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Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

#31

Post by tomjuggler »

I'm in favour of open source generally, but..

Android is cheaper. Google maps and calendar are the backbone of my business and work seamlessly. Maps is literally the only reason to have Google Play Services on my phone.

Google workspace still has the best spam filtering for email.

We still spend a ton of money every month on Google Ads because it works. I am worried, though, that people will stop using Google to find things - because then my time investment in learning the absolute dog poop user interface of AdWords will have been wasted.

Chrome has some features that make it a must have (like Web Serial API) but Firefox is my daily driver because of certain plugins and I'm used to it now.

YouTube works still without ads if you know how. If I was forced to endure the ads (in the middle of songs etc) I would use it a lot less!

Gemini is still not as good as chatgpt/deepseek imo

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

#32

Post by cft »

only for most trivial searches and only because I have a pixel phone that has a search bar on the home screen that I cannot remove.

The fact that I have a Pixel makes me uncomfortable on its own right, because I'm afraid to get a patronizing email from Command and Control at any moment: it has come to our attention that you are in Europe now therefore we are changing your account (my wife is European) or that I "violated" some out of wack machine learning heuristics and I will be left without a functional phone.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

#33

Post by Onawa »

sunday_serif wrote: post #28

I use google search only for the most trivial searches now. Something where I know almost precisely what information I want. I use LLMs for most info now, any slightly ambiguous query really. Often times I use the LLM to figure out what source I should find, then I just use google for retrieval When I want to “surf the web” I use kagi search (usually with small web filter) when I want to see sources written by people…

+1 for Kagi. Worth the $10/month for me to be able to block SEO crap from my searches, and adding "?" to the end of searches automatically gives you an LLM summary from the top search results. Unfortunately there are still some hallucinations, but since it links to original sources it's easy enough to double check if something doesn't pass the smell test.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

#34

Post by viraptor »

Google -> Kagi. Gmail -> Zoho. YT - yes and I'm paying for it, because I'm effectively paying for the content, not the service. (although I pay for Nebula as well) Gemini -> Claude. Chrome -> Firefox. Android - yes, still using it, because I can't stand Apple devices.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

#36

Post by qwertox »

Yes to all. Though Gemini through Google AI Studio.

Google is still a good search engine, and the info-boxes and summaries have an added value.

Gmail is solid, YouTube has good content, Chrome until uBlock Origin stops working and Android because of the personal-use apps I've developed for it, and iOS doesn't really convince me enough to migrate into the Apple ecosystem.

Re: Ask HN: Do you still use Google?

#39

Post by Evil_Saint »

fsflover wrote: post #18
31337Logic wrote: post #5

Android, yes. The rest? There are so many better alternatives, for anyone who respects themselves and their privacy.

GNU/Linux phones can be a better alternative than Android, too.

Are any of the options mature enough to be a daily driver yet? It's been a while but I was not successful with switching to the pinephone when I first got it. The librem5 was still having battery issues last time I checked as well.
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