#googleplusstrike

My recent decision to unplug from Google has opened my eyes to some of the shortcomings of the Google-centric Android platform, or more specifically the Android developer ecosystem. If you uninstall the Market app, you will quickly discover that you won't get updates to any of the apps you installed with it - even if you purchased those apps.

It's true that there are a number of alternatives to Google's Market for Android apps.  However, none of them has even close to the same variety of inventory as Google - not even Amazon's AppStore. Even where their inventory overlaps, they can't update your app if it was originally installed using Google's Market or some other app market.

Furthermore, Amazon's AppStore brings its own hassles with it. If you uninstall the AppStore app then all the apps you installed from Amazon will stop working. Even Google isn't that heavy-handed! You can at least still use your apps after you uninstall Google's Market - you just can't update them.

This is not a good situation for anyone other than Google, its mobile carrier partners, and Amazon. The big guys with their captive markets can get away with a lot of arbitrary or questionable (but profitable) business practices. Developers and consumers are left with a take-it-or-leave-it, you're-welcome-to-leave-if-you-don't-like-it, don't-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out kind of "freedom" of choice. That's not cool.

Android is advertised as open source software, but Android devices as sold to the consumer are open in theory only. In reality, Google has a lock on app sales and distribution, and Amazon is the "competition" that Google can point to as a counter-argument to accusations of anti-competitive business practices. I guess you could consider the mobile carriers' half-baked app stores as "competition" too. What do they all have in common? Oligopoly. Market control. Enormous informational asymmetry compared to consumers and developers.

For consumers, where is the choice? For app developers, where is the choice?

It doesn't have to be this way. Android could be set up so that an app could call home to its own developer's code repository, keep track of its own license keys and manage its own updates. This approach has been demonstrated to work very well in other Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc. This way, you could purchase an app wherever you like, and not worry about how it will be updated or how you will verify your purchase if you need to reinstall it.

Such an approach would be unlikely to harm Google or the other big players. Most people would probably continue to use Google's Market simply because it's easy to find a wide variety of apps there, and because they trust Google to remove known malware. But consumers should have a choice, and that choice shouldn't be artificially limited by a system designed to make it difficult to leave. Consumers should stay because the products and services are better - not because it's difficult to leave. The difficult-to-leave mentality gave birth to Windows Vista. Is that what you want Android to become?

Developers should not be shackled to a take-it-or-leave-it revenue model. Amazon with its "free app of the day" fiasco, and Google with its history of sometimes-arbitrary suspension of developer accounts, demonstrates the inherent problem here.

I have successfully completed my migration from Gmail to Zoho Mail - the cornerstone of my GooglePlusStrike -  and I have some observations to share. First up, a note about contacts. While Zoho has a built-in contact import from Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail, the import didn't work with my Google Apps account. I tried several times without success. I don't know what the problem is, but I solved it by manually exporting my contacts from Google as a CSV file and then uploading the file to Zoho. Unfortunately, all of my contact photos are gone now, as are all my Groups. Losing the photos is a minor annoyance, but losing Groups is a much bigger annoyance. It makes me realize yet again how under-developed contact management apps are in general, and how much we need a better way to exchange contact information. Feel free to chime in on the topic of contact management in the comments below. I'm most interested in open source solutions.

The Filter function is one of my favorite things about Gmail - it really helped me organize my messages. While Gmail allows you to export your Filters, it does so in a XML file format. Zoho can only import filters in .dat format. So, I must start all over again with Filters in Zoho mail. On the one hand, it's an inconvenience. On the other hand, it presents an opportunity to rethink my overall email usage strategy.

Gmail rather famously encourages you to archive mail rather than deleting it. Since Gmail gives you a lot of storage, it's a persuasive argument. But is it really necessary or useful to keep every message you ever send or receive? It's probably more useful to Google than it is to you. Since Google scans all Gmail for keywords, a larger data set presents an opportunity to build a more detailed AdWords profile of the Gmail user.

One of the cool things about Gmail is the way it uses Labels instead of Folders. You can attach multiple Labels to a single message. Contrast that with the alternative of placing copies of a single message in multiple folders. Labels are just more elegant.

IMAP sees Gmail Labels as Folders. Here's where things begin to get complicated. IMAP basically reverses the elegance of the Label concept, by putting a copy of the message into each Folder it creates for a Label.

