kiloaper

Amazing! (and works great in Firefox on Win7 as well)

"Why is he so threatening?"

I used to think Stallman was an abrasive fanatic but now I think otherwise. The reason he makes me uncomfortable is because he highlights the compromises I have made. I think this is part of the reason why some people react so negatively and emotionally to him. He vocally refuses to use non-free software and this, in my humble opinion at least, makes him a constant reminder of how many of us sacrifice security and freedom (as he defines it) for usability and ease of use.

This mirrors my experience. I was really surprised with my parents reaction to Ubuntu. They found Unity easier to understand than Windows. It has opened up a whole new world to them. Before they barely touched the PC, now they email relatives on a regular basis and have switched over the using government and banking services online. As an added bonus I now rarely get calls for unpaid tech support.

Speaking just as a normal user with no expertise in data privacy etc, the things which negatively affect my trust in a service are:

- lack of a visible monetisation plan. If I can't see how you'll make money I will assume that'll it be through selling all my data to advertisers.

- A copy/paste Privacy Policy

- Being based in the US (prejudiced maybe, but not without reason). As a European I don't want my data on US servers and subject to ever seemingly weakening data protection laws.

- Not knowing who is behind the company. If I can't see Linkedin profiles, blogs or similar for the founders I will assume it's shady and walk away.

- Responding to questions about privacy with vague meaningless canned statements that don't address the issue.

- Inability to see exactly what the company stores about me. E.g. I can't see what metrics Google has generated from my GMail account to use for targeted advertising

YaCy is a fanatic idea. I encourage people to watch the FSCONS video. Unfortunately YaCy will need a lot more momentum, developer interest and people using it to become useful imho.

I always use the FF site so I was completely unaware they have an extension for Opera and IE as well as FF and Chrome.

Same thing with Viber and other apps. Some of friends use their services and now they have my contact information and can build up a shadow profile on me. I consented to none of that. While they may deny that's their intent it doesn't change the fact they have all that data.

That's a bit of a false dichotomy isn't it? Just because he criticises this particular view doesn't mean he condones or defends the other side or their apparent 'truth stretching'. It's also derailing. 'We can't criticise this article unless we address X, Y and Z as well'.

>What you could do if you were Google and had their databases?

Try to predict election results and then try to influence them. Not exactly "Do no evil" I'll admit. Imagine what Google PR could do for politicians with access to what people are talking about, watching, browsing and chatting about in their social network. With their Ad technology they're already half way there.