I'm surprised that I'm asking this because I've been such a fan of Google for years....but does anyone have alternative suggestions for Google products? (

Looking for alternative suggestions for:

1. Google Maps (yikes was it bad when I used it this week) 2. Google Docs (such a frustrating lack of features) 3. Google Drive (it's impossible to find anything when you are sharing docs with someone) 4. Google Search (ChatGPT has spoiled me and I find Google Search to be a large waste of time) 5. Google Classroom (their quizzes/homeworks/forms are unbelievable bad and I can't tell what students can see vs what they can't) 6. Gmail (I've love gmail for so long but with all the other products just being so bad it's making me wonder what else I'm missing something better)

Sorry to sh!t on Google so much, but everything is just so mediocre that I'm tired of it and want something higher quality. Anyone have thoughts?

Excel Online is free, got a lost faster and has the vast majority of Excel features. (Full disclosure I work on it)

Wow that's great. I had no idea - thank you.

> ChatGPT has spoiled me and I find Google Search to be a large waste of time

I hope you're not blindly trusting answers. I experimented with ChatGPT for a while and (even when using the GPT-4 model) I would get answers that were false but didn't sound too unreasonable. I could have easily been misled if I didn't already know the answers to the things I was asking it.

No I don't. It's wrong so much of the time but gives me enough to figure out a lot of stuff. It's more like a rubber duck most of the time.

Google maps has deteriorated considerably for me recently. It used to be flawless, but now it routes me through random neighborhoods and awkward narrow streets, like I haven't seen navigation this bad since MapQuest.

OpenStreetMap [1] is a potential alternative to Google Maps for some.

[1] - https://www.openstreetmap.org/

For Google maps if you have an iphone then i recommend Apple Maps. The traffic data isnt great and their map data could use work and no offline maps (yet!), but i find their directions easy to follow and the UX miles ahead. Lane changes are clearly communicated ahead of time, and the directions are something I’d tell another human, i.e fewer turns than the “optimal” path.

Second Apple Maps. It has gotten quite good over the years and uses also less battery than google maps.

Gmail has been so bad at stopping spam and useless email that I’ve had to essentially abandon one of my email addresses.

Magic earth,osmand+, Openstreetmaps

Wps, only office, Zoho docs

Offline only office is really nice

Nextcloud

Searxng

Zoho mail is like Gmail a decade ago, protonmail is decent too

I found the OsmAnd+ user experience quite irritating, and OpenStreetMap is just a fancy database and not a competing product to Google Maps for the user who wants live directions/navigation.

That said, for mobile use Organic Maps is pretty good: https://organicmaps.app/

Try magic earth, definitely made for driving, and...all maps are just databases. Osmand+ is great after you configure the gui a bit

Try magic earth, definitely made for driving

Don't know most of these - thanks for the info

i use magic earth for maps, libre programs for word/excel etc (not cross-device though), searxng for searches (pick an instance and try it), tutanota for email (they focus on privacy - emails and your inbox are encrypted).

The email I got says that Album Archive is shutting down, that I accessed it yesterday, and that I should use Google Takeout to export a single photo that I can't access (?). So I got to Google Takeout and I'm told that I have one export remaining. None of this makes any sense. I have never heard of any of these.

I'm really surprised at how bad Google is at making products given how much money they have and the level of skill the people have there. There are so many problem across all of their business and consumer products that I've seen. I can't see what the draw is to keep using their stuff, especially since they are so good at killing stuff off.

> that I accessed it yesterday

Same. I thought my account might have been comprised after seeing this email.

Similar experience. Fortunately there is an activity log link, showing that Dropbox uploaded something which looks like a CD cover there once in 2011. important notice.

Click that single photo. It's a folder, at least it was for me.

You can have all the money in the world and still be utterly disorganized

I read this as childish frustration directed at people that are not "as smart" as the author.

Regardless of what he's trying to say, there are much much better ways to present these topics.