Topic: Open Standards – Ctrl blog

Should you fix errors and contribute to Google Maps for free?

2021-12-15T11:27:00Z

Google Maps isn’t a public service, but we’re all treating it as such. It’s a private for-profit enterprise, and it wants you to work for it for free. So, should you help improve Google Maps for your community? — or not?

The need for adversarial tech-interoperability legislation

2020-01-29T02:27:00Z

In the words of Cory Doctorow: “Interoperability is the act of making a new product or service work with an existing product or service”. The tech market has moved further and further away from interoperable standards in favor of vendor-lock-in or “silos” over the last decade.

ProtonMail vs Mailbox.org comparison

2019-03-05T06:58:00Z

I’ve frequently been requested to compare Mailbox.org and ProtonMail ever since I published my review of Mailbox.org. Both of these email service providers focus on customer privacy. Both offers webmail front ends with support for Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) end-to-end encryption in addition to PGP for at-rest encryption of all messages directly from the web browser.

Firefox, Security Keys, U2F, and Google Advanced Protection

2018-07-09T14:49:00Z

Advanced Protection for Google Accounts uses a legacy web technology that’s only partially supported in Firefox. Here is how you get started with physical security keys and extra protections for your Google Account in Firefox.

New Google Podcasts app: who needs data portability anyway?

2018-06-25T11:47:00Z

Google introduced a new app for podcasts this week called Google Podcasts. Unlike most other podcast apps that are built on open standards; Google focuses on “content discovery” and curation, and a complete lack of interoperability and data portability.