[lawdawg]

Get over it people, Google+ is the new account system for all Google products. If you don't like Google having a single account/profile system, or the fact that Google+ profiles include a "social" network product, then you best look for alternatives ASAP.

[forgottenpass]

Get over it people

It's OK to not like things.

then you best look for alternatives ASAP.

This is exactly what the author is doing.

But even when the good outweighs the bad, its totally fine to stay using a service without some obligation to pretend like the negatives don't exist or never talk about them.

[johnward]

Does ever single person have to blog about their decision though? Every other day there is some random post that someone doesn't want to use Google services for whatever reason. I don't care. Apparently HN does because a majority of them end up making the front page.

[lazyjones]

> Get over it people, Google+ is the new account system for all Google products.

Maybe Google should finally get over the fact that they've lost this fight and that noone wants to be in a social network whose member numbers are inflated by such desperate moves (which most of us have experienced now and are well aware of).

[habosa]

If you follow Google's strategy, you'll see that they really are not interested in the "stream-view war" with Facebook that everyone seems so intent on their playing. Instead, Google+ is a social backbone that connects all Google products (present and future) and gives you a single Google identity across the internet.

[darklajid]

I try to. The single thing I struggle with? Android.

Maybe Firefox OS will be interesting, iOS isn't. And .. right now I can pay for Android apps, but I'm banned from rate them, comment on them. Ignoring all the 'Do you want to be tracked to provide Better Services (tm)" stuff in that ecosystem.

[jerf]

Somewhat ironically, I had a Google account already (albeit only lightly used, losing Reader killed ~95% of the utility for me), but when I got my Android phone, it simply refused to link to it. I think perhaps because I didn't have GMail? To be honest the error messages were never that clear to me. So instead of linking in my "real" Google account, I had to create a new one. One I never browse with, one that has no services, one not linked to the greater anything. Instead of a lightly-but-really-used account now they just have an Android account floating in space, being virtually useless to them.

[sirkneeland]

You should have a look at Jolla and their Sailfish OS. Beautiful Linux system based off of MeeGo, not tied to any Google or even American servers.

Google it--wait, no. Duckduckgo it ;)

[fluidcruft]

If your phone is supported, you could install CyanogenMod (it works fine without gapps installed). From there you can use f-droid for apps, but possibly Amazon App Store could be a good alternative to the Google Play morass.

[graeme]

It gets confusing very fast. I have a personal account, and a Google Apps account. I did work with a company that gave me a google apps account for their domain. And my youtube business page has a Google+ profile.

It is very, very difficult to figure out how to not create duplicate Google+ profiles. There's no clear way to tell Google "This is a different email address that I, a person, use. You should link it to my personal profile".

[dohertyjf]

I don't think that's the point. The point is that Google isn't differentiating between a business profile and a personal profile well.

[lawdawg]

Which is a UX problem, not a "Google attempting to drive me into yet another unwanted "social" network". You don't think it's in Google's best interest that channels create Google+ Pages rather than individual Google+ profiles?

[marssaxman]

I have gotten over it, and I have already switched to alternatives, but maybe your message would go over a little better if it included some trace of sympathy.

[shmerl]

What other altenratives are there that host video in HTML5 webm? Vimeo dropped the whole effort. This is really sick that Google forces thins G+ junk on Youtube users.

[raheemm]

I moved from chrome to FF and google search to duckduckgo search after prism.

[humbledrone]

You know that DuckDuckGo is a US company, right? And thus subject to the same exact laws as a company like Google (and the same NSA snooping). It's true that they don't log your search queries, but if the NSA has access to the root CAs they can snoop on you anyway. And what do you think happens if the government subpoenas DuckDuckGo and tells them to log your traffic? They will of course do so. And they have a MUCH smaller legal budget with which to fight such government requests than, say, Google.

DuckDuckGo is a cool company, and I think they have a neat product. But if you're worried about the NSA, then you're kidding yourself if you think DDG is safer than any other search engine. Just use Tor and be done with it.