CLOSED: [2017-02-24 Fri 19:20] :PROPERTIES: :ID: 2017-02-24-cloud-dependencies :CREATED: [2017-02-24 Fri 18:35] :END: :LOGBOOK: - State "DONE" from "DONE" [2022-12-16 Fri 22:48] - State "DONE" from "NEXT" [2017-02-24 Fri 19:20] :END: - Updates: - See *previous versions* in the archive: search for "Archive" in the footer. - 2022-12-16: - [[id:2022-12-16-leaving-twitter][replaced Twitter by Mastodon]] - replaced ChangeDetection.com with followthatpage.com - added: reddit, followthatpage, GitLab, Syncthing, YouTube, LEO, Wikipedia As of the day of the latest update of this article, I do have following dependencies on cloud-services. I am proud that I have a rather short list of cloud services I am using. [[id:2016-11-12-cloud][You should think about your list]] as well. *** Mastodon: graz.social With 2022-12-16, [[id:2022-12-16-leaving-twitter][I quit Twitter for good]] and focused on Mastodon. I enjoy the input stream from all kinds of people around the globe. The eco-system of accounts I am following does provide a huge source of information I would hardly get otherwise. And for an average social media user, I've got many followers. The benefits of social media come with a drawback as well: some kind of [[id:2017-01-31-addicted-to-phone][addiction]]. Therefore, in 2017, [[id:2017-02-24-twitter-lent][I stopped using Twitter completely]] for a period of time. I don't think that this is any different on Mastodon for me. *Signs of Discontinuation*: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk][Twitter went sour pretty quickly]]. However, Mastodon is a decentralized and federated service. From my current point of view, it is unlikely that the whole ecosystem vanishes that fast. Maybe my current Mastodon instance faces troubles or changes its local rules. In those cases, I may switch to yet another instance. Just search for =@publicvoit@karl-voit.at= on Mastodon and you will find my Mastodon profile on whichever instance I'm at the moment. *Damage When Discontinued*: Mastodon is pretty open. I am able to download my data any time. I am able to archive them. Moving to a different instance is done within minutes. I feel much safer here than on Twitter. *Possible Alternatives*: I tested other microblogging networks such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social][GNU social]] or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identi.ca][identi.ca]]. They work fine but currently, Mastodon does seem to be a rather safe bet. [[id:2014-03-09-about][My plan is]] to switch to an alternative such as this blog if I want to leave social networks. *** reddit :PROPERTIES: :END: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reddit][Reddit]] is my current replacement for the good old [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet][Usenet]]. Although [[id:2020-06-18-avoid-web-forums][I do not recommend to put any relevant information on web forums like reddit alone]], it's one of those platforms where the users are at the moment. *Signs of Discontinuation*: None yet. *Damage When Discontinued*: A great loss because of many great contributions. Many bookmarks of mine will be dead. *Possible Alternatives*: The next web forum that gets the masses. I'd be happy to switch back to a Usenet whenever there is a crowd using it! *** NewsBlur I once used [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloglines][Bloglines]] and then [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Reader][Google Reader]] to summarize the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS][RSS]]/[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(web_standard)][Atom]] feeds I follow using [[id:apps-I-am-using][my mobile reader GrazeRSS]]. With the end of Google Reader, GrazeRSS switched over to [[http://newsblur.com/][NewsBlur]]. After a while, I switched from GrazeRSS to NewsBlur's native Android app. Because of my large number of feeds, I am a happy paying customer of NewsBlur. *Signs of Discontinuation*: Single, commercial one-person company. No sign of any end but it is inevitable. *Damage When Discontinued*: I will have to migrate my feeds to a different service. *Possible Alternatives*: I could switch to [[https://github.com/skeeto/elfeed][elfeed]] which is a [[http://cestlaz.github.io/posts/using-emacs-29%20elfeed/][promising solution for an Emacs-based workflow]]. *** followthatpage.com [[https://followthatpage.com][FollowThatPage]] is a handy cloud service that sends emails or provides an RSS feed when an arbitrary web page has changed. I prefer the RSS feed. Many web sites do not provide [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS][RSS]]/[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(web_standard)][Atom]] feeds on their own. Instead of periodically visiting a set of web pages to look for changes, this services pushes changes into [[id:apps-I-am-using][my feed aggregator]]. *Signs of Discontinuation*: So far no sign of discontinue. It's a commercial company offering a free-to-use service. Therefore, it