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In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

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Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#21
post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

There's a variety of “de-googlifying” services provided by https://www.framasoft.org you might be interested in

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#22
The death of reader wasn't as bad as this for me. Soon after reader died, alternatives popped up left and right, and some of them are better than reader ever was.

What alternative is there to gmail/inbox? Unlike an RSS reader, I think it's much more difficult to make an email service that's close to being as good as gmail/inbox while having the same level of features, especially across platforms.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#23
Just a side note but if you dig around, you'll realize that a lot of Googlers left the Inbox team around 2016.

There isn't much competition to email. It's likely that other products were prioritized (like ARCore) due to competition from Apple, etc.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting google is using their analytics data naively? With all due respect, these large tech corporations are ran by adults who understand user experience.

Then explain Material Design? When I have to hunt around and try to figure out what an icon actually means, that isn’t demonstrating an understanding of UX. Google UX is “great” if you already know how to use it. Apple UX by comparison is friendly even to complete rookies. The only Google UX I actually like is their search page.

The latest UI changes(all the rounded corners and soft shadows, for example) in Chrome and elsewhere seem to show that they're even moving away from Material Design too,after years of hyping it

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#25
post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

I use Fastmail (paid) for email with my domain name.

It's alright, the app works well enough on iOS. No complaints so far really.

Then DuckDuckGo for search. You can use !g to switch to google search but I rarely do anymore.

Then Weblock and uBlock origin as ad blockers for phone and desktop respectively to prevent some data harvesting.

And I only browse in incognito, I just log in everytime I need to use something.

Then Apple Maps to replace maps.

I do still have a gmail account so no quite totally off google. And Apple Maps has gotten a lot better over time but is undeniably the worse product of the two.

But it works well enough.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#26
I use Inbox for all my mail. I'm fine with Inbox being EOL'ed because the migration is effortless and only relatively minor features remain in limbo.

My least favorite thing about Inbox was the low-density UI. I want side-bars. I want to be able to have a high-density list view. Inbox never integrated my hangouts transcripts. I'm fine with going back to a much-evolved GMail.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#27
post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

Fastmail and DuckDuckGo is what I use. I've been meaning to install LineageOS on my phone, too. Anyone have suggestions of alternatives for YouTube? Would be cool to see a list of software and services organized by the Google product they're alternatives of.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#28

The new look Gmail has performed very poorly for me. Hanging for extended periods while changing views, and during search. I'm not sure why a UI refresh would have such an effect but I've been avoiding switching because of this

I think it's complete crap, that's my diplomatic opinion of it (NSFW to post what I really think of vindictive, incompetent, user hostile garbage like this). Slow, high CPU usage, laptop gets hot and fans go to full while loading it, and stay rather high once loaded. My biggest complaint? No opt out apparently. http://fortune.com/2018/06/05/g-suite-gmail-update-opt-out/

Edit: Aha! This might be a reason to try Thunderbird 60 out.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#29
post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

ProtonMail has been the best (free) gmail alternative I can find. Has the necessary mobile apps and encrypts all email.

Re: In killing Inbox, Google takes another swipe at its most passionate users

#30
post #16

I used to be a Google fan boy but am starting to dislike them more and more. This, they killed off reader and the creepy data collection they do is why I've started to look into alternatives for their products - anyone have any good suggestions?

As others have commented, there is a variety of alternatives to Google for the majority of their products, and the discussion has been had on HN a number of times . [0].

What really annoys me is how woven Google has now become to our working day processes. It's all very well having open-source alternatives for private use, but many (I included) used Inbox for work where we are obligated to use Gmail. This feels like a step backwards in many regards.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17280558

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