Google Search - too many ads fill up the page. Hard to find relevant info. Switched to perplexity ai, ChatGPT,DuckDuckGo Google maps - inefficient routes, Apple Maps more smooth. Switched to apple Maps, Here Maps Gmail - cannot filter obvious spams. Important emails end up in spam. Switched to - installed my own email server, iCloud, protonmail Google Drive - installed open source software on my NAS Chrome - Switched to safari, changed my default Search engine to DDG Are you guys looking for alternatives? What are the pros and cons of tools you use?
Same. Perplexity is great. DuckDuckGo a solid choice too. YouTube is the toughest one to cut out completely but listen to most music on streaming so just watch the odd video or so there
Yeah, so far no solid YouTube rival. TikTok is building one thought. Let’s see how it goes. Maps used to be hard to cut but I have been using Apple Maps now. Works better. Same with gmail.
I am using brave browser and i am so happy with it. Only google product i see useful in this era is youtube and a bit of gdrive. Google search is the worse of all.
Brave is just a makeup on chromium. But chromium is open source so that’s there.
Try out Edge (Chromium based) from Microsoft. Awesome browser with copilot support. Chrome on the other hand is just garbage. Once the best browser is now the one browser I actively try to avoid. Lots of Google products have gone down in quality in recent years. Google really needs a new competent CEO.
Google is going down the shitter. I hate everything single one of their products these days. I used to love their products. But everything sucks now. It’s becoming Microsoft pre Satya days. Time to fire that clown of a CEO and hire someone competent
I don’t use Google search as much now either. It’s Perplexity for me most times. I only Google one or two word queries and even those results suck
Maps is no longer just about map and navigation though. I think its still really really difficult to beat Google Maps. Unless you are really motivated to not use it, its the best product out there. Google Photos, YouTube, Maps, Gmail are all pretty unbeatable for 99% of the people. I do think Search will improve with SGE and the whole push towards Gen AI.
Oh and don't get me started on Safari. Arc browser is a better choice.
Koolaid?
Only gmail and youtube for me now
I still use google a lot when facts are important, and chatgpt when reasoning is important. I also use komo.ai which has the social search to glance through ppl's opinions. Still use a lot of gmail, maps, chrome, but for calendar, I switched to Notion Calendar recently which allows to easily plugin multiple accounts.
Google might head like Yahoo. Just randomly overnight overtaken. I hope Google find its way again. Tech trends can flip over night. The trends I hear from my peers (and myself included) are that Google Search is rarely used now. We being in tech are just a step quicker than most. Pichai is an incompetent CEO and should be replaced.
This is so true. Trend can change overnight. New generation can find it uncool to use google. Like people really frown upon anyone using yahoo. They need to keep talented engineers and not lowball. The effect is now pretty clear. Google maps, search and gmail are definitely getting shittier. These are important google products. TikTok is building google’s rival. And then google will have to lobby US government to ban tiktok to maintain market dominance or bomb China( which will be difficult). What if an American company topples google. Bombing a local company won’t be an option.
Yahoo balance sheets were still incredible while Google search was being used by kids. For now, Google's balance sheets are incredible. The problem is that "flip" happens faster than most realize. That said, Google is a juggernaut overall. YouTube, Docs, Maps, Android, etc. all exist. It's still going to be a tech behemoth for decades. Look at even IBM. Still alive to this day. What Google needs is a competent CEO. Pichai doesn't seem the right person.