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Thread: Here’s The Shocking Reality Of Completely Blocking Google From Your Life

  1. #1

    Here’s The Shocking Reality Of Completely Blocking Google From Your Life

    https://ripplesmith.com/heres-the-sh...rom-your-life/

    How deeply does Google penetrate both your internet life and your real life? Maybe you’ve been considering ditching Google search for Duck Duck Go, or trading in Google Chrome for a privacy-respecting browser like Brave? Perhaps you want to separate yourself from Gmail and Google Maps? Those are all worthwhile endeavors, but what happens when you actively block all of your devices from even pinging Google’s servers? Apparently, nothing short of nightmare fuel.

    Gizmodo’s Kashmir Hill recently accepted a monumental challenge: blocking tech giants from her everyday life due to privacy concerns and sheer curiosity. But she took the challenge to extreme lengths to demonstrate just how pervasive these companies are beyond just the apps they provide.

    How? By actively blocking all communication with Google’s 8,699,648 (!) IP addresses on every device she owned. Not merely finding alternatives for the various Google apps we all rely on, but preventing those devices from pinging a single Google server.

    The results were both calamitous and eye-opening.

    On a technical level, Hill accomplished this with the help of a Motorola engineer who designed a custom VPN (virtual private network) that restricted all of her devices — laptops, phones, smart speakers, everything — from talking to Google servers. She then opted for app alternatives like ProtonMail, Apple Maps, Yelp and Firefox and attempted to go about living a normal life with the chains of Google attached.

    Sounds reasonable, right?

    Hill used a custom VPN to block nearly 1 billion Google-owned IP addresses.

    Here are some of the unexpected consequences that unfolded:

    1. When trying to get across town for a meeting, Hill discovered that her Uber and Lyft apps were essentially useless. That’s because they rely on Google Maps.
    2. Hill was unable to stream her favorite on songs on Spotify. Yep. Spotify hosts all its music on the Google Cloud.
    3. Attempting to simply browse the web created flashbacks of the internet in the 90’s. “On Airbnb, photos won’t load,” Hill says. “New York Times articles won’t appear until the site has tried (and failed) to load Google Analytics, Google Pay, Google News, Google ads, and a Doubleclick tracker.” Many of the sites she visited were also dependent on Google Fonts. . .
    4. When trying to share video journals to her colleagues at Gizmodo, Dropbox refused to let her log in because the service uses an invisible CAPTCHA — hosted by Google — to verify that real humans are trying to access it.

    Hill discovered that after only a few hours into her experiment, her various devices had tried to ping Google servers more than 15,000 times. After one week, that number had ballooned to more than 100,000. Apparently that number paled in comparison to her “block Amazon challenge” which revealed 293,000 attempted pings to Amazon servers in one short week.

    Ultimately, Hill walked away from the experience feeling recharged because she wasn’t as reliant on her devices, but observes that the downfall of switching away from even a handful of Google apps means literally a higher cost of living. Paying for decentralized, private services like ProtonMail and other alternatives that don’t trade service fees for your personal data can add up fast.

    This was seriously a fascinating read (and there’s a terrific companion video to watch), so I encourage you to absorb it in its entirety. I’ve only skimmed the surface, and now I’m going to check in to see how she could have possibly survived blocking Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Facebook from her life simultaneously.

    ...
    Full article at link.
    1776 > 1984

    The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an
    Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.

    The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide

    Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Our central bank is not privately owned.



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  3. #2
    No mention of the performance overhead? I'd have to imagine that that's a relatively high amount of traffic to filter, for a "device".

    Gulag Chief:
    "Article 58-1a, twenty five years... What did you get it for?"
    Gulag Prisoner: "For nothing at all."
    Gulag Chief: "You're lying... The sentence for nothing at all is 10 years"



  4. #3
    TL;DR: the internet does not function without Google being involved.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
    "Beware the Military-Industrial-Financial-Pharma-Corporate-Internet-Media-Government Complex." - B4L update of General Dwight D. Eisenhower
    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  5. #4
    Here are some of the unexpected consequences that unfolded:

    When trying to get across town for a meeting, Hill discovered that her Uber and Lyft apps were essentially useless. That’s because they rely on Google Maps.
    Hill was unable to stream her favorite on songs on Spotify. Yep. Spotify hosts all its music on the Google Cloud.
    Attempting to simply browse the web created flashbacks of the internet in the 90’s. “On Airbnb, photos won’t load,” Hill says. “New York Times articles won’t appear until the site has tried (and failed) to load Google Analytics, Google Pay, Google News, Google ads, and a Doubleclick tracker.” Many of the sites she visited were also dependent on Google Fonts. . .
    When trying to share video journals to her colleagues at Gizmodo, Dropbox refused to let her log in because the service uses an invisible CAPTCHA — hosted by Google — to verify that real humans are trying to access it.
    I use none of that $#@!.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11

  6. #5
    He forgot to block IPv6.

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    I use none of that $#@!.
    Me either, and could give two $#@!s less if I never ever use a google service. Google is destroying society by replacing how we interact with each other.
    1776 > 1984

    The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an
    Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.

    The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide

    Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Our central bank is not privately owned.

