Which sites/programs do you boycott?

[glauxosdev]

Hi,

Which sites or programs are boycotted by you?

To start, I boycott sourceforge.net because they bundle malware with their infamous devshare. I boycott google.com, because they track your searches. I also boycott those so-called advanced 3d modelers and image editors that cost more than your whole computer.

What do you think?

Regards,
glauxosdev

[xenos]

• Windows and any other Microsoft software
• any Apple products
• I use Google only with all scripts blocked, redirect remover (which goes directly to the result website, not via Google's link), all cookies blocked and via anonymizing and encrypted proxy (JonDo).

[iansjack]

"Boycott" implies that you avoid it for reason other than whether it is good software that does the job you want, or not. There is a lot of software that I don't use (obviously more than I do use), and a lot of web sites that I never visit (obviously more than I do visit), but I would hope that I am intelligent enough not to "boycott" software (or web sites) for reasons other than utility.

When it comes to operating systems I will try anything, and I have used quite a few - my favourite was probably OS/2.

I find it amusing that you say you boycott SourceForge when only weeks ago you were going to use it as the repository for your fabled OS dev magazine.

[glauxosdev]

Hi,

I find it amusing that you say you boycott SourceForge when only weeks ago you were going to use it as the repository for your fabled OS dev magazine.

First, Sortie taught me something about SourceForge. As a result, everything was moved to GitLab. Second the magazine is not dead. I will look for material at the end of the month. So, please, don't tell me it is fabled.

Windows and any other Microsoft software

I completely agree. I thought it is too common here, so there was no reason for me to mention it.

Regards,
glauxosdev

[Roman]

Windows and any other Microsoft software

I completely agree. I thought it is too common here, so there was no reason for me to mention it.

Regards,
glauxosdev

Do you know the user mathematician? He've started a big Windows VS others debate as a pro-Windows participant some time ago, so it's not really common, there were other Windows people here.

I personally mostly boycot only Microsoft software, but the list may expand soon, as I become more aware about privacy and free software. The new list would be something like this:
* Microsoft products
* Apple products
* Google products
* Facebook
* Amazon
* any non-opensource products

And I don't think, that someone can boycot expensive software (just because it's expensive), he just can't afford it.

[sortie]

I find it amusing that you say you boycott SourceForge when only weeks ago you were going to use it as the repository for your fabled OS dev magazine.

Well, when presented with convincing arguments, you should change your point of view immediately. There is no rule that you should stay true to old beliefs for a while. Although, it would be wise to not accept my recommendations/preferences unconditionally without knowing why I have them, and opposing views. Emulating me should not be a goal onto itself.

[iansjack]

Well, when presented with convincing arguments, you should change your point of view immediately.... Emulating me should not be a goal onto itself.

Hi,

I'm not sure that you must change your views immediately. Certainly take on board new information (even if it was information that was pretty obvious in the first place) and then make up your own mind. But to then go out of your way to make a song and dance about "boycotting" your original belief is, to me, amusing.

I quite agree that emulating others should not be a goal in itself.

[Candy]

In terms of a boycott without a rational reason behind it, no, I don't do that.

I do not partake in Facebook though, due to it being a giant waste of time and a farce for social interaction. Not that I'm that good at other social interaction, but Facebook social is another level down from what I'm usually doing.

I typically don't want Apple products. So far I've found rational reasons behind every one of their products not to want it or like it, so my prejudice is that I won't want to use it for any new product. Things like having to register a credit card before you can turn on your new phone, being so different as to be unusable and so on.

Microsoft I thought I wanted to boycott, but honestly - there's no reason to blanket boycott them, just don't use the products they make that cause you trouble. I will try not to use MS office, but that's more for technical unusability than a boycott.

[iansjack]

Microsoft I thought I wanted to boycott, but honestly - there's no reason to blanket boycott them, just don't use the products they make that cause you trouble.

That's my view too. I wouldn't not use C# because it comes from Microsoft, Swift because it comes from Apple, or Go because it comes from Google. All are interesting programming languages that have something to teach us.

