Anon thinks about Google

Maps. There's still unfortunately nothing better.

https://xkcd.com/1361/
't was just a matter of time.

Hate it like you want, but the effing pixels are still the best phones. Not by os, not by spec, but simply by being the most open android of them all. The easiest to de-google. Sounds stupid, but is not.

I hate google with all my heart (since they dropped their slogan "don't be evil" and went... Well.... Evil). But i will buy their fucking phones until a viable alternative comes along.

I mean, a lot of the points are valid, but the Pixel phones are pretty great, Android is pretty great and getting better, and the Chromebook gamble is playing a really long term game where they could end up uprooting Microsoft if they play their cards right. From my understanding, US kids now on average know Chromebook OS better than Windows by far, and will probably prefer to continue using it if they could. If Google makes the OS more viable for professional use and flexible and play their cards right, they'd have a really good chance at uppending Microsoft's dominance, especially since Microsoft is seemingly trying to shoot itself in the foot with Windows.

Pixel phones are a joke? They've been the best phones I've owned.

Honestly Google Drive works great as free storage (Though for large storage there's no guarantee they won't accidentally delete it, it's happened before).

And Google Suite is good enough if you can't be bothered to get Microsoft Office. Though they're forcing AI into it and have some weird quirks like being unable to copypaste external text with rightclick.

I hate Google and try not use it anymore but there's still one thing I can't do without : Google Maps.

Chromebooks are insanely locked down at schools. I got one on eBay for $40, installed linux, and now it can play Minecraft Java at 60 fps so that’s something.

They're the #1 in streaming. More people watch youtube on their TV's than Netflix

What exactly does Google have left that people like? Gmail?

Shhhh! Dammit. Now they are definitely going to realize they haven't ruined it yet.

They are the IMO most supported Single-Sign-On provider. I think Facebook, which I don't even have, was mostly for games, and then apple also isn't an option, and that's just it besides using firefox' built in password manager for another email/password combination. What's your opinion on log in providers?

Android worse every year? How? Every update I've received (on a Samsung, mind you) has made my experience better.

The UI for GMail is awful. Can't even follow conversations on my phone app. Just put that shit in order like Outlook does. Fuck.

Not even gmail.. They turned that to shit years ago.

Theres much much more.. Smaller kills sometimes are the most effective. Think about Google RSS Reader the best rss reader to ever exist…

If/when they screw up gmail, I’m blacklisting Google for good, that’s gonna be such a goddamn pain to disentangle myself from.

the chromebook keyboard layout is stupid, especially if you like tiling wms

they removed capslock and moved super to where it would normally be, and renamed it to "search"

they put nonsensical function keys that don't exist like "refresh" and "fullscreen"

and then the keys are mushy too

I think the general rule is anything google acquired was good and anything they built themselves was bad and ended up getting killed.

There are exceptions but some of the only decent parts of google; maps, YouTube, AdWords were all acquisitions. I think they even just got HTC to build the pixel exclusively for them

Gmail has ads in it. They’re stealing your data and training their D-tier AI on your emails and still showing you ads and you just take it.

Google has become Microsoft 2.0 where everything (consumer facing) they touch turns into shit.

Don’t forget the investment into Israel despite the protests of the workers

Android is still great. The Pixel phone is the best Android phone by several metrics. Usability and Camera come to mind. Android TV is by far the best TV interface. Just because it's sideloadable and decently usable. Low bar, but here we are.

Gboard is good. The pixel launcher is good enough to not bother switching off. The Google Home certainly turns my lights on and off. And as soon as Google opens RCS, I'm leaving Google Messages.

But that's the only Google stuff I use. And I'm thinking of switching to Graphene OS.

Aside from Pixels, they've pretty much ruined all their products.

It sucks, because I actually like Google products, minus the gross privacy violations and ads. I used to pay for YT Premium.

I’m an iPhone person because of reasons, but I honestly think Pixel phones are the best Android devices I’ve ever seen.

Ads appearing as messages in the inbox? Pretty sure Gmail is on the way out too.

What have Google developed inhouse that’s good since Gmail?

Android and YouTube were both acquisitions.

I've been using Google voice for almost 20 years it's wonderful

Google search is still better than bing, somehow. Gmail is good for signing up to stuff I don't want mailing my protonmail. Google maps is still genuinely useful. Youtube is, for now, still better than any alternative I know about. I don't see what's wrong with Pixel phones.

Don't get me wrong, google is evil now and I don't like it. But I don't know any better alternatives for those things. Mm, except gmail, I could replace that I guess but it's such a pain.

Kind of like Microsoft then. They buy up or spend money trying to break into all kinds of different areas but consistently take bad L's and get pushed back to their core business time and again after face-planting and alienating those who gave them a shot.

The timeline got fucked when they killed Google Reader. That was Google's Harambe incident.

My latest day-job employer has made the switch from Apples (and s20fe) to pixels. The staff - mainly nerds - is actually generally pleased with the switch.

If the embarrassment that is Purolator (our national postal service offshoot courier 'service') was adequate last week, not only would they break a 20-year streak but also I'd've had my shiny company pixel by now and could pepsi-challenge it against my wife's shiny new company iphone.

Mate, I haven't forgiven them for google reader.

They killed my boy.

Don't tell them about Gmail, they forgot ruining it. Don't wake sleeping dogs.

Bring back Google Wave, goddammit!

Google has one of the biggest data/ad empires on the planet and is doing just fine lol

I don't feel like Chromebooks are all that bad. Especially if the other option is limited capacity computer rooms. I imagine the restrictions of a Chromebook would be similar to the limitations imposed by the IT department.

They also bought Youtube and made it worse and bought Orkut and killed it.

Wasn't it Garfield mail a long time ago? Anyways don't forget to back your stuff up

Gmail is ass. Dump it.

Let's not pretend like google does not have a monopoly on search engines, maps, and shortform video content. Also, their cloud ecosystem might be second behind AWS, but it's still fucking enormous and makes them truckloads of money.

Have you not seen the corpse that is Google hangouts still attached to Gmail? Google died with inbox and I hope they go under after just barely giving back to open source projects they profited off of.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

How has Fitbit been killed?

Any info on the SEO lying point? I haven't heard about that.

wait Fitbit was killed off?

Hmm. People still use yahoo mail, so maybe you are on to something here.

As discussed. [Gamers Nexus/Level1 re Google]

It's not a question of liking, but not having a choice.

What exactly does Google have left that people like? Gmail?

Nope, not GMail either, even GMail has ads now.