Re: The dirty dozen Google apps

On Wed, 26 Mar 2025 15:03:23 -0000 (UTC), Jim Jackson wrote :

If you know of appreciable differences in privacy, please let me know.

 Copilot is a microsoft app that shares whatever you do with microsoft.
Is there anything else to be said.

I like that you're thinking well beyond just the obvious; that's good.
In that regard, I definitely appreciate you brought up privacy implications
with Copilot, where I agree that, while it may appear to be a dedicated
GUI, much of Copilot's interface is built using WebView technology. Hence, I agree with you that while I'm interacting with a seemingly
standalone window, it's leveraging web technologies behind the scenes.
The question for all of us is "what are the privacy implications" of that?

Which search engine would you use? I use DuckDuckGo for a bit of extra protection.

To answer your question, I generally use one or more of the search engines
in my bookmarks, including Google, DDG, Gibiru, Quant, Startpage, etc.
 <https://search.google.com/>
 <https://duckduckgo.com/>
 <https://gibiru.com/>
 <https://www.qwant.com/>
 <https://www.startpage.com/>
 <https://www.ecosia.org/>  <https://www.lukol.com/>
 etc.

So yes there is an appreciable difference.

Is there?
a. All use browsers (where Copilot is a webview browser)
b. None require a login/password account
c. All know your IP address (assuming you aren't using VPN)
etc.
What's may be different might be their privacy policies of course.
Do we know how the privacy policy of Copilot differs from, oh, say,
DuckDuckGo's privacy policy?

I'm interested - you seem to use Microsoft if your using copilot. Have you gone to the same efforts to de-microsoft windows by finding alternative apps to the Microsoft ones?

Again you ask good questions regarding privacy, where I own a Samsung
phone, Apple iPads, and Microsoft Windows HP desktops and laptops.
In *every* platform, I do NOT do what the marketing tells me to do.
a. On Android, I have no Google Account set up on the phone
   (Since it's a Samsung, there are no Samsung accounts either)
   (and I have many threads on that topic in the Android newsgroups)
b. On the iPads, I have no Apple Account set up on some iPads
   However, on other iPads, I do have the mandatory Apple account
   (and I have many threads on that topic in the Apple newsgroups)
c. On Windows, I have no Microsoft Account set up on them
   (In fact, I've been in many Win11 discussions about that issue)
So you know me well. You already knew I have no accounts whatsoever on any Windows PC
(other than the mandatory local Administrator & local user accounts).
In addition, I have zero software on any of those platforms which
*requires* an account that doesn't *need* to require that account.
One exception, of course, is an email account. For that, a login/password is required.
But there's no software on any of my platforms that has any account.
Doesn't everyone set up their systems to be as private as mine are?