Yesterday, Quora announced that 100 million user accounts were compromised, including private activity like downvotes and direct messages, by a “malicious third party.”
Data breaches are a frustrating part of the lifecycle of every online service — as they grow in popularity, they become a bigger and bigger target. Nearly every major online service has had a security breach: Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, Tumblr, Uber, Evernote, eBay, Adobe, Target, Twitter, and Sony all extensively leaked user data in the last few years.
Security breaches like these are a strong argument for using a password manager, but not a compelling reason to avoid a service you love, unless you plan to quit the internet entirely.
But this does seem like a good time to remind you of all the other reasons why you should never, ever use Quora.
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Short summary of why you shouldn’t use Quora (even ignoring the recent security scare), for those who can’t be bothered clicking-through:
- They claim to want to share knowledge, but they hoard and restrict access to knowledge
- They’re actively hostile to the free exchange of data, both technically and politically
- They directly oppose the archiving and backup of the knowledge they hoard
- They won’t last (even remotely) forever
Just don’t use Quora.
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