I’m curious because I see a ton of Google hate on here daily. It’s certainly not all unwarranted, and I do agree with some of the privacy concerns.
That being said I do very much enjoy their products. Gmail, Photos, Chrome, Gemini, Home, Assistant, YouTube, Pixel phones, etc… I’ve tried out many of the alternatives but always come back to their ecosystem.
Curious as to how many of you here on the fedi use Google products without the common associated angst from the FOSS community.
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I dislike a lot of what Google has done to their product and how people have screwed up searches with SEO nonsense. Recipes are a prime example of what I dislike about Google. Gemini is way less useful than the Assistant used to be. I’m still waiting for Microsoft to dip their toes back into the cell phone market or see some FOSS alternatives to Android/iOS that are supported by service providers. Ultimately I just have to put up with it.
I wanted to like Google, I bought into the whole ecosystem and still regularly use my gmail account, but they’ve fallen quite far in my eyes. They’ve killed off multiple features I used extensively, Search, the thing they should be good at, just isn’t as dependable as it used to be, I don’t trust using Chrome anymore, and the company overall just seems like a pale reflection of its former self. I just don’t trust them as a company. Not as bad as Meta or anything Musk touches, but still bad.
“
Don’tBe Evil”
i used to love google… ive been around since the beginning and used many of their products.
it feels like a friend or family member thats slid into serious meth or other drug use… you can only stick around attempting to help them for so long. at some point you know you have to cut your losses or be further dragged into their destruction.
when they dropped the ‘dont be evil’ was right around the time i also realized they dont actually support their products, and kill them on a whim. i jumped ship ~2012 when they started fuckin around with google voice and had no real ambition with G+. .
They didn’t drop the don’t be evil thing. It’s still right there in the code of conduct where it always was, they just moved it to the conclusion of the document so it’s the last thing that remains with you. See for yourself: https://abc.xyz/investor/google-code-of-conduct/
The supposed removal is a perfect example of the outrage-bait headlines I’m discussing in another comment.
There’s a whole Wikipedia page covering the motto drop. And yes, it was an ugly move deserving of all the bad press.
From literally the first paragraph stating it’s still there.
The original motto was retained in Google’s code of conduct, now a subsidiary of Alphabet. Between April 21st and May 4th of 2018, the motto was removed from the code of conduct’s preface and retained in its last sentence.[9]
So it’s dropped from the motto?
Yes, they dropped it.
It was a Warrant canary
They definitely stopped living by that mantra at the same time. It may exist as a footnote to this giant code of conduct but it hasn’t been their MO in over a decade. The reaction is justified.
right there […] where it always was.
they just moved it to the conclusion
Make up your mind, which one is it?
If it’s any consolation, they haven’t killed Google Voice. They haven’t updated it since 2012, but it’s still around.
I get updates a couple times a year.
But it hasn’t changed
For me it’s a love hate relationship. I love the idea of their products, but hate that often they’re the only feasible options in their categories.
I don’t hate Google. I don’t trust them and I don’t think anyone else should either. Vet the products and services you use. But I don’t hate them.
Agree with this. I think this also should extend to every corporation.
This is it. I didn’t hate them because “big tech” like other people here. I loved Google and their stuff. But one by one they killed my favorite things, and they made me hate them.
If you don’t hate Google for killing s service you loved them your just waiting for them to do it.
They’ve killed a fair few of the services I’ve liked over the years. But there are other services I still like (with caveats) that I still use so it’s a mixed bag for me. If they kill those services I’ll move on to others.
100% this. I don’t hate them at all. I just can’t trust them ever anymore
I’m frustrated because IMO their search keeps getting worse, but most of their other core products (Gmail, Chrome, Drive, Docs) are pretty good. I’m not mad about the lack of privacy because I feel that that was part of the deal I knowingly accepted back when I was an early adopter. I’d rather get free service than pay for impossible-to-verify privacy, especially when the free service has minimally annoying ads (eg. Gmail but not Youtube).
Man I’d say their other stuff is terrible as well. Yeah it functions but what a low bar to meet.
It’s not the company it once was, but there are also a lot of outrage-bait headlines about it that don’t hold up well to scrutiny.
For instance, there have been a lot of Lemmy posts about Chrome supposedly removing the APIs used by adblockers. I figured I’d validate that on my own by switching to the version of uBlock that is based on the new API. Well… As it turns out, it works fine. It’s also faster.
Mind you, figuring out the actual facts behind each post gets exhausting, and people just shutting down and avoiding the problem space entirely makes some sort of sense. That, and it is healthy for an ecosystem to have alternatives, so I’d keep encouraging usage of Firefox and such if only on that basis alone.
Google make some good products. I am just not willing to trade my privacy for it.
I’m happy with most of their stuff and use it a lot (calendar, drive, keep etc) but I know not to trust them not to kill things. I keep an IMAP copy of my emails and a local copy of my photos just in case…
There’s just so much to hate
Hate is a strong word.
I have a dislike for them. Especially in recent years. There was a time I thought they were the cool hip company with lots of cool innovations. When Google docs launched it was so revolutionary that two people could work with the same document at the same time.
Now I see them more for what they are: an advertisement provider. They’re only after our data. Once I realized that my dislike for them grew.
But my dislike for them hasn’t been enough to stop using their products. I’ve tried DDG a few times, but I’ve always been dissatisfied with their results.
I dunno if I hate Google, but I’ve grown tired of their bullshit. I use their products, but mostly because they’ve become the default solution being so feature rich and widely used. They’ve leveraged that to bog them down with ads and Spyware and THAT I despise.
Hate is a strong word.
I prefer to avoid their services due to privacy, and because over the long term, they’re unreliable. Any other for-profit corporation that tries to offer a bunch of free SASS products is going to end up with privacy issues as well; knowing the incentives lets us predict the outcome.
I’m keeping my Pixel 4a as long as I possibly can though.
i hate all tech corps. you can use (and even like) their products and also think they are evil, oligopolies and all.
i cant abandon my gmail because i don’t even know how many sites and how many people i have given it to. i like youtube because it’s THE slop factory. Maps is also pretty good, love Street View, Chrome is ‘ok’ but Firefox is a perfectly usable (and in many ways, better) substitute (especially given Google’s ad shenanigans).
Made a decision long ago that I’m not going to browse the web, setup a calendar of life events or store my email with the largest advertising company in the world. I’m happy with my decision.
