5 ms·

Please, Google, fix those mistakes soon, and avoid a PR fiasco.

by faragon 8y ago

modzu 8y ago
google seems too big to fail. what are you going to do? start searching with yahoo?
- foo101 8y ago
  More like start searching with DuckDuckGo, use an alternate email service such as Fastmail, Protonmail, etc., and use Firefox. By the way, what's an alternate email service the HN users recommend?
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    I guess you missed this monster thread from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574
    - modzu 8y ago
      i read it. tldr: there isnt one.
      - modzu 8y ago
        for all you geniuses downvoting my tldr commment: by far the 2 most popular suggested alternatives from the thread were fastmail and protonmail. fastmail costs money. for us elite hacker types its no biggy but does your mom pay for email? its not a fair competitor when 99% of people think email should just be free. protonmail is free but limits how many emails you can send and caps you at 500MB. also sign up and then try signing up for facebook. better get your ID ready... edit: to be clear i'm not knocking either option. im just supporting my original point -- that google's recent actions do not threaten its email dominance
  - brink 8y ago
    I went from Gmail -> ProtonMail -> Fastmail. I left ProtonMail because it was slow and lacking features. Their reason for their snail pace of feature releases seems to be "we put security first". Edit: Also, with ProtonMail as a paying customer, by default my signature was set to "Sent from ProtonMail". How cheesy. I'm paying for their service, they shouldn't be using me to advertise.
  - bduerst 8y ago
    DuckDuckGo doesn't really do it's own indexing, it's essentially just a reskin of Bing search.
    - floatboth 8y ago
      It actually uses multiple sources for regular results, not just Bing: > from a variety of partners, including Oath (formerly Yahoo) and Bing https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources I remember Yandex being one of the sources as well.
      - bduerst 8y ago
        Yahoo now uses Bing. Yandex is basically indexed Russian pages. So unless you're searching in Russian, DDG is essentially a reskin of Bing search.
        modzu 8y ago
        i dont know why your comment is being downvoted instead of being replied to. its a valid comment. sadly im seeing this all the time now -- comments being downvoted just because other users disagree. if you disagree and have a valid argument, make the argument... i digress. i pine for when hn was more intelligent
        bduerst 8y ago
        DDG has a fanbase that, like most, is not immune from cognitive dissonance.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    I pay for a Posteo account and am quite satisfied with it. The webmail is just your standard run-of-the-mill webmail without any fancy features like Google Inbox, but since IMAP is supported, you can just put whatever frontend you like in front of it. https://posteo.de/en https://posteo.de/en (I'm not affiliated with them except as a customer)
  - modzu 8y ago
    lol. you propose using an alternative then immediately ask, "btw what's an alternate..."
- robin_reala 8y ago
  DuckDuckGo for me. I think I’m pretty much away from Google services apart from YouTube (which lives in its own app or container tab).
kowdermeister 8y ago
Nobody really cares outside this tech bubble. There won't be a PR fiasco, because it's hard to explain why it's bad for a non techie end user. "Google simplifies the login experience in Chrome", is essentially what's happening here and it's far from obvious how to sell it as a doomsday scenario as I read the mood correctly of many HN users.
- jonbronson 8y ago
  For people already logging into Chrome, perhaps. For people who have chosen to not sign into chrome, this is a breach of privacy and of trust. Without warning, we've been force-signed-in with no clear way to disable this setting.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Agreed, this will be forgotten about even by tech power users in under a week. Google needs to take the initial PR blow and then it will be over. The only thing that will put pressure on Google is EU with GDPR.
- Sargos 8y ago
  > Nobody really cares outside this tech bubble Even inside of this tech bubble there are people like me that think this change is fine the way it is and that it's actually a good idea for convenience. The vast majority of people are using Chrome to go to Google websites using their Google account and having one less step to sign in to Chrome Sync is just a good thing from a usability perspective.
- bepotts 8y ago
  Maybe I'm just crazy, but if I didn't like Google Chrome (or if I was a privacy hawk), I wouldn't use Google products. Why do so many people complain about "privacy" and still use Google products? The people who think they can speak for their parents or the less technically inclined are being too presumptuous in my opinion. YOU may have a problem with these methods, but not everyone does. Heck, there's people as technical as you that still don't have a problem with it.
  - 8y ago

