Why YSK: A Google account is not the same as a Gmail account, and you don't need to create a new Gmail email account to have a Google account.

I've spoken to many different people who equate a Google account to a Gmail account. This is not the case. Unfortunately, this leads to many new Gmail accounts being created, solely because they think that they need to have a Gmail in order to access other Google services.

Here's the gist:

A Google account gives you access to Google services like Sheets, Docs, Calendar, Drive, Photos, Gmail, YouTube, etc.

A Gmail account is an email service account with Google. When you create a Gmail, you also create a Google account by default.

However, the reverse is not true. If you create a Google account (with a non-Gmail email address), it does not automatically give you a Gmail account.

If you already have an email account with another provider, you can use that as your Google account.

For example: Let's say your email is [email protected]. Rather than creating [email protected], you can opt to create a Google account with [email protected] and avoid creating an account for Gmail.

Unfortunately, Google tries to get you to create a Gmail account during the process of creating a Google account. (see image).

It's important to differentiate this and prevent people from registering new Gmail accounts unnecessarily.

The Markup CEO Nabiha Syed's announcement:

I'm so thrilled to announce that CalMatters is acquiring The Markup in its entirety. The whole world is looking at California for both the innovation that comes out of Silicon Valley and the tech regulation that comes out of Sacramento. Bringing our data-driven approach to the deep CalMatters beats -- education, health, housing, AI -- is going to create change in California, the country, and the world.

Looks like it's taken some principles from GrapheneOS and other alternative ROMs.

• What're your first impressions?
• What questions/concerns do you have?
• Any other thoughts?

I'll start: KXNG Crooked - Order 66 (Musar)

If you're into lyrics, syllables, cadences, and wordplay, this song is for you.

I remember Slide for Reddit allowed you to choose who to comment as before doing so.

Does this exist for Lemmy yet?

Recently learned about the SynoCommunity packages, but I saw this comment for a package that HyperBackup might not recognize a package and thus not back it up. However, it was unclear if it was for the particular package, or if this is a shortcoming of the SynoCommunity packages—since it's a third-party thing, maybe it applies to all SynoCommunity packages.

Does anyone know if installing a package via SynoCommunity can be backed up through HyperBackup (or another way)? Thanks.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8834978

No need to remove the URL tracking parameters manually. 🥳

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/8834978

No need to remove the URL tracking parameters manually. 🥳

No need to remove the URL tracking parameters manually. 🥳

No need to remove the URL tracking parameters manually. 🥳

Why YSK: Trackers don't do good for anyone except the platform, and they're not necessary to view the content in the URL.

It's courteous to not subject the recipient (most likely your friends and family) to this tracking. You're already sending them to the platform, which is tracking them in other ways. But you can help reduce that tracking by removing everything after the ampersand in the URL. Here are some examples.

Twitter example

URL: https://x.com/CookieSlayers/status/1623712884902567937?s=20

The s=20 is a Twitter-specific parameter to show that the tweet was copied from the web app. s=46 is iOS, and I can't remember what Android's code is. This is a relatively clean link, but there are some links that'll concatenate unique identifiers, like: https://x.com/CookieSlayers/status/1623712884902567937?s=20&t=Fn47fnSDJUD74bd9.

In this case, you'll notice there's also a &t= parameter, which is a unique identifier to the person who shared it.

The only part of the URL you need is https://x.com/CookieSlayers/status/1623712884902567937.

Instagram example:

URL: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzP877du2EB/?igshid=MzRlODCFWFlZA==

The only part of the URL you need is https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzP877du2EB.

TikTok example

URL: https://www.tiktok.com/@inthepaintcrew/video/7301348328602717482?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7302915057791436331

You'll notice TikTok's is a lot more readable in terms of what the URL contains.

The is_from_webapp parameter is self-explanatory, as is the sender_device, and then there's the identifier that's unique to you. In this case, 7302915057791436331.

The only part of the URL you need is https://www.tiktok.com/@inthepaintcrew/video/7301348328602717482.

The best route^1^ would be to use privacy-respecting frontends, but if you don't, simply deleting everything after the ampersand goes a long way.

^1^The best route would actually be to not use/reward platforms that are literally destroying humanity, but we're not there yet, so... in the meantime, let's just try to decrease the tracking and stop subjecting our friends and family to it as much as possible.