311–320 of 665 posts
It's interesting to see how Google turned from a respected company everyone wanted to work at to a "persona non grata" within just a few years. I wonder what were the main reasons for this change?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Then there‘s the search engine. I tried hard to replace Google Search with DDG, but I have to admit that Google gives me better search results. Still I would love to leave this also behind. Try Searx[1]. It's a search engine aggregator that works with DDG, Google, and dozens of other search engines. You can self-host it or use one of the public instances. [1] https://github.com/asciimoo/searx
I use searx and it's great. There are a lot of instances as well, this site has a list: https://searx.space/ There even are some which are accessible over Tor.
Sometimes I still fall back to Google but if that was becoming the norm on DDG, not anymore.
Another thing that helps is configuring custom search engines on Firefox. For example, for me typing `gh something` in the address bar does a GitHub search directly and so on.
I think Google is great. It's convenient. Their search results are tailored to my liking, I love Gmail, I adore Google Docs/Sheets, and there are tons of tools I use almost every day as well. Honestly, the "switching away from [nameHere]" trend is so tiresome. Good job, you're a unique little snowflake now. You don't have Facebook, no LinkedIn, you don't use Google but DuckDuckGo, and you're even switching away from…
Their search results suck. Are getting worse every year. IMHO.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Microsoft Office is dramatically better than Google Docs in terms of privacy. I hate using Office 365 with a passion. The usability is horrible. Google Docs is much more pleasant. But in any environment where privacy or security matters, I'd pick it over Google Docs in a heartbeat. In my day job, I work with data with compliance issues. We use Microsoft technologies and zero Google. As obnoxious as Office 365 is…
What's so usable about Google docs? I mainly use Excel and the Google docs version is unbearable in terms of ui speed and more limited in functions.
Google Docs, on the other hand, the things it does, it does well:
1) Works reliably and without bugs. Last Word document I worked with began crashing Word at some point.
2) Works collaboratively. Google Docs keeps docs in sync in realtime. Office 365 has enough lag to suck at collaboration.
3) Keeps better versioning and version history. Word has a half-dozen different ways to do this, none of which are as good. Again, this is important for collaboration
4) Works better with people outside your organization.
The things it doesn't do, well.... it doesn't.
I've never had issue with Google Docs around UI speed. I have with Word. I think part of the reason is the simpler document structure and format.
In addition, Google Docs has working search tools (so you can find documents), albeit not great organization tools.
For most of my work, I'm not doing fancy formatting or other crap. I'm writing plain text, often on a team. For that, Google Docs would kick Microsoft's butt, if I trusted Google to allow me to comply with legal requirements (Google makes clear I shouldn't), and if I trusted Google not to disconnect my account tomorrow, based on some ML algorithm which decides I look like a scammer, or randomly discontinue something I'm using mid-document.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, what's the benefit of replacing Google Docs with Dropbox? I seem to remember HN's readership is occasionally hostile to Dropbox. Myself, I use it but the same drive that would have me ditch Google would also make me ditch Dropbox... (I haven't reached that point, though)
Nextcloud is indicated here.
Android -> Iphone (more expensive, but can last longer with reasonable user experience and I can resell for better prices)
Contacts and calendar -> Apple icloud
Google Maps -> apple maps (still have to use waze sometimes, traffic information works best in Waze in Brazil)
Search -> Duck Duck Go
Web -> Firefox (The multi account containers in Firefox is to good to stop using)
Google Drive -> Ondrive (I had to buy an Office 365 licence to my dad. End up buying the family licence, and 1 TB cloud storage endupd being very usefull). A shame I really dont use office, but, is there in the cloud if I ever need to open a word doc.
I still havent found a viable alternative to Youtube videos, but, I think is a matter of time for an alternative product reach enouth users)
I think Google is great. It's convenient. Their search results are tailored to my liking, I love Gmail, I adore Google Docs/Sheets, and there are tons of tools I use almost every day as well. Honestly, the "switching away from [nameHere]" trend is so tiresome. Good job, you're a unique little snowflake now. You don't have Facebook, no LinkedIn, you don't use Google but DuckDuckGo, and you're even switching away from…
Or do you say "use it anyway, how tiresome, you're obligated to use XYZ Company because I like them"?
I truly cannot see a point to your post at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can influence groups of people like never before. Swing Elections & change governments. Influence public opinion about literally everything to no small degree. Right, so, has Google done this? Asking because from what I remember the answer has been largely no, but I remember FB selling data to Cambridge Analytica in 2016.
Google has not directly intervened in elections as far as we know. Will they ever if we don't take away their power to? Only one way to find out!
It has always worked out well for us to give power to completely opaque entities right? Guys? Guys?
I dropped all google services and it wasn’t that hard. The most tedious part is moving accounts from your gmail to your new email (I switched to using my own domain backed by fastmail). Even with a password manager and a list of all my accounts this took me an entire day. You also learn how terrible most non-software company account management is. On a lot of sites changing email is impossible. On some it lets you do…
I know it is easy to hate on big companies but how do you leave them when credible alternatives are not even close in productivity/performance. I tried leaving Macbook, but whenever I have tried the alternatives(even Thinkpad with Ubuntu), Macbook still seems to be at the sweet spot of life time ownership cost/performance. I do care about repairability, good keyboards etc. but I do have to look at things in balance.…
There are times when that is true, and there are times when it is simply a matter of adapting to the differences. For example, you mentioned trying a ThinkPad with Ubuntu after using a MacBook. You claimed that the MacBook seems to be at the sweet spot. It reflects your experiences so that's a fair assessment. Yet my experience in moving from a MacBook to a Linux PC was quite the opposite. A significant factor was my extensive prior experience with Linux, as well as a desire to reap the benefits of Linux (rather than to escape the drawbacks of the MacBook).
> Lastly, I would add one can pay for Gsuite and then Gmail etc. are ad free. I doubt they would be mining paid Gsuite user's data since companies use that.
Don't confuse "pay for" and "ad free" with "no data mining". At least with consumer goods, companies were mining data from paid products well before the Internet was a thing. I also wouldn't be surprised if Google mines some data from business accounts, even if the scope of that data collection is severely limited.