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How to live without Google (2017)

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Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#101
post #49

For me where I live (Northern Europe) apple maps and open street maps or any other maps for that matter suck big time. Google maps is the only app which can search for places in a meanfingul way. I search for an ATM nearby but I get results which are 400kms away in apple maps.

How are Bing maps in your area?

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#102

Does anyone have a good alternative to Google Voice?

Depends a bit on which specific workflows you're using Google Voice to enable, but as someone not living in America (so don't have access to Google Voice), I can give you a succinct answer to that: No. If I want to be able to answer phone calls on my PC, my only options are either an SIP softphone, or a Mac/iPhone using Continuity.

I primarily want two things:

1) one phone number that calls all my phones, and 2) voicemail that sends me a text and/or email with a transcription of the message

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#103
post #3

For a couple of month I have set duckduckgo as my standard search engine, but I often do not get satisfactory results. Is this because I am used to the Google results or does duckduckgo indeed not prioritize in a good way?

I've been using DDG for so many years as my sole means of searching the internet (though I thought when I first started using it, it was proxing Google and not Bing) that I'm not sure if I'm getting satisfactory results back or not. It's not like I'm doing a head to head comparison with Google.

> I thought when I first started using it, it was proxing Google and not Bing

It probably was, it proxied google when I first used it, then at some point about 8 years ago or so it switched to bing and for a while I switched over to ixquick, but switched back to ddg and just got used to it proxying bing when ixquick dumbed their page down to match startpage.

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#104
post #49

For me where I live (Northern Europe) apple maps and open street maps or any other maps for that matter suck big time. Google maps is the only app which can search for places in a meanfingul way. I search for an ATM nearby but I get results which are 400kms away in apple maps.

Did you try HERE WeGo?

Originally made by Nokia. I tried it on a trip to Helsinki in 2015 and IIRC, it worked better than Google Maps.

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#106
post #3

For a couple of month I have set duckduckgo as my standard search engine, but I often do not get satisfactory results. Is this because I am used to the Google results or does duckduckgo indeed not prioritize in a good way?

I've been using DDG as my primary search engine for around a year now. I've kind of gotten a feel for the kind of searches I do that DDG doesn't handle very well. It's good for probably 95% of my searches but I still occasionally fall back on Google.

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#107
post #104
post #49

For me where I live (Northern Europe) apple maps and open street maps or any other maps for that matter suck big time. Google maps is the only app which can search for places in a meanfingul way. I search for an ATM nearby but I get results which are 400kms away in apple maps.

Did you try HERE WeGo? Originally made by Nokia. I tried it on a trip to Helsinki in 2015 and IIRC, it worked better than Google Maps.

One thing I like about them is the offline mode which is great when traveling abroad. However their app is less that enjoyable to use.

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends a bit on which specific workflows you're using Google Voice to enable, but as someone not living in America (so don't have access to Google Voice), I can give you a succinct answer to that: No. If I want to be able to answer phone calls on my PC, my only options are either an SIP softphone, or a Mac/iPhone using Continuity.

I primarily want two things: 1) one phone number that calls all my phones, and 2) voicemail that sends me a text and/or email with a transcription of the message

Yeah, there's no general solution... basically you need all the hassle that comes with configuring and using a hosted SIP provider for those features you want.

Re: How to live without Google (2017)

#110
post #95

Swapping out a select few of Google's products isn't the same as "living without Google". Until you've blacklisted their entire netblock range from your usage[1], you don't realize just how many tendrils they have in every aspect of your Internet experience. And good luck getting around the other tech giants' oligopoly of the web as well[2]. The Internet isn't a fun "wild-west frontier" anymore, it's now completely c…

Reminds me of this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2105/
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