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by DamianTV View Post
    Me either, and could give two $#@!s less if I never ever use a google service. Google is destroying society by replacing how we interact with each other.
    They just want to know you a little better and serve you relevant ads. Not creepy at all.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    They just want to know you a little better and serve you relevant ads. Not creepy at all.
    Putting me inside a bubble then telling me no Mom & Pop shops exist because they didnt pay google $#@! tons of money to get listed on google only search results, nah, nothing wrong with seeing every Mom & Pop shop go out of business!

    (agreeing with you...)
    1776 > 1984

    The FAILURE of the United States Government to operate and maintain an
    Honest Money System , which frees the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, is the single largest contributing factor to the World's current Economic Crisis.

    The Elimination of Privacy is the Architecture of Genocide

    Belief, Money, and Violence are the three ways all people are controlled

    Quote Originally Posted by Zippyjuan View Post
    Our central bank is not privately owned.



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  11. #9
    For your web browsing, you can do a similar thing with Firefox + NoScript (denying Google Analytics, Google ads, Doubleclick etc) without having to block 1 billion IP addresses in a specially configured VPN. I get why they did it for the experiment, but this works easily enough for Joe Sixpack. I've been doing this for years.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    I use none of that $#@!.
    yeah, sounds like the person wasn't willing to seek out alternatives if it was tough. The only thing I use of googles is youtube on sometimes. And I've had analytics blocked for years, if an article won't load cuz analytics is blocked, I go elsewhere.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    They just want to know you a little better and serve you relevant ads. Not creepy at all.

    Quote Originally Posted by DamianTV View Post
    Putting me inside a bubble then telling me no Mom & Pop shops exist because they didnt pay google $#@! tons of money to get listed on google only search results, nah, nothing wrong with seeing every Mom & Pop shop go out of business!

    (agreeing with you...)
    I am going through an ordeal with ICANN.org right now. Their own website including ICANN "who is" domain search data form fields and all will not fully function without direct google tracking scripts and API's turned on. If there is any organization that should be completely independent of ANY third party services and dependencies it would be ICANN. I asked them if Google owns them and now we are in an email exchange. Let's see what their reasoning is for needing these dependencies when it is very simple to build a completely independent stand alone site needing absolutely no third party connections or dependencies. This is ICANN, they are the record holders and and controllers of the WWW. They have no need at all to use Google for any reason let alone make their site so that it will not fully function without Google dependencies. It is a conflict of interest involving a third party private for profit corporation data mining and I called foul.
    Last edited by ATruepatriot; 04-12-2019 at 08:18 AM.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    I use none of that $#@!.
    You don't ever try to do anything on a website that makes you click on one of those captcha things?

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Superfluous Man View Post
    You don't ever try to do anything on a website that makes you click on one of those captcha things?
    A very secure Captcha script can be implemented in house in your own webscript without needing Google's third party Captcha API services.
    Last edited by ATruepatriot; 04-12-2019 at 08:28 AM.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by ATruepatriot View Post
    A very secure Captcha script can be implemented in house in your own webscript without needing Google's third party Captcha API services.
    right, but that's not his point. his point is if a website uses googles captcha $#@!, then you aren't going to be able to effectively use their website.

    I always ask my customers that want to use googles "free" services. "Are you sure? We can do that; but keep in mind you are giving them information on YOUR customers, that they can then sell to your competitors."
    Last edited by specsaregood; 04-12-2019 at 08:35 AM.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    right, but that's not his point. his point is if a website uses googles captcha $#@!, then you aren't going to be able to effectively use their website.
    If he's like me... I move on and don't use the site then. The only time I will do it is if it is an absolute necessity. And if there is a phone number I call that before I use the Google captcha.

  18. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by ATruepatriot View Post
    A very secure Captcha script can be implemented in house in your own webscript without needing Google's third party Captcha API services.
    Yeah, but that's up to the host of that website to do. I as a user of the website have not control over that except just to do what the OP said and restrict myself from being able to use those sites, and not finding out about that limitation until I try to use them and discover I can't. That's not to say that doing that would be as extreme of a measure as the OP implies. At worst it would leave me to live my life pretty much the same way I did a decade ago with less dependence on the web, which may be a good thing. But the message of the OP still stands for me, which is that my web use on sites that I think have nothing to do with Google actually involves Google more than I think unless I take special measures.



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  20. #17
    .
    Quote Originally Posted by specsaregood View Post
    I always ask my customers that want to use googles "free" services. "Are you sure? We can do that; but keep in mind you are giving them information on YOUR customers, that they can then sell to your competitors."
    Absolutely... Just build them an in house captcha+Q&A captcha+ a honey pot added. No bot's will get through it period.

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Superfluous Man View Post
    Yeah, but that's up to the host of that website to do. I as a user of the website have not control over that except just to do what the OP said and restrict myself from being able to use those sites, and not finding out about that limitation until I try to use them and discover I can't. That's not to say that doing that would be as extreme of a measure as the OP implies. At worst it would leave me to live my life pretty much the same way I did a decade ago with less dependence on the web, which may be a good thing. But the message of the OP still stands for me, which is that my web use on sites that I think have nothing to do with Google actually involves Google more than I think unless I take special measures.
    Thing is... What I find is that for every site that has a Google captcha implemented there are 9 competitors who do not. A competitor gets my business instead and I always share why to the competitor so that they do not follow suit in the future. If more boycotted this way, this Google tracking crap would end.



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