I've always been a bit of a privacy enthousiast. Have had everything blocked that Google and by extension YouTube wants to scrape off you. This means I've also blocked my view history.

Recently YouTube started giving out a warning on the homepage that you have blocked your view history, that you can change it in your privacy settings and that it helps them serve you better content. What it also means is that your homepage is just one big popup to guilt trip you into sharing your data. The homepage won't show any suggested content anymore.

While it is in their interest to do so and since they are a company wanting to make money it is understandable. Nevertheless it seems harsh from going to see content that you might like to only seeing a big warning sign right now.

What are you experiences with this?

I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating numerous Google-bound things over to my own self-hosted alternatives. I've moved my storage, contacts, documents, and some (but sadly not all) of my calendars to home solutions, fairly easily too.

But the biggest hurdle I've been facing this whole time, the one I've been putting off the longest, is the act of figuring out how to get almost twenty years of mail archive and history on my primary account away from Google and into a space where I can access it separately. I have been steadily changing the main email on my more active external accounts to a self-hosted one, and now only seeing a shrinking handful of lesser-used services still attached to the old gmail. But that history is too precious to me, and I still find multiple occasions where I need/want to reference some communications from long ago.

I've tried searching the web for options, but so far all combinations of my queries are either really elementary "here's how to set up a new email" crap, or else aimed at moving from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. I've been thinking that the simplest approach might be just to set it up as a POP3 account in my mail client (eM Client, for the record), download it all, and then when I finally pull the plug just drag it into the local client archive, and then remove the account from the app. But I figure there have to be others who have done this, right?

This morning I was asked to find an archived email with photos of some scientific equipment. I searched "Powerlab," the name of one of the instruments, in gmail, and the email came right up. Great! But then I noticed that the word "powerlab" never appeared in the text of the email. I tried searching "ML206", an arbitrary character string from one of the photos in the email, and again, the email appeared in the search, without the search phrase highlighted in the search result, as it normally would be. I tried different phrases from jpgs in emails; not all yielded search results but some did.

I'm not happy about this. I accept some compromises to privacy when using Gmail, but sending text as an image can be a way of specifically avoiding information being harvested. All I ask for is a way to turn it off.

Can anyone replicate this? Did anyone already know about this?

YouTube limits ad blocker usage in new test
YouTube could be testing a three-strikes policy for ad blocking (Update)
So its clear now that YouTube is going to limit the usage of Ad blockers in the coming future
I use Ublock Orgin with Firefox which basically used to block all ads and on mobile device I use NewPipe

The Verge, Washington Post, CNET, Engadget reviews

RIP to my Pixel Fold: Dead after four days

Haven't had time to go through all the reviews but as it's a major new device from Google I thought there might be some interest here.

Hi all, first post so hope I do it right.

I just read the Tasker post and thought I'd post a question/request here about it.

On my old Samsung S21 I wrote a simple Tasker script that detected a change in volume on one of the sliders, eg Media, and then adjusted the others, IE System, Notification and Call, to match with a little check, ie %VOLM neq %VOLR.

It worked fine in my Samsung but goes all over the place on my new Pixel!

Has anyone else seen this or can post something that works on Pixels? Or maybe my scripts need some work!

The trigger is variable set, IE VOLM, and the actions are to set the other 3 volumes to VOLM if they are not already set to that. And I have 4 of those, one for each variable.

And advice appreciated!

To set the stage, I've always been a fan of non-nonsense reliable phones. My cellular usage started with a Nokia brick, moved on to a few Motorolo flip phones, then entered the Blackberry world as soon as data service become available in my area. With the demise of RIM, I went o a Moto X, made a misstep in to the Samsung world, then to a Pixel, a Pixel 3XL, and now a Pixel 7 Pro.

I only made the jump to the 7 Pro due to the 3XL starting to show it's age. The charging part wouldn't always connect, the battery would barely make it through the day, and the case was starting to fall apart. Of within three days of removing the case I dropped the phone, cracking the glass back....

The 7 Pro is awful to hold, without a case. I was waiting a week for the Spigen Liquid Air case to show up, and during the time I hated using the phone. The camera bulge felt awkward and sharp, the surfaces were slippery and the phone would slide around. The rounded edges of the screen would produce phantom taps, just all around a bad experience. Now that I've added the case though, it feels a whole lot better.

The user experience has been fairly good, thought not without some annoying bugs. I did the migration from my old Pixel to my new one, and while it did a reasonably job, preserving the launcher layout etc, the app installation process was strange. Google Play tried to install all the apps, but was stalled. I had to tap on each app to manually install them, they were just sitting there "Pending...", whether I was on battery or charger, WiFi or mobile. Once everything installed, and I added my accounts, it was fine, and now apps auto-update.

Notifications are acting a bit funny with Reddit is Fun, although that won't be an issue for much longer :-(. If I get notified of Mod Mail and a Message in RiF, tapping the notification message does nothing. This worked fine on the 3XL. I've also had one spontaneous reboot, and one night where the phone was plugged in, but decided not to charge. Lots of people complained about heat issues, which was a problem for me on the 3XL, but only in extreme cases. After sitting out in full sun with the 7 Pro, I'd say it is about the same, possibly a bit better regarding it's overheating. Many people also reported that the phone would feel warm/hot in their hands for the first few days as it "learned" your behavior. Never experienced that. Battery life and (lack of) heat levels have remained the same.

I currently have a setup using Google Workspace, StableBit DrivePool, and Cloud Drive.

I recently received notification from Google stating that I will no longer be permitted to exceed their allotted storage limit of 5TB. However, I am currently utilizing over 50TB of storage.

In just one month, my service with Google will be transitioned to read-only mode. Considering my familiarity with DrivePool, I am concerned about the potential for drive corruption if I continue using the service until I find a suitable alternative.

I need help to determine if my drive would be at risk of getting corrupted during this transitional period?