Zoho can import email from external accounts, using IMAP or POP. I chose IMAP, mostly because I prefer IMAP "push" on my Android device. In retrospect, POP might have been a better choice for migration, and here's why.

Zoho uses a mixed approach of Folders and Labels. But my messages, imported by IMAP from Gmail, did not get tagged with Labels in Zoho. Instead, they went into Folders that are named with the names of the Gmail Labels that were attached to the email messages. Consequently, every Gmail message which had more than one Label attached to it, was copied into multiple folders. So if a message had three Labels, now separate copies of it are sitting in three different Folders.

This is not elegant. It is not an efficient allocation of storage. It's also not an effective way to organize conversations.

So, I have been going through each Folder, and doing some housekeeping. Creating new Filters, creating new Labels, deleting duplicate messages. I'm a fast reader, but this is a lot of work. I think that if I had chosen POP instead of IMAP, I would at least have avoided the duplication problem.

However, there is a positive side to this situation. As I review all my email messages, I am realizing just how much unnecessary junk was in there. I'm also realizing just how much of my email is near-spam quality. Newsletters, Facebook Groups, email lists. Why does it make more sense to have Gmail "smart labels" filter out this junk, than to just delete it or unsubscribe? Does it perhaps serve Google's interests to retain this stuff for keyword analysis? I certainly don't need it.

Since I'm on the topic of near-spam, sometimes called "tofu," let me digress for a moment to <RANT> talk about the unholy devil-spawned "new" Facebook Groups. Between Gmail "smart labels" and my own filters, I had set up a system in Gmail where most of the unconscionable spam-drivel of Facebook Groups was intercepted before it got to my Inbox. But enough of it still got through, to inspire me to write a post entitled Group Spam Is Facebook's MySpace Moment. Well, migrating to Zoho pulled back the curtain on this can of worms. There were THOUSANDS, yes THOUSANDS of Facebook Group messages squirreled away in my smart label folders! I could say more, but will summarize it with two words: ₣U€₭ THAT!!!!! I have permanently deleted my Facebook Profile. Failbook can suck it. </RANT> (Note: currently my Facebook Page is still up, because it hasn't been spamming me.)

So, going forward, what have I learned about email? It doesn't take much - if any - more time to click Unsubscribe than it does to create a filter for crap messages. Delete is not a bad thing, as long as you use it wisely to get rid of junk. Archive should be used for messages that actually have some value; not as a substitute for Delete. Failbook sucks even more than I had realized when I was using Gmail.

Breaking-up Is Hard to Do...

By Brent W. Hopkins

It's Day 19 of my #GooglePlusStrike against Google's arrogant attack on privacy, and I have begun deleting my Google accounts. I successfully deleted six of my @gmail.com accounts, including the one I formerly used with Google Plus, with no difficulty. If you want to export your data first, use Google Takeout to download it in a zip file. Then, you can delete your Google account. Does this mean that you will have a copy of all the data about you that Google stores? Nope! Google has a ton of data about you that it uses in its AdSense network. I'm not sure if it's possible to get AdSense tracking data or have it deleted. Please comment below if you know.

I was able to delete one of my Google Apps (for domains) accounts with no difficulty, following the instructions for canceling your Google Apps account. However, these instructions did NOT work for canceling two of my other Google Apps accounts. I have made inquiries to Google Support, and await a response.

Furthermore, I have a user account on a Google Apps for Education domain (I'm not an administrator on that one) that I was also unable to delete.

I also have two more Google Apps accounts and two more @gmail.com accounts that I'm not quite ready to delete yet. I should be ready in a couple days, though.

Here's an interesting detail about Blogger: after I deleted the associated Google account, my Blogger profile is gone but my blog is still there. Blogger was one of my very first blog hosts, but over time I tired of its perennially semi-broken functionality and I moved over to my current host, Posterous. Since Posterous allows auto-posting into Blogger, I left the old blog in place on Blogspot.com. I am not sure yet if Posterous will still be able to update Blogger at this point, but all the archive content is currently still there. If you know how to completely erase a Blogger blog after the associated Google account has been deleted, let me know in the comments below. I advise anyone who wants to pull out of Blogger to first go into Blogger Dashboard and manually delete all posts before deleting the associated Google account.

