3 ms·

I still use Google reflexively, but its quality is so low these days...for most of my searches ("[local business I don't know the URL of]", "[foo] wikipedia", "

by wk_end 3y ago

I still use Google reflexively, but its quality is so low these days...for most of my searches ("[local business I don't know the URL of]", "[foo] wikipedia", "[foo] reddit", "[some library] docs") I'm pretty sure Bing or DDG would work fine. YouTube is uncontested. Let me throw in a couple of others: for desktop maps, AFAIK Google is still tops (on my phone I use Apple Maps and it's...fine). For free email, AFAIK GMail is still the standard (despite various UI changes over the years that have made it worse).

yterdy 3y ago
I cannot tell you how many times I've seen a video I wanted to watch on Youtube and had it disappear on reloading the page/clicking another video and going back. Even opening in another tab doesn't work sometimes? (It registers a regular click rather than ctrl-click and loads the link normally rather than in a new tab.) Don't get me started on the way it takes control of your keyboard input on video pages in completely unintuitive way. Will the right arrow track forward or raise the volume? Depends on YT's mood, I guess. It survives solely on network effect. I can't wait for a competitor, and several are waiting in the wing.
VHRanger 3y ago
For GMail, web outlook is completely fine these days
dwaite 3y ago
> for desktop maps, AFAIK Google is still tops (on my phone I use Apple Maps and it's...fine) I use Apple Maps on desktop as well. In my area (Denver) they seem to have about the same number of unique issues, but 1. Mobile Google Maps is so, so terrible in terms of screen-space utilization, look and feel, and also its behavior doing turn-by-turn. I've never been anywhere close to as angry at my iPhone then when Google Maps confused me into a parking lot and the low-quality synthetic voice got nearly a minute behind in micromanaging my way out 2. Desktop Google Maps is a lot less usable if you refuse to give the entirety of Google.com precise location access. The move from maps.google.com -> google.com/maps marked the last time I asked it for directions.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Not sure if it's a US vs Norway thing but Google Maps keep confusing me by saying "keep left at the fork". Like what fork?! Oh, you mean don't exit the freeway...

by wk_end 3y ago

yterdy 3y ago

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen a video I wanted to watch on Youtube and had it disappear on reloading the page/clicking another video and going back. Even opening in another tab doesn't work sometimes? (It registers a regular click rather than ctrl-click and loads the link normally rather than in a new tab.) Don't get me started on the way it takes control of your keyboard input on video pages in completely unintuitive way. Will the right arrow track forward or raise the volume? Depends on YT's mood, I guess. It survives solely on network effect. I can't wait for a competitor, and several are waiting in the wing.

VHRanger 3y ago

For GMail, web outlook is completely fine these days

dwaite 3y ago

> for desktop maps, AFAIK Google is still tops (on my phone I use Apple Maps and it's...fine) I use Apple Maps on desktop as well. In my area (Denver) they seem to have about the same number of unique issues, but 1. Mobile Google Maps is so, so terrible in terms of screen-space utilization, look and feel, and also its behavior doing turn-by-turn. I've never been anywhere close to as angry at my iPhone then when Google Maps confused me into a parking lot and the low-quality synthetic voice got nearly a minute behind in micromanaging my way out 2. Desktop Google Maps is a lot less usable if you refuse to give the entirety of Google.com precise location access. The move from maps.google.com -> google.com/maps marked the last time I asked it for directions.

magicalhippo 3y ago
Not sure if it's a US vs Norway thing but Google Maps keep confusing me by saying "keep left at the fork". Like what fork?! Oh, you mean don't exit the freeway...