How Do You Go About Buying Stuff Online While Avoiding Amazon?
It's been ages since I've really done some deal hunting online with how ubiquitious Amazon is I've realized I'm not up to date with the current ecosystem for finding trustworthy online storefronts. Do you have any sources/tips for finding good quality products (especially with all the AI slop that exists nowadays)?
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Aliexpress. It's the same shit.
I have a few specialty storefronts I'll go to for specific items.
I wouldn't trust any networking equipment, anything that can send data off your network back home unfortunately.
But yes, I'd say 90+% you can easily get off there. I got a Benchmade bugout knockoff recently, $150 for this tiny knife, $12 on AE. after honing and a drop of oil, beautiful useful knife. The mini griptilian is another great knockoff. Packaging came near identical to the real knife. I open boxes, not fight hand to hand, even though I'm sure it'd cut flesh just as well.
Honest question, not trying to be adversarial. Do you have any sources behind not trusting networking equipment (I've seen the claim from others apply to electronics more broadly) from AliExpress? I don't buy much from Amazon or AliExpress so I'm not directly impacted but I've seen that caveat a lot and haven't seen reasons why.
Edit: none of the responses to me are specific to AliExpress which pretty much confirms my thoughts that the caution exercised should be equally applied to any retailer.
Why not? A fucking dishwasher will spy on you nowadays, why wouldn't something that is 1 already connected to the internet and 2 already logs all of your activity?
If I get time to find it I'll post it but there was a famous study where researchers in the UK looked at a smart thermostat and figured out how many privacy disclaimers you would need to agree to to use it lawfully. It was in the hundreds. There was also those photos of kids on the toilet that were taken by an Amazon robotic vacuum cleaner that got leaked. And police getting called out to a murder in the US that was recorded by Alexa.
I don't specifically, just that everything is phoning home nowadays and stealing data, not interested in entertaining it. Even some US products have backdoors open by default, which sucks. I dont really skimp on network gear, I upgraded to ubiquiti a few years ago and am very happy and trust it.
There have been a few cases of android TVs having backdoors installed.