I guess it's worth mentioning that I also went through a bunch of third-party Web services and made sure to update my email address and login info before canceling my Google accounts. This is particularly important if you used Google as an authenticating account when you first created the third-party account. Personally, I stopped using third-party logins awhile ago after Facebook suspended my account for making too many friend requests... leaving me locked out until Facebook reinstated me. Third-party authentication is only worthwhile for making comments on blogs, where you don't care about having a separate login for every blog that you comment on, and where you don't mind being tracked or possibly censored by a third-party.

LastPass the cross-platform password manager, note-keeper and form-filler, proved to be extremely useful for this effort. There are other similar software/services out there, but I prefer LastPass for its ease of use and also because all data is encrypted before it leaves your computer. That means theoretically that LastPass doesn't have access to your data and cannot reveal it even under subpoena. (At least as far as I know... after all, another service that I have used, Dropbox, was recently outed for misrepresenting its security policy, so who really knows for sure.)

That's all for now. I will continue to update as my #GooglePlusStrike progresses. I will make a summary table for quick reference purposes when I complete the process. Meanwhile, if you want to unplug from Google, you should check out the Google Alternatives Wiki and the nyms - Google Alternatives wiki.

Checking-out of Google Checkout

By Brent W. Hopkins

I'm well into week two of my #GooglePlusStrike, and it's time for a brief update on my withdrawal from Google services. First off, it's a complicated process. With nearly a dozen Google accounts including several Apps for Domains accounts, I had thoroughly enmeshed my online presence with Google services. My entrenchment in Google has been happening gradually over the last several years, so backing out isn't just a matter of clicking a button or two. It's a major overhaul.

One thing I can say is that, despite some admittedly-not-exhaustive research, it is unclear to me just how much data Google ultimately retains, and for how long. The skeptic in me says: possibly all of it, indefinitely. Much like Facebook.

Since money talks with the loudest voice, I deleted all my financial information from Google Checkout. Sort of. It turns out that Google retains your financial data for recurring charges such as software subscriptions or Web domain registrations. In the case of domains purchased through Google Apps, that may get a little complicated. I had to go to the Google Apps Gmail, click Manage this domain > Domain settings > Domain names and un-check "Automatically renew my domain registration every year." Similarly, if you purchased software subscriptions through Google Checkout then you need to go into each individual transaction and figure out how to disable automatic payments. It can be a bit time-consuming to go through your transaction history in this way, especially if you test a lot of stuff like I do. It would be an improvement if you could just filter recurring charges, but I am not aware of a way to do so. I think I got through all of it, but I'm not totally sure. I guess time will tell if I missed any recurring charges, but going forward I will not be using Google Checkout for new purchases until Google changes its arrogant stance on privacy.

I have been turning off services one by one. YouTube, Calendar, Documents. I have migrated my main email account to Zoho, and am evaluating the situation in preparation for the big move: shutting down Gmail for good. Should I bother to delete the messages stored in Gmail? Do they really get deleted? This is an exercise in principle, but I'm not sure exactly how to best conduct it. Google does provide an account dashboard which can give you a general idea of the data that Google stores in your account. I applaud this feature, but find that it still leaves much to be desired in terms of easily deleting data.

In fact, I have not yet figured out how to completely delete my Google Apps accounts. When I tried to follow the instructions for canceling your Google Apps account, the link described in the article was not present. Next step will be to contact Google Support. My experience with Google Support in the past has been a mixed bag. Sometimes they have answered my questions very promptly and helpfully. Other times, weeks later or no response at all. I will update this blog to report on my findings.

It is possible that I may leave one or more Google accounts as empty placeholders. I'm not really sure it is necessary or worth the effort to completely eradicate them. As long as I don't continue to actively use them, they won't provide Google with a significant data stream (Right???). I have left derelict accounts in other services on the Web, without bothering to go back and erase them. What do you think, dear reader? Are abandoned accounts - particularly Google accounts - a privacy risk? Is it unwise not to completely delete an account if you stop using it? It's an interesting question. How many abandoned accounts does the average person leave on the Web, and what kind of information could be gleaned from them, if any?

I'm not done yet, but I'm making progress. Replace Google as default search engine. Check. Android phone de-Googled. Check. Main email, migrated. Check. Google Checkout, checked-out. A significant change in my Web habits is unfolding and on track to completion. Google is replaceable, and the alternatives to Google are actually quite good. Perhaps you should join my #GooglePlusStrike and free yourself from dependence on Google.