will be discontinued some day. I tried to give them money but unfortunately, their payment options are problematic to me. *Damage When Discontinued*: I have to look for an alternative. *Possible Alternatives*: To be done. Most likely something self-hosted. *** Disqus This blog is using [[https://disqus.com/][Disqus]] for comments. *Signs of Discontinuation*: They show [[https://twitter.com/n0v0id/status/824956406763757568][signs of being not usable any more]]. So far, I did not have to change anything. *Damage When Discontinued*: I am going to lose all my comments so far. *Possible Alternatives*: To be done. Most preferable something self-hosted with a minimal technological stack (no DB, ...). As a precaution, I marked Disqus as "ephemeral" and accept comments via email. *** GitHub GitHub is the most important hosting service for source code. I do use it to host [[https://github.com/novoid/][my source code repositories]] as well. *Signs of Discontinutation*: So far there is no sign of a complete cut-off. However [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Github#Acquisition_by_Microsoft][GitHub got bought by Microsoft]] which is hardly good news in the long run. *Damage When Discontinued*: Since GitHub is using [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git][git]] which is a decentralized source code management system, no source code is lost. However, the history and current entries for issues are lost. *Possible Alternatives*: Self-hosting git services or any other public git hosting service such as GitLab.com. *** GitLab.com :PROPERTIES: :END: I started to use GitLab.com for personal projects after the acquisition of GitHub by Microsoft. I did not move projects from GitHub to GitLab yet. However, there is an option for that I need to test. *Signs of Discontinuation*: Not yet. *Damage When Discontinued*: Same as for GitHub. *Possible Alternatives*: Same as for GitHub. *** startpage.com :PROPERTIES: :END: My favorite search engine is [[https://www.startpage.com/][startpage.com]]. In contrast to Google Search, it respects and emphasizes my privacy while providing the same search result quality of Google Search. All of my browsers are configured to use startpage as the default search engine. *Signs of Discontinuation*: Nothing so far. *Damage When Discontinued*: No big damage as long as there are alternatives. *Possible Alternatives*: [[https://duckduckgo.com/][DuckDuckGo]] *** Syncthing :PROPERTIES: :END: [[https://syncthing.net/][Syncthing]] is my synchronization solution of choice. It replaced [[https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/][unison]] which I was using for decades. Syncthing works with my Android devices as well with my GNU/Linux machines. I also was using it with Windows for a couple of years. While Syncthing is free software, I rely on its free discover-ability service: data connection is end-to-end encrypted (mostly directly) between my devices. In order to locate my devices (if they are not in the same (W)LAN), I'm using the central service of Syncthing. *Signs of Discontinuation*: None yet. *Damage When Discontinued*: Mostly the transistion effort to an alternative service. Data is all mine. *Possible Alternatives*: To be done. *** YouTube :PROPERTIES: :END: Whenever I tell people that we need to plan for the day when YouTube goes offline, I mostly receive weird reactions. It seems to be the case that people can't think of YouTube being gone. Unfortunately, I'm convinced that most people will face the day when we lose this enormous library of videos. Because of YouTube's web interface and mobile app being so bad, I switched to [[https://newpipe.net/][NewPipe]] (Android) and [[https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp][yt-dlp]] (GNU/Linux; a [[https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl][youtube-dl]] fork) exclusively. *Signs of Discontinuation*: None yet. *Damage When Discontinued*: A tragedy for human kind. Not much unlike the loss of the library of Alexandra. *Possible Alternatives*: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peertube][PeerTube]], a federated open alternative which is not known and used that much. *** LEO :PROPERTIES: :END: [[https://www.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/][LEO.org]] is my current dictionary of choice whenever I need to translate between English and German. *Signs of Discontinuation*: None yet. *Damage When Discontinued*: Low. *Possible Alternatives*: Any other decent translation service or local app. *** Wikipedia :PROPERTIES: :END: I guess nobody needs an introduction to Wikipedia here. It's a very large library of collective knowledge and facts. Don't forget that all articles are written by various people with various motivations. Not everything is correct. *Signs of Discontinuation*: None yet. *Damage When Discontinued*: A tragedy although [[https://dumps.wikimedia.org/][you can download a snapshot of Wikipedia any time]]. *Possible Alternatives*: I have no idea yet.