It is even more irritating with Youtube. If I am logged in to any Google account it pesters me to select my Real name every time I watch a video. And every time I end up opening the video in another browser.
I 100% feel you on this! I have actually just closed out my tabs in frustration and did not watch any videos. The thing that really pissed me off was the wording, they intentionally make it really ambiguous so that you can screw up. Eeverytime i choose an option, i am just hoping that it is not to use my real name, i find that really sleazy. My youtube viewing has also decreased by about 80% because the new home page is too cluttered and the recommendations are just so off, if you make the mistake to watch a 60sec video of something silly, be prepared to get a whole lot of recommendations for that crap. This is actually the main reason why in the last two months my viewing has dropped so much, it doesn't even seem like they take into account my saved lists, favorites or watch later.
Bonus complaint: Lately I have been feeling that google just doesn't care or they have too much going on to pay attention to detail. I have been really disappointed with their social products as well as services since google checkout. I downloaded the google now app a while ago and was shocked at how it killed my battery and never used it again, yesterday I decided to test it out, a few hours later I wanted to use instagram but my power was at 3%, I smiled and just disabled the app. This disregard for winning at both the first & second moment of truth is what is killing google's ability to diversify their revenue from just search.
everytime i choose an option, i am just hoping that it is not to use my real name, i find that really sleazy.
This. So much this.
I have not yet received any email asking me to upload a photo of myself, but the constant pestering while watching Youtube, and with shady, ambiguous options happens everyday now.
The sad thing is nothing beats YT for video right now.
The last time I logged in to Youtube, it told me my channel was unnecessary as it was empty, and that I could delete it without impacting my level of service. What they didn't say was, this also deletes your playlists. And you can't create new playlists without creating a new channel, which must be created with a Google+ account.
I'm about done with Google, just starting to move my stuff off it now.
I've actually kind of fell into the habit of using two browsers. One that I keep logged in to my Google account and one that I never log in with. If I want to do something "Googley" that I want tracked, like watch YouTube videos in my subscriptions or check my G+ page, I use the Google account browser (Firefox). If I'm just browsing my various forums and random links and videos and whatever I don't want associated with my Google persona, I use the non-Google account browser (Opera).
It ends up working pretty well, though I guess it is more hassle than it needs to be.
Or you can use the same browser with multifox. Ctr-alt-M, and you're anonymous / a different person. Very iseful for web development. Chrome has a built in equivalent.
I do like having the different UIs to remind me of what "user" I'm acting as. Thanks for the tip, though. I might find that handy if I need more than two "user"s.
I take it a step further I use vmware to run a different instance of windows and go through a proxy. Paranoid? yes! but let Google track that particular me and not the real me.
Twitter is far worse. I didn't use it except for maybe two or three times a year when I want to check something someone has said and (has I have at least 5 times!) tweet someone. When I login briefly I then have several weeks of crappy emails and badgering from twitter. It is incessant. X just retweeted a message from Y! I have hit all the don't-email-me-ever buttons, but every damn time they do it. I just accept it now as don't login ever.
I signed up for a second Facebook account because of pressure at work to "like" our company page but I didn't want my main profile linked with where I work. I liked the page and never signed back in. I get constant emails from Facebook "Do you know these [5] people?". They're all people I know in real life and am friends with on my main profile (which is kind of creepy, my second profile has no friends), of course I'm not going to friend them again.
If Facebook is smart enough to know that my second account is from the same person as my first account, how are they not smart enough to know I'm not going to friend my friends twice?
For this reason I have my Google account sequestered into its own browser (Safari). I never log in from my main browser (Firefox). I do the same with Facebook, which I only visit from Chrome.
The best part about that horrible dialog is that I have to lie to it to make it go away. I'm okay with using my real name but I am NOT going to make a G+ profile to be allowed to use youtube.
Especially in the chance it starts publishing anything about my youtube usage.
As I recently discovered, having a youtube account is synonymous with having a youtube 'channel'. And if you use the 'favorites' feature of the youtube mobile apps while logged in (thinking, perhaps innocently: "how convenient to save this video I was emailed until later, when I have a larger screen available.") you may be interested to know those favorites are displayed on your publicly-accessible channel page by default.
What about making it sod off for good. If I wanted to use my real name to watch cat videos and subscribe to gaming feeds it's likely I would have bloody well done so in the first place.
In part I assume at some point google wants to start putting this on my google profile automatically. Olive watched "Kitty Corliss, grinding the crack" for the 87th time today. See what has them so hooked[linku]
I'm actually using my real name on Youtube, but written like "JohnDoe" instead of "John Doe"... Youtube still buggers me about my "real name", and I always deny just because it's such a stupid idea and all the arguments for it suck, so I'd rather be annoyed than give in. Stay strong :P
