<story><title>Alternatives to Google Products</title><url>https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cosmojg</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not that &amp;quot;privacy-focused&amp;quot; tends to be conflated with FLOSS. Rather, it&amp;#x27;s nearly impossible to guarantee privacy in proprietary software. The transparency of FLOSS makes it trustless. Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code.&lt;p&gt;This is why, when it comes to privacy, Apple isn&amp;#x27;t worth consideration. All we have is their word, and that simply isn&amp;#x27;t enough.</text></item><item><author>nemothekid</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy alternatives like Apple.&lt;p&gt;For example, the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me (which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I&amp;#x27;m not a fan of hooktube either - it just further cements YouTube&amp;#x27;s monopoly.&lt;p&gt;I think what what bothers me is that &amp;quot;privacy focused&amp;quot; tends to be conflated with FOSS. I&amp;#x27;m really thankful for organizations like Mozilla and Signal that are trying to deliver privacy focused applications to real people. However I also think we should recognize Apple-like companies who are also privacy focused without necessarily being FOSS. I think that will help move more non-technical people out of central databases.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bartread</author><text>&amp;gt; Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code.&lt;p&gt;I find this to be an extremely un-compelling position. A relatively small proportion of the general population has the skills to meaningfully look at the code, never mind the time. Moreover, even for someone who is capable, such an exercise quickly becomes non-trivial on an unfamiliar codebase for an app of any complexity.&lt;p&gt;In many cases there&amp;#x27;s also no guarantee that the code you&amp;#x27;re reading is the code that&amp;#x27;s running.</text></comment>
<story><title>Alternatives to Google Products</title><url>https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cosmojg</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not that &amp;quot;privacy-focused&amp;quot; tends to be conflated with FLOSS. Rather, it&amp;#x27;s nearly impossible to guarantee privacy in proprietary software. The transparency of FLOSS makes it trustless. Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the code.&lt;p&gt;This is why, when it comes to privacy, Apple isn&amp;#x27;t worth consideration. All we have is their word, and that simply isn&amp;#x27;t enough.</text></item><item><author>nemothekid</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy alternatives like Apple.&lt;p&gt;For example, the &amp;quot;best&amp;quot; calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me (which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I&amp;#x27;m not a fan of hooktube either - it just further cements YouTube&amp;#x27;s monopoly.&lt;p&gt;I think what what bothers me is that &amp;quot;privacy focused&amp;quot; tends to be conflated with FOSS. I&amp;#x27;m really thankful for organizations like Mozilla and Signal that are trying to deliver privacy focused applications to real people. However I also think we should recognize Apple-like companies who are also privacy focused without necessarily being FOSS. I think that will help move more non-technical people out of central databases.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>auslander</author><text>Apple makes its money from expensive hardware. And respecting your privacy and security helps selling it a &lt;i&gt;lot&lt;/i&gt;. And they earned trust by being serious about it for a long time.</text></comment>