I sometimes get linked google docs links and would like to view them without visiting a google site directly.
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Afaik, no
This is not really a useful answer, but its an option —
make a scary looking autoreply; “the link you have sent is has been detected as mailware and has been blocked”. Just play dumb and ask for a PDF/some other means of file transfer.
That’s a very useful workaround
Yeah you’re right that’s not a useful answer. This question in particular was also prompted by being linked a public resource, so even if I got someone else to download it for me and send it to me as a .ods file (it was a Google Sheets link specifically), that would just be offloading who visits the google site to someone else. Ie using your friend as a proxy. Which may be fine if you just don’t want to visit the site yourself and that’s your only objection, but I am pretty easily traceable to the type of friend who would send me a google docs link, and it definitely doesn’t offer the same anonymity as a proxy like Piped which is used by a lot of people (as opposed to a proxy like my friend, a proxy which is only used by one person…)
I’m not familiar with such solutions, but I wouldn’t get your hopes high, as Google Docs is not a collection of publicly available files (like YouTube), rather files closed behind different accesses.
Based on this, depending on how a file is shared with you, you could be asked to authenticate yourself somehow. Without the deeper understanding of your situation, I can only think of one solution: downloading these files with manipulating the links, like this for example (if they are public): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9045392/getting-the-download-link-for-a-public-google-docs-file?rq=1
If they are not public, I think you still have the chance to do this, but I can’t see any steps around authenticating with Google in their own site. And then download the file.
Even when using open source alternatives the server know your IP and you don’t know what they are going to do.
I’m not aware of any Google Docs frontends. But maybe a dummy Google account using a private window with ad-blocking and tracker-blocking enabled would work?
Not a proxy, but cryptpad is a fairly good alternative.
What are you trying to achieve that wouldn’t be achieved with a VPN and a private browser session?