By Brent W. Hopkins

It's been a busy week and I although I haven't posted any updates for a few days, my mission to unplug from Google in protest of its Google Plus "real name" user name policy (see: Nymwars) continues. My efforts have focused on finding alternatives to Google Apps, both on the desktop and my Android device (HTC Droid Incredible). I'm now running vanilla CyanogenMod-7.0.2-Inc with no Google apps.

I removed the Quick Search app because it defaults to Google Search, and I removed the default Browser because it only allows the choice of Google, Bing and Yahoo search providers. Instead I'm using Firefox Beta which can be downloaded directly from Mozilla FTP servers without using Google's Market. I changed the default search engine to DuckDuckGo, a privacy-oriented search engine which works very well. I've also installed the LastPass password manager add-on and enabled Firefox Sync so my bookmarks and passwords are synced between my desktop and mobile browsers.

When Firefox for Android first came out it was barely usable, but I'm happy to say that the Beta (currently at version 7) works very well. If you want the bleeding-edge Firefox you can also try Aurora (version 8 alpha) or even nightly builds. Mozilla has made impressive progress with Firefox, and if you can live without Flash (HTML 5 is quickly replacing Flash anyway) then I highly recommend Firefox on Android.

I have found some alternatives to Google's Android Market. I'm testing OsmAnd as an open source alternative to Google Maps. OsmAnd uses OpenStreetMap and other open map providers, can download detailed maps for offline use, and features voice navigation. OsmAnd is also available from open source Android app repository FDroid.

I'm moving from a hosted Google Apps account to Zoho, which offers custom-domain hosted IMAP email and an impressive suite of office apps. My biggest concern with the transition was contacts and calendar sync with my Android device. Google Apps sync seamlessly with Android, and I would hate to give up that functionality. The good news is that you can easily import Google contacts into Zoho, then configure Zoho as an Exchange sync account on Android for Contacts and Calendar. Done. Next step will be to migrate all my email and redirect my domain to Zoho instead of Google Apps.

Very soon, my only interactions with Google will be when clients want to share Google Documents in a project. In situations like that, I will of course use whatever tools the client wishes to use. However, going forward I will be recommending Zoho over Google to anyone who asks. Zoho is really very good, and it even accepts Google, Yahoo and Facebook as login providers. I don't personally recommend the practice of third-party logins (they can lead to problems if for example your Facebook account gets suspended), but many people like the convenience.

I will continue to post updates on the progress of my #GooglePlusStrike as time permits. Please feel free to comment with suggestions for Google alternatives, preferably with a focus on greater privacy than Google offers.

By Brent W. Hopkins

It's day four of my #GooglePlusStrike. I spent most of the day out running errands, but managed to do some research here and there. On the topic of replacing Google Reader, I am now leaning toward a self-hosted option such as TinyTiny RSS, or perhaps a customized version of Drupal. This isn't as crazy as it may sound, as you can put it on a subdomain of a working Website such as this one. It's an appealing idea but will require some further exploration.

I have also spent some time researching alternatives to Google's Android Market. It's not so easy to throw this baby out with the bathwater, because although your Market-installed apps will continue to work just fine, app updates will no longer be possible.

This is pretty much a deliberate design strategy intended to keep you dependent on Google. There is no technical reason why each individual app couldn't link back to its developer's repository as most desktop Linux distributions allow. Centralized control gives Google a lot of power - both for good (remotely remove malware with a "kill switch") and bad (blacklist app developers for whatever reason. Track all your app downloads).

Well the good news is that there are several decent alternatives to Google's Market. The bad news is that they may not carry all the apps that Google's Market carries, and even if they do, they probably can't update a copy that came from Google's Market.

Lets start with the Amazon AppStore. This is the biggest alt-market, backed by one of the giants of Internet commerce. You can install the AppStore app from here. To install apps from Amazon's AppStore you will need to login or register your Amazon account and provide valid credit card information. Then you can browse, purchase and install apps. You can rest assured that Amazon won't be going away any time soon.

One cool thing about this AppStore is that you can browse it with a desktop browser, and "try before you buy" apps in an Android emulator. That's a terrific idea. It makes me wonder about the untapped potential of Web-based apps. Maybe this will be the next big step.

Amazon's AppStore has a daily free app promotion which is very popular with users. Unfortunately, it appears that Amazon has screwed developers out of all the revenue it promised to pay them for this promotion. Personally, I prefer not to do business with Amazon for this reason. Also, it was Amazon that unceremoniously booted Wikileaks off of its then-host Amazon Web Services without due process or recourse. I call that censorship, another reason not to do business with them.

