this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Google Removes ‘Pirate’ URLs from Users’ Privately Saved Links::undefined

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[–] sebinspace 248 points 10 months ago

Man, they really want you to use Firefox

[–] Throwaway4669332255 146 points 10 months ago (6 children)

I can't imagine depending on Google to store anything. They shouldn't be able to even see what links you save.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver 66 points 10 months ago

Yeah, this is incredibly intrusive

[–] Dicska 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (12 children)

As someone who just converted from Chrome to Firefox 1-2 months ago: what alternative can you recommend to Google Drive? I wouldn't miss everything from it, but being able to easily share data (so that they can play videos, audio files or documents without having to manually download them) is one of them.

EDIT: and maybe Google Photos. Mainly for syncing.

[–] cybersandwich 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Nextcloud has most, if not all, of the features of drive in my experience.

(Don't everyone hit me) the snap version of nextcloud is dead simple to stand up. But if you are adamantly opposed to snap, the docker version is semi-easy to get going. Or you could just spin up a linode instance with it on there for like $5/mo.

This is all a self-hosted/self-responsible option though. So back it up etc.

[–] Dicska 6 points 10 months ago

Thanks for the idea. I'm mainly looking for storage that I could access even if I blow up my house.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

For storage, for free options I'd recommend filen.io, which gives you 10GB free. If you're open to other paid options, proton drive and infomaniak drive seem alright.

Just skimming the alternativeto entries for google photos, the open source alternatives to Google photos look like they tend to be either paid or self hosted. Stingle Photos has a free 1GB tier you could try out. Otherwise, paid options include Stingle, ente, and seafile, and self hosted options include immich and Nextcloud (which is also a drive alternative).

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[–] [email protected] 119 points 10 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And stop using chromium browsers too!

No point in ditching chrome just to use chrome with a different coat of paint.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yep! A few months ago I moved from Brave to Firefox since Brave can’t be trusted

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[–] Hildegarde 64 points 10 months ago (2 children)

This feels like a corporation complying with their obligations under the DMCA.

To maintain their safe harbor status, companies have to remove allegedly infringing content in response to a properly filed takedown notice. This does include links stored in google's search results. This is what a company like google has to do when storing user data on servers in any country that signed the WIPO Copyright Treaty.

They don't seem to be doing this in a malicious way. They have done their duty and removed the offending links from their service. But they quite kindly chose to notify the user by email, including the exact URL that was removed. The user can store that link elsewhere.

It would have been far easier to remove the link silently.

[–] RubberColby 23 points 10 months ago

See, this is why I like reading comments. Cooler heads prevail. Thank you for the context.

[–] Grimy 18 points 10 months ago (8 children)

They shouldnt be reading and playing with things privately stored. Are they going to go through all my documents to replace any swear words? It's completely inexcusable. Private doesn't mean private until some big company asks about it wtf.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It's not on bookmarks. Is on collections(a different thing) that are public, shareable and technically hosted by Google. This whole thing has been overblown by not fact checking.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (6 children)

What do you mean by privately stored if you're saving it in some google application?

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And yet, I can still google torrent sites

[–] HessiaNerd 10 points 10 months ago

Google search really has gone downhill. I'm using fence on my phone and it defaults to duckduckgo. Gotta say, it's just as good, occasionally a little better.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Don't rely on online service to save your stuff.

Edit: how can i exclude < and > from being interpreted?

[–] betterdeadthanreddit 10 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Usually a backslash (the one under the backspace key, not the one that shares a key with ”?") before a character that would usually be treated as a formatting instruction will stop it from being interpreted as such. Could be different for other machine-interpreted languages but when used this way, the backslash is called an "escape character".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The \ key. And you might ask how I wrote that symbol without it gettting interpreted. Well, by writing \\.

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[–] NeoNachtwaechter 45 points 10 months ago

What excuse are they using if it turns out that the takedown request was false?

Would they undelete the private user's lists?

Would they reimburse anybody for the damage?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Maybe it will make people see Google for what they are. So many are stuck in some kind of illusion.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They're an advertising company that tries to collect information about targets through products those targets use. That's it

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Honestly, the only useful Google service these days is gmail. And that’s only because I don’t want to deal with changing providers after 15 years.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I don't use this (Google Saved?) and I'm unfamiliar with it, is it similar to Pocket?

Is it this: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/9217379

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's wierd. 4 Days ago I got an email saying they removed a link from my saved websites. Only the link, in the email, was of a reddit post from 8 years ago on how to plug in speakers into a Motherboard I used to have??? How is that piracy? Its on the buildapc subreddit.

[–] BrownianMotion 23 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You should be asking how the fuck do these cunts still have a reputation that you are supporting?

Googles new, but not announced motto is, "We are the evil".

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[–] tym 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think the word private in "privately saved" should be in quotes, clearly.

Remember kids - firefox was built off the netscape navigator kernel. A download for FF is a vote for the right side of antitrust history (and therefore future)

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[–] nutsack 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

it also removed all of my saved places from google maps. thanks i like it

[–] Audbol 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I don't think that's related

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

They had the pirate chests locations.

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[–] Aggravationstation 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh boy, I'm feeling ultra smug now. Been using a Keepass database synced via Syncthing for about 3 years now

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I use it too...but I like to spell it KeepAss.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (6 children)

kinda makes sense. it's like if a youtube video or soundcloud track gets DCMA'd then they're going to remove the link.

if it was you actual browser bookmark i would understand the outrage.

im still on FF tho

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[–] asunaspersonalasst 7 points 10 months ago
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