Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BeetleB | Hacker News Reader

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> There is nothing mediocre about the search engine, gmail, maps, android, chrome etc.. etc.

Search Engine: Google is fantastic with its index. Very poor with the results it returns. Sampling of the problems:

- There's a reason people add site:reddit.com - the default results are often very low quality. Sure, Google has the good quality stuff indexed, but over the last 5 years they've been declining like crazy in actually showing you what you need.

- When I search for something on mobile, I get fairly unstructured results. First, an AI blurb. Then the first batch of results are videos. Then some web sites. Then a break with "People also ask...". Then more web sites. Then image results.

99% of the time I just want the web sites. Before, if there were video/image results, they'd be on the top and I'd conveniently scroll past them to get to the meat. I can't do that any more. Google keeps breaking the flow by adding more and more sections. When I hit "More search results", the problem continues.

Thank God for Kagi.

> gmail

Lots of people don't use it (including me). Other than people losing their mail, I'm not sure what is lost if this goes away. Email providers are aplenty. What am I missing by not using Gmail?

> maps

I'll grant you this one.

> android

It's nice to have an alternative to Apple, but that's the only good thing about it. Using Android reminds me of the old Windows. Very unstable. Full of spyware/bloatware.

> chrome

The only thing Chrome was better at than Firefox was stability - for a brief period in its history. Firefox is just better. If a site works on Chrome and not Firefox, that's not because Firefox is inferior.

Calling Chrome an "incredibly, breathtakingly good product" is just insane. It's merely an OK browser.

I feel that people are so weirdly negative about Google's products. I have some concerns about Google but I need to admit their products are good. I think a lot of people on here don't like them as a business and it clouds their views of the products.

> Gmail

Gmail is the best email provider of all time by a huge amount and has been since it's inception. I use proton mail as well and it's worse, a lot worse. It's slower, has fewer features and is not as good looking. From what I've seen of apple Mail and outlook they are worse still.

> Android

Personally, I prefer Android. There are a lot of things I'd miss going to iPhone. Like custom launchers, having a different browser, an app drawer, the way widgets work, ect...

> Chrome

I am concerned about the chromium engine creating a browser monoculture so I use Firefox. I have used Firefox every day for years and I have to say it's worse. Whenever I use chrome for a small thing I need I realize that its better. It's faster, better looking, things just work on it (I know part of this is because of its dominance but that's irrelevant when evaluating product quality). I don't use it but I'm not going to pretend that it's worse.

Email providers is about who you trust to have access to your correspondence, and in terms of a company, access to customer information and any sensitive information related to operations, staff and so on. Worst provider is the one you don't trust.

I totally get that there are reasons to use proton mail and I even use it. But I was purely talking about product here. I think some people allow their feelings about data privacy and business practices to cloud their judgement about product.

I think you misunderstand me there. When it comes to email (and postal service), trust is the product.

It is a bit like comparing a bank, a stock option broker, and a gambling site, and discussing which provide a better product to hold your money. It make no sense comparing them unless we view them as providing the same service.

> It's nice to have an alternative to Apple, but that's the only good thing about it. Using Android reminds me of the old Windows. Very unstable. Full of spyware/bloatware.

Being free to run whatever code we want as users (F-droid is a treasure). Plus actually having a "disable animations completely" button to remove unneeded slowness.

It's also amazing how awesome Android can be. When you compare GrapheneOS / CalyxOS you go from a slow, bloated phone that lasts maybe a day - to a phone you have complete control of that is performant and lasts days on a charge. The contrast is stark and most people have no clue those options exist.

"If a site works on Chrome and not Firefox, that's not because Firefox is inferior."

Right, we've been through all that stuff with Internet Explorer—sites often preferred it over others even though its HTML extensions weren't standard W3C. Chrome is better but it's still favored for the same reasons.

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