This is why we come up with aliases and lots of them, but I know what you mean. Google needs to learn they can only push so much before people start fighting back and/or leave.

Bugmenot used to work for Youtube for cases where you needed to pass the age check. But, they seem to have cracked down on that as I can't use that anymore, so I don't bother to look at those videos. It was always a bit hit or miss what they would require a log in for.

Thankfully, you can generally use Cyanogenmod or a stripped version of the OS, provided you have an unlocked phone. Unfortunately, the worst abuse tends to be by Apps or the carrier. You can avoid installing the apps, but the carrier is not something you usually have much choice about.

OTOH, it still pisses me off that Google requires you to give all or nothing permission for apps that wish to dial out. And the opt out for that is to not install the app at all. Which is ridiculous. They could easily require you to verify that you want to let the app text or call before doing so. Hopefully, they've changed that in the last year.

CM does however allow you to block a lot of that BS, although some apps force close if they aren't given all those permissions.

It's a funny world isn't it? We, the people, we, who should have all the power in decisions, we, who live with governments that promote democracies or human choices are placed in a corner with no options by corporations that would drool for every bit of our personal information.

I'm so tired of modern companies, they are abusing their rights and there needs to be laws placed against this kind of info-gathering.

I can't remember how exactly this episode went, but I'll try to reconstruct it the best I can.

I was chatting with a friend, who had gotten himself a new android phone, and he was rebuilding his contacts on it. So he went and wrote down my email, and suddenly my phone number was there as well. The conversation went like this: "That was fast. When did you enter my phone?" "...I didn't".

As I said, it might have been a little different. Maybe my email showed from my phone, or whatever. What I do know is that I was seriously freaked out. I'm getting the hell out of google.

If by a new android phone you mean that he already had one before, you are aware of the fact that contacts sync between phones ;)

I'm with the peggsta on this. Google is by far the most abusive company out there. They are still marginally more acceptable than apple in my book, hence I'm typing this on an android tablet.

That's why I use Lucky Patcher for my Android phone and tablet. You can change individual permissions for every app you have to try and reduce pointless data sharing. It's by no means a solution to the growing behemoth that is Google, but some control is better than none...

Google is an advertising company, a company that wants to sell you stuff and sell your data to other companies. If you are not the client, you are the product and nothing, NOTHING is free especially on-line. Just don't use too many of its products.

I dislike (and advise against to everyone I know) almost every Google product outside web search, because they are almost all shitty (Google Docs? go fuck yourself and your always-changing kiddy-like interface) and because Google wants to possess you anally every time you press a key on its on-line services.

Google is a lot like the NCR in Fallout New Vegas: They make you a part of them whether you want to or not.

Test.

EDIT: WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!??
Tried to post something in here three(!) times, but my posts just doesn't show up. This time it did. Are certain words marked as not-accepted on this site???

EDIT-EDIT: Bilderberg.

Well she does tend to taky anything that's popular, write some fairly opinionated hate on it, and then pass it as a review, so I'd really not place all that much merit into bloodygoodgames :-P Well not more than, say, rockpapershotgun.

We're allowed to discuss how Google is doing wrong things, but not who they're sleeping with?!

Use duckduckgo

I have a google account and a youtube account under a different name linked to it. I don't have google plus set up.

Youtube keeps asking me every once in a while to start using my google account name, and I keep telling it "no". It's annoying, but nothing I can't live with.

I use Firefox for most of my browsing, and when I use Chrome for some sites where it works better, I never sign into google, cause that's too much.