h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's sorted itself out. But it mustn't be very stable if that's what happens.

Do you use iGoogle or just googlemail?

I got the blank screen but just hit reload and it was fine.
Am in Opera 10.10

no probs logging back in either.

I updated to Opera 10.50 today. It's fast enough that I can access h2g2. It lost all my bookmarks, notes and preferences from 10.10, though.

Thanks again, Rockhound. Those linked articles were very informative.

Yep, Buzz does NOT look like a good alternative to Facebook and, privacy-wise may even be worse (although FB does still have a serious problem concerning how the quizes your friends use have access to all your info).

I'm going dive into their profile settings and see what I can find.

Hopefully I'm fine. I don't have a mobile phone, I don't have a nectar card, I don't have a twitter or facebook account. So I'm not sure they'll think I'm the sort of BUZZ type they're wanting

I did have some google map thing set up, but that has now disappeared


I think I'll just stick with h2g2

Seems my concerns proved to be well founded. I've turned it off via the button at the foot of the page as well. It'll be interesting to know whether turning it off actually stops folks following you. I'll give it a couple of days then turn it back on and see if it shows anyone as following.
I think google have dropped a real clanger with this, if folk lose trust this early in a new 'product' it usually signals the death knell fairly quickly. Can't believe how badly thought out this really is. Not the first time google have had issues with privacy matters.

I've switched it off at the bottom of the page, but I can't find out how to alter any privacy settings. I can find them for practically everything else, but not Buzz. Can anyone explain which buttons to press for me?

Hi Vip, if you mean settings for Buzz you'll need to turn it back on and click on the icon. This will then show a listing of connected networks and number of folk following, (if any). You can click the edit button then and disconnect/remove the network. Then turn Buzz off again at the bottom once you've saved changes.

Hum. I don't get an edit button. I'm just going to switch it off for now and ignore it for a bit. If I click on anything the screen just goes grey and then crashes, so something obviously up with it.

I'll try to follow your instructions in a bit. Thanks.

Well the bad news is just turning it off via that button doesn't stop you being followed. While I was checking the info I gave above about settings I turned Buzz back on to discover I'm being followed even disconnected from all networks. Fortunately the person following is a hootoo friend so no issues there. The question is now, how to stop it.

I got the links from one of the trusted techy types at work (he's always dabbling in the latest thing)and thought it was worth sharing

I think it stinks it when FB, google et al assume broadcasting your details/preferences/associates etc should be the default.

I tried accessing the privacy settings in Buzz before I turned it off but couldn't really find anything that gave me the confidence that I'd actually made myself invisible again, and then it wouldn't let me save the changes I had made unless I went through the whole set up process which I didn't want to do.

BMT, how can we tell what is visible and what's not, to other people?

Here's a how-to for hiding your contacts. http://lifehacker.com/5469388/stop-google-buzz-from-showing-the-world-your-contacts


There doesn't seem to be many options for what is visible/private yet, or if there are, they're hiding.

Hi Kea, that depends on what you've got in the way of a personal profile on google. All I've got in mine is a photograph and my name.

http://www.google.com/buzz/help/intl/en-GB/privacy.html

The above link is the privacy policy related to Buzz and what is required etc to use it.

thanks for the link - I'll read it tomorrow when my brain can take all that small print in.

This is all very confusing. from the link it looks as if you're safe if you don't have a public profile - yet you can have followers which you then have to block.

I'm going to spend some time looking into it tomorrow, I'm off now as have an early start in the morrow. I'll post any feedback tomorrow afternoon.

I've had a look at a number of my gmail accounts, including the most active, and they all say that I have no followers and am not following anyone. I assume this is because I don't have a profile, so Buzz hasn't raided my contacts list yet.

what's all this following stuff? Can't see it on mine.
Mind you mine also says I haven't created a public profile (which I haven't) so I think I'm in the clear.

I don't have a public profile. I had one follower, so I blocked him. There's also a line which says

Your Google Reader shared items, Picasa Web public albums, and Google Chat status messages will automatically appear as posts in Buzz. To edit your connected sites or change privacy settings, *view connected sites*.

I clicked the *view connected sites* link and it showed that Google Reader and Picasa Web were already sharing my public albums. There was a *edit privacy settings* next to each, so I clicked that and had the option to delete these sharing options, which I have now done.

So now hopefully no-one can see any of my stuff...

How can I check that it's worked?

RF