Goodbye Google - Free Online Translator Needed

[thokling]

Heh. After advocating against Google, I'm going to have to admit that I'm guilty of using its email and blogging services. No real shocker - I had the former for ages, and the latter out of convenience.

I logged in via my email client (POP3) to get my email, and found that my Gmail account had been shut down due to "suspicious activity". I have to either hand over a phone number for Google's database (a massive inconvenience and security issue for me), or find some obscure information about when I created my account, which I obviously don't have. My blog's been deleted, but I still have most of the posts (none of the drafts) from backups. Two saving graces.

Let this be a lesson for you Google users: always back up your stuff in case Google comes for you! It didn't even prompt for security information I set up. Sucks learning this the hard way, but I hope this is of some value to others.

I've been using an alternate search engine already, and I'm hunting for a simple PHP blogging utility (which I may just write on my own). The only real downside to this, aside from having to transfer my accounts from my Gmail address to one of my domains, is finding a free, online translator to replace Google's (which was pretty good).

http://webtranslation.paralink.com/, aside from requiring scripting enabled for paralink.com and displaying Facebook-style ads, seems to be decent for translating. It's got a wide variety of language support, too, for the odd time I need the service.

Do any users have any recommendations as to what free (and preferably ad-free) online translation services they've found of use? I searched the forums here, but 74 pages of results appeared, and none on the first page really addressed my question. <smirk>.

Thanks in advance! Maybe we can get a good list happening if there are enough out there upon which to whet our whistlers.

[h3rm35]

you could always just set up another google acct... as much as I hate them and refuse to give them any actual personal information, I do use their email for certain purposes as well as their maps. I flat out refuse to use their search or voice/messaging options, along with all the other toys they try to foist on you. my gmail accts occasionally prompt for me to give them my phone number but there´s no way in hell that´s ever going to happen. As far as translators, sorry, got no help for you on that one.

[thokling]

Nah, it's not worth signing up to a bunch of services with the account only to have it deactivated again. I don't need Google. I do agree about the maps, though - it's the only thing from Google I'll enable scripting for.

Damn their diversity!

Thanks for the response, though, h3rm35. I totally get how convenient and useful Gmail is. But I'm about to renew one of my domains for a couple of years, and I'll just use an email address on that one to avoid any hassles. (I do have to switch email servers since the host I'm using doesn't seem to want to fix its own. I already have a good one for my other domain, though, so I'm using it for the one I'll renew.)