Please, Google, fix those mistakes soon, and avoid a PR fiasco.

modzu 8y ago

google seems too big to fail. what are you going to do? start searching with yahoo?

foo101 8y ago
More like start searching with DuckDuckGo, use an alternate email service such as Fastmail, Protonmail, etc., and use Firefox. By the way, what's an alternate email service the HN users recommend?
- robin_reala 8y ago
  I guess you missed this monster thread from earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574
  - modzu 8y ago
    i read it. tldr: there isnt one.
    - modzu 8y ago
      for all you geniuses downvoting my tldr commment: by far the 2 most popular suggested alternatives from the thread were fastmail and protonmail. fastmail costs money. for us elite hacker types its no biggy but does your mom pay for email? its not a fair competitor when 99% of people think email should just be free. protonmail is free but limits how many emails you can send and caps you at 500MB. also sign up and then try signing up for facebook. better get your ID ready... edit: to be clear i'm not knocking either option. im just supporting my original point -- that google's recent actions do not threaten its email dominance
- brink 8y ago
  I went from Gmail -> ProtonMail -> Fastmail. I left ProtonMail because it was slow and lacking features. Their reason for their snail pace of feature releases seems to be "we put security first". Edit: Also, with ProtonMail as a paying customer, by default my signature was set to "Sent from ProtonMail". How cheesy. I'm paying for their service, they shouldn't be using me to advertise.
- bduerst 8y ago
  DuckDuckGo doesn't really do it's own indexing, it's essentially just a reskin of Bing search.
  - floatboth 8y ago
    It actually uses multiple sources for regular results, not just Bing: > from a variety of partners, including Oath (formerly Yahoo) and Bing https://duck.co/help/results/sources https://duck.co/help/results/sources I remember Yandex being one of the sources as well.
    - bduerst 8y ago
      Yahoo now uses Bing. Yandex is basically indexed Russian pages. So unless you're searching in Russian, DDG is essentially a reskin of Bing search.
      - modzu 8y ago
        i dont know why your comment is being downvoted instead of being replied to. its a valid comment. sadly im seeing this all the time now -- comments being downvoted just because other users disagree. if you disagree and have a valid argument, make the argument... i digress. i pine for when hn was more intelligent
        bduerst 8y ago
        DDG has a fanbase that, like most, is not immune from cognitive dissonance.
- majewsky 8y ago
  I pay for a Posteo account and am quite satisfied with it. The webmail is just your standard run-of-the-mill webmail without any fancy features like Google Inbox, but since IMAP is supported, you can just put whatever frontend you like in front of it. https://posteo.de/en https://posteo.de/en (I'm not affiliated with them except as a customer)
- modzu 8y ago
  lol. you propose using an alternative then immediately ask, "btw what's an alternate..."
robin_reala 8y ago
DuckDuckGo for me. I think I’m pretty much away from Google services apart from YouTube (which lives in its own app or container tab).

kowdermeister 8y ago

Nobody really cares outside this tech bubble. There won't be a PR fiasco, because it's hard to explain why it's bad for a non techie end user. "Google simplifies the login experience in Chrome", is essentially what's happening here and it's far from obvious how to sell it as a doomsday scenario as I read the mood correctly of many HN users.

jonbronson 8y ago
For people already logging into Chrome, perhaps. For people who have chosen to not sign into chrome, this is a breach of privacy and of trust. Without warning, we've been force-signed-in with no clear way to disable this setting.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
Agreed, this will be forgotten about even by tech power users in under a week. Google needs to take the initial PR blow and then it will be over. The only thing that will put pressure on Google is EU with GDPR.
Sargos 8y ago
> Nobody really cares outside this tech bubble Even inside of this tech bubble there are people like me that think this change is fine the way it is and that it's actually a good idea for convenience. The vast majority of people are using Chrome to go to Google websites using their Google account and having one less step to sign in to Chrome Sync is just a good thing from a usability perspective.
bepotts 8y ago
Maybe I'm just crazy, but if I didn't like Google Chrome (or if I was a privacy hawk), I wouldn't use Google products. Why do so many people complain about "privacy" and still use Google products? The people who think they can speak for their parents or the less technically inclined are being too presumptuous in my opinion. YOU may have a problem with these methods, but not everyone does. Heck, there's people as technical as you that still don't have a problem with it.
- 8y ago