I have decided to start placing some content on blogspot. It has become clear to me that I will not make the effort to post up items on my personal web site. Blogspot has disadvantages, but it seems that distributing information via non-optimal means is better than hoarding information due to laziness and unwillingness to spend the time to do it the better way.
I want to discuss some of the disadvantages I see, and ways readers can minimize them.
The company behind blogspot, Google, is one of the original crowd-sourcing companies. Google does a lot well, both technologically, and in customer relations. I highly appreciate their Data Liberation Project. Their option to allow export of data from blogspot is one reason I chose to use their blog site. However, they also only selectively give back the benefits gained from consumers. Much of the data collected is restricted in use for the general public.
To reduce the amount of information given, I recommend opting out of tracking for advertising.
To reduce the amount of web page popularity (number of hits) info given to Google, and to save overall bandwidth, I recommend using a caching web proxy, such as Squid. I have not used Squid since about 2002. I am have not recently to set it up, because much of my personal computer web browsing is done by dial-up modem. So instead I use .
Frequently logging out of blogspot / Google services would also reduce the information given. However, I can not recommend going through the effort unless you care strongly about privacy.
I care more about textual and informational content than form. I do not know if I will ever customize the appearance of blogspot. However, others may not like the appearance of the color scheme, default or otherwise. Or perhaps some other aspect of the layout does not match your desire. Reading blogs in a RSS feed reader allows some choice in this. It focuses on the content rather than the extra added items. The online reader I use is Google Reader, mainly out of convenience. Others, both online services and installable programs, are available. I recommend installable programs when possible / not significantly more difficult. Having the program on a hard drive reduces concerns of a service disappearing, or data being used in undesirable ways. Most mail readers and web browsers have RSS reading functions built in.
Advertising concerns seem to no longer apply to blogspot, but it does to many free hosted pages. I do not see any advertising on my blogspot site, and I will not purposely put it on.
Advertising should not be supported in my opinion. I forget if saying this on blogspot violates my terms of agreement or not. If someone cares to confirm, please let me know. I feel advertising might have value, but I am not sure of that. I feel advertising as done in the current culture is taking advantage of those with weak self control or intelligence. It places temptations in front of people. It often uses sexually attractive women to attract. It slows down web browsing on the low-bandwidth dial-up connection I typically use. It wastes bandwidth on all connections, as it is not content directly related to my request.
To avoid advertising, I use Adblock Plus. I suspect pointing users to advertising blocking software violates the usage agreement terms. If so, please let me know.
Another method to reduce advertising is to browse with images turned off. To quickly toggle this setting in IceWeasel and FireFox, I use Image-Show-Hide Add-on. Disabling images does not eliminate text advertisements, but I find the most bothersome advertisements are picture based.
Having documented these items, I consider readers of blogspot content fairly warned and somewhat armed.
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