem till it was mauled in ?updates?.
Newsblur fits the bill completely. It is superior and open source alternative to Google Reader. Newsblur relies on ?intelligence sharing? which come from analysing the ratings and popularity of individual feed sources on individual accounts. It allows to sort out the list of user-assigned keyword tags (auto generated) and ?train? the NewsBlur recommendation engine either by importing opml list or import of data from existing user accounts. This gets better with use and this reviewer can skim the whole gamut of relevant news and interests in less than half hour by tracking up to 200 web sites every day overcoming the problem posed by information overload. Since the code is open source (under MIT license), you are free to modify the source code or host it if you so desire.
Data federation is the ultimate aim and ought to unencumbered by evil corporation oversight and control. This reviewer strongly feels that its a small price to pay for privacy but it?s worth it in the long run.
The writer is a practicing doctor with keen interest in technology
