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Living without GAFAM? The list of alternatives!
Living without GAFAM? The list of alternatives!Mr Globalization - May 12, 2024
GAFAM – these web behemoths – are regularly under fire from critics.
Control of the information and online advertising market, resale of personal data, economic hegemony, influence of democracy via powerful lobbies, there is no shortage of reasons to be wary of these giants. However, it is difficult to get rid of them as they are everywhere in our digital universe. However, here are some ideas for replacing them on a daily basis.
Behind the acronym GAFAM hide 5 sprawling groups working on new information and communication technologies: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. These giants, known to everyone and with crazy growth, are today the leaders in terms of market capitalization at the cost of morally dubious practices. At the heart of the scandals, between the massive intrusion into the private lives of users and the unscrupulous management of their personal data, we also find collusion with certain governments as the Wikileaks whistleblowers or Edward Snowden have demonstrated. An almost total hegemony which is not a sign of good health for our already weakened democracies.
Another vision of the Web and computing
Since the beginnings of computing, another model has been organized on the fringes of commercial and liberticidal logics thanks to the actors – or hackers – of “free software”. Generally speaking, this software can be redistributed freely (free of charge in most cases, even if it is not obligatory) and the user can have access to their source codes to customize and improve their experience and that of other users. .
Most software or services distributed under a free license are developed cooperatively by their community, thus making it possible to respond effectively to user needs and to correct a large number of bugs. Much less greedy for personal data, because they are not financed by advertising, they can prove to be good alternatives to the services offered by GAFAM and are sometimes even more efficient. VLC Media Player, for example, is one of the only consumer software programs that allows you to play, convert and download audio and video files in all existing formats.
For Richard Stallman, pioneer of the philosophy of Free, this movement wants to lay the foundations of a new society where ideas and culture are freely exchanged. That is to say, without submission to a strictly commercial logic which guides the actions of content producers. The goal is to enable everyone to flourish without hindrance, by promoting the understanding of technology and the use of computer equipment while limiting waste and obsolescence. Built on this model, the Wikipedia foundation, enriched daily by the contributions of its users, remains the best example.
Concrete alternatives to GAFAM to reclaim your computer and web browsing
As far as possible, we try to offer here some free, open-source solutions that respect the privacy of users, without claiming that they are qualitatively superior. If we cannot cover all the services offered by GAFAM in a single article, we will try to highlight alternatives to the most commonly used services.
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Massive search engine censorship: Test Mojeek
Massive search engine censorship: Test MojeekJacob's Ladder - Feb 19, 2024
Mojeek is one of the most interesting projects in the field of search engines.
And for good reason: it is one of the rare search engines compared to Google, Bing, etc.
Qwant, Ecosia, Duckduckgo… these are meta-search engines. They get their results from Bing. They are not search engines.
Mojeek builds its own search results, with its own robots that search the web.
And on top of that, the company behind it does not collect unnecessary data, does not analyze personal data, behavior, etc. and it is properly financed.
In short, a really good project (I talked about it in a little more detail here)
Obviously, due to its youth and limited means, Mojeek is not as relevant as Google. (and even more on search results in French)
Too often he doesn't find what I ask for.
That's why it's not my default search engine.
But recently, I found one strong point:
Mojeek is very good for finding small independent blogs/sites! And that even in French searches
Over the last few days, I've made a lot of little discoveries thanks to Mojeek. Discoveries that I didn't make (while I was doing the same search) on Swisscows (which uses Bing) or Qwant (which also uses Bing and a bit of its own index)
(for the curious: I did some research with the titles of books that I liked, to see if there were any blogs that talked about them)
Bing doesn't care about small independent blogs/sites!
You can't find them in the search results.
While on Mojeek, you can find them!
It's really cool. It's like discovering a part of the internet that's hidden!
Bing also tends to put results in English, whereas your search is in French (and you have configured the search engine so that it is in French)
Whereas if you set Mojeek to get you results in French, it will really get you results in French.
In fact, it gives the impression that Bing is trying to give you somewhat universal results, which could suit almost everyone, and at the same time exclude anything that is too “small” or “specific”
While Mojeek leaves room for the small and specific.
And that’s really cool!
Because that means you can discover new sites/blogs again with a search engine.
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AI: prove you're human
AI: prove you're humanDigital Dawn - August 21, 2023
The era of captchas is officially over. AIs are now better than humans at solving “prove you are human” tests
Researchers have found that robots are surprisingly good at completing CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), those annoying little puzzles designed – ironically – to verify that you are indeed a human being.
In fact, as the team of Gene Tsudik from the University of California at Irvine discovered, robots are much better and faster than us at solving these tests, a worrying sign that this already aging technology is on the verge of to disappear.
As an as-yet-unpeer-reviewed paper indicates, researchers have found that despite the evolution of CAPTCHAs in sophistication and diversity over the past two decades, techniques for circumventing CAPTCHAs have also improved considerably.
“If left unchecked, robots can carry out these nefarious actions on a large scale,” the article reads.
“We know for sure that [the tests] are very unloved. We didn't need to do a study to come to that conclusion,” Tsudik told New Scientist. "But people don't know if this effort, this colossal global effort that is invested in solving CAPTCHAs every day, every year, every month, if this effort is really worth it."
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Marc German: Services have access to all your connected devices
Marc German: Services have access to all your connected devicesThe mail from the strategists - 11 Jan 2023
Interview with Marc German, IT security specialist, on monitoring your personal devices.
Know everything to better protect yourself.
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Which browser respects your privacy the most (and the least)?
Which browser respects your privacy the most (and the least)?01 Net - 18 Oct 2022
Which web browser best protects your privacy? This is a legitimate question that the PrivacyTest site attempts to answer by running browsers through various automated tests that are then made public.
From Chrome via Edge, Firefox, Brave or even Opera, there is no shortage of web browsers. But do you know which are the most respectful of your privacy? The PrivacyTests.org site attempts to provide an objective answer to this burning question.