Next up is an app called SlideMe App Market. You can download the app over there. There's a wide variety of paid and free apps; but you won't find everything that Google has. It's worth a look though.

Soc.io Mall is another alt-market that also offers e-books. I saw lots of familiar apps there, but also noticed that some popular apps are not available. Check it out and see what you think.

Aptoide is a client app for Android which allows you to connect to a huge number of private repositories collectively called the Bazaar. Then there's Aptoid Server. "Aptoide Server is a web server [software] that holds an Aptoide repository. An Aptoide repository is an XML file (info.xml) describing the packages available together with their properties. The XML file is generated automatically by a script that looks through a directory for suitable applications. Everyone that develops and distributes Android applications can benefit and have their own Aptoide repository."

Think of Aptoide as the Wild Wild West of Android app markets. Anyone with a Web server can create their own app repository. This is much like the freedom you have with desktop Linux. The possibilities are very exciting, but tread carefully - some repositories in the Bazaar are rumored to contain malware and warez (pirated apps). Make sure you backup your system and install a malware scanner like AVG before you go here. Don't get me wrong - I think Aptoide is brilliant, just what a democratic Android app market should be. Just be prudent and have a recovery plan in case you need it.

Open source purists will be delighted with FDroid, an app that channels a repository filled only with open source apps. It's awesome! Lots of really great free software here. This app is definitely superior to Google's Market if you want to go open source. Highly recommended.

I think Aptoide and FDroid are where it's at for Androidians with freedom on their mind. Free as in rooted and free as in custom ROMs. Free as in free software, free as in freedom of speech, free as in freedom from surveillance. Lets get it together, my fellow Androidians, and turn Google's Android Invasion into an Android Revolution!

Today is the third day of my #GooglePlusStrike over Google's stance on Web identity aka the Nymwars. I found a Thunderbird add-on called gContactSync that does a decent job of pulling contacts out of Google. However, if you have a lot of custom fields in your contacts (as I do) then you may lose some data. I plan to investigate some user scripts in Google Documents that can pull more complete Contacts data into a spreadsheet. More on this later.

I also exported my RSS subscriptions from Google Reader (Settings, Import/Export) as an XML file, then imported them into Thunderbird (right-click in Thunderbird's left Panel, select Subscribe, Import). I will be the first to admit that Thunderbird is not the best RSS reader in the world, but it will do for now. I will probably move to something Web-based like Netvibes eventually. There's a nice-looking Web-based RSS aggregator called NewsBlur that also has an Android app, but the service costs money and I'm still thinking it over.

You may notice that I also disconnected YouTube and Picasa from this Website. Blogger is still there but I will get around to killing it off when I have more time.

Let's talk about Android. Android is of course sponsored by Google, but is also open source. I already use Cyanogenmod 7 with root privilege, so I can pretty much do what I want with it. That includes uninstalling system apps - like Gmail - that normally can't be uninstalled. So today I started poking around a little bit to get an idea of just how much I can unplug from Google.

Needless to say, Android is tightly integrated with Google. I wonder if any ROM developers have done the heavy lifting on this, to make a de-Googled Android? Anyway, I uninstalled Gmail, YouTube, Google Reader, Google Docs, MyTracks, Maps, Street View, Voice Search and Browser. Other system apps will take some research.

To replace Browser, I installed Firefox Beta for Android. The main reason? Like its desktop version, you can change the default search engine. Goodbye, Google Search! As a bonus, you can sync Android bookmarks, history and more with the desktop Firefox.  

To replace the Gmail app, I am using Kaiten, an app which supports IMAP, PGP signatures and encryption.

To replace Maps and Voice Search, I installed Bing. I know that in a sense this is just trading one evil (Microsoft) for another (Google). That's OK for now, as the main point of this exercise is to unplug from Google without losing too much functionality. Bing's voice search works very well, as does its map search. Unfortunately it appears to lack public transit navigation... something I may need to remedy with another app.

I also have installed AdFree Android, an app which blocks requests from Google's AdSense network, among others.

It looks like the toughest apps to replace will be Account and Sync Settings, Contacts Sync Adapter and Market. There are alternatives, but I need to research them before I make a decision.

Still, I believe I have made some progress today. I wonder if Google will notice? How many people are unplugging from Google as I write these words? Will it be enough to change anything?