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.

  • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • atrielienz@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        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.

  • nalinna@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’ve been actively trying to extricate myself from their ecosystem. I hate how incredibly challenging it is.

  • VanHalbgott@lemmus.org
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    2 months ago

    I don’t hate Google. I created a Google account before recently to use YouTube.

    Mainly because I couldn’t figure out Peertube on the Fediverse.

  • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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    2 months ago

    Yeah, google is great if you dont care about your privacy and dont care how much money you spend.

    There is absolutely no reason to use google though. For a great experience you have to pay anyway and that you can as well do with someone with someone who hosts nextcloud for you. Added benefit: your data is not harvested and you can expect the terms to stay the same forever.

    • kautau@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      and you can expect the terms to stay the same forever

      Bit of a reach, but I agree with your other points

      • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
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        2 months ago

        Thanks. But if you work with a small hoster, they wont change the terms on you usually. Most of us understand that this is only „legal“, not morally sound.

  • pelletbucket@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    it’s the user experience that makes me hate Google more than anything. “oh hey, come use our unified ecosystem, it’s so much better because it’s all Google” but as soon as you have a problem with Google Voice on your Google Pixel using your Google operating system, every fucking department tells you that it’s another department’s problem.

    they gutted multitasking after Android 10 because they were afraid it might cut into their YouTube music profits. they’re just turning off their shortened URLs next year. they refuse to update Google Voice in any way. every time I’ve trusted them with something, they’ve broken that trust

  • FeelThePower@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 months ago

    The only thing I honestly don’t hate from them is YouTube, which I still use often. But I hate how they treat it now, so they lose points there. And Gboard too, but they seem to have abandoned updating it sadly.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      WDYM? It seems to update every 1-2 days on the beta channel for me, always fine-tuning some language or another. Do they not push updates to non-beta any more?

  • VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    Google have done a lot of great things and run some really vital projects that have benefitted the world. Anyone that refuses to acknowledge that is not coming at things honestly.

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah that’s my take on it, too.

      Plus they’re far too big for “Google” to be a useful entity in discussions. The Google C-suites? The CEO? The Maps team? The Mail team? The support for end-user customers? Need to be more specific, because I bet the Mail team is bigger than some competing companies in their entirety.

    • menemen@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      Not trying to compare google to the Nazis, but this reads a lot like “but he build the Autobahns”.

  • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Today google search turned on dark mode and trendimg searches against my will once again, makimg me google how to turn them off again.

    It’s annoying.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    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.