Office - must have something going for it for the open source community to imitate it so closely. Visual Studio - a great development environment. Keyboards and mice - I'd have no hesitation in buying Microsoft hardware.

I'm less keen on Apple products (although I do have a couple of Macs and an iPad), but that's nothing to do with ideology, I'm just not so keen on their products and I don't buy in to the "must have" ethos.

And so it goes.

[xenos]

Regarding Google products, I forgot to add Android to my boycott list. (I only have a wifi tablet, no mobile phone at all, and that tablet runs Arch Linux.) Oh, and also Facebook should be somewhere on the top places of my boycott list.

[Muazzam]

I wonder why you people hate non-opensource softare. Have you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists? What do you think about that?

[GreaseMonkey]

If you want some open-source to boycott, there's always "anything Lennart Poettering ever started".

Although I'd really only narrow it down to PulseAudio and systemd.

The former because it's a broken convoluted mess that's so complicated that it will never ever work, and you should all just be using JACK instead.
The latter because it's basically trying to EEE GNU/Linux through the init system, and also the docs are disorganised to the point where I can never remember where the unit files are or how to do anything with the damn thing. Oh, and it's also bloatware. Gimme BSD init any day.

systemd and my at-the-time unawareness of distros which don't rely on it is the very reason I am using FreeBSD right now.

(As for avahi? I just don't use it. Oddly enough, I tried using it once and it didn't work.)

[Combuster]

In a sense, all of the really big companies attempt to get you into a vendor lock-in, sometimes even spreading the term "open standard" for something only they support and would cost others many years to implement if they tried. Sometimes I even suspect Canonical for pushing new standards for little more apparent benefit than their own ego.

Visual Studio has no standards-compliant C compiler and thus rejects otherwise portable code, and similarly C# has been an decade-long portability hoax. Office costs more than the advantage it provides over its opensource counterpart, and even more specific drawing software like Visio can only follow MS-dialects of plot standards and subsequently failed half a class at UML practicals for using the wrong symbols. I play only a select few games to the point I don't need Windows - even though I have it installed. Apple, finally, is way too expensive and on top of that it does 101 things to avoid consumer protection laws which makes them probably the most ideal target to boycot for political reasons. I'll probably stick with dumb cellphones because my laptop costs as much but can do everything better except the dialling, which you can just as well do with a $20 device or some free hand-me-down - I'm happy with my indestructible industrial phone that as a side-effect doesn't run Android.


I'm still unhappily vendor locked-in with Facebook since that is the place too many people use as a blog of things I should know, as well as being the system of choice to send invitations.

[freecrac]

Hello.
I boykott Facebook too and i call it Assbook and i do not want to have an own bank account any longer, because the banks are a part of the FIAT money system.

I am one of the a freedom activist of the german "Mahnwache für den Frieden" and we meet us every monday not far from the townhall and near the pier of the alster boot ships in hamburg. Yesterday we manifest the 60th vigil and like the speakers corner we have an open microphon without any censorship, so every human can speak some minutes without any proven what she/he want to say, but it have to sound friendly as possible, without a verbal sexism, racism and a discrimination hustle. Mostly we discuss and inform the people about the crimes of our gouverments and the particular problems that comes with it.

Dirk

[embryo]

• Windows and any other Microsoft software

But you (and others) still use other corporate products, even in the area of software. So, the main principle, you are protesting against, is still intact. Or there are some Microsoft-specific problems you dislike?

• I use Google only with all scripts blocked, redirect remover (which goes directly to the result website, not via Google's link), all cookies blocked and via anonymizing and encrypted proxy (JonDo).

The Google's advertising scripts always find you. They're everywhere, there's almost no serious site without advertising and biggest part of advertising is provided by Google (with heavy usage of cookies and user actions tracking). The company, that owns the mail site that is used by me (because there are too many people with my e-mail on it) has an agreement with Google to allow it to index all mail messages for the Google to be able to show me relevant advertising on a completely unrelated web site.

In short - there is an unavoidable problem with corporations wanting to track you and to profit from you. Alternatively you can restrict your software and internet experience to some "trusted" pieces and live in a dark environment stone-age-alike (excluding osdev.org, of course ).