There are decent alternatives to pretty much everything. YouTube and Maps are the two standouts, but both of those can be used without an account. There are other Maps as well, Google just seems to have the most business information and reviews.
For search I use Kagi, but DuckDuckGo is a free alternative for those who can’t afford to pay for search.
Proton offers Email, Calendar, and cloud storage… and recently a password manager as well. For those in the Apple ecosystem, iCloud is an option as well. There is also Microsoft. Or host your own.
For docs, there is Microsoft’s online stuff, iCloud has stuff, and I think there are a few other smaller players as well. Actual desktop apps are also still an option, like LibreOffice.
If someone has an old gmail account, that can be a lot of work to migrate, but all the other stuff can go and the email process can begin. My gmail account is 90% nonsense these days.
It all depends on how deeply a person is invested in all the various Google services. Once you start and give it some time, a lot of the stuff you may have thought you needed to migrate could just age out and become irrelevant.
Depends on your goals I think. Microsoft isn’t very likely to ever abandon their office suite, since it’s an integral part of their business. Google could do that tomorrow.
If you want to get away from big evil corporations, then no they’re obviously not an alternative.
I think there are Google Docs clones you could self-host.
OnlyOffice, which is included in NextCloud and allows for co-editing, works fine in my experience. Microsoft Office Online is slightly more sophisticated, but it also feels more bloated in my experience.
There’s also a markdown editor allowing for co-authoring in Nextcloud. It lacks proper track changes, but for drafting up a document together it’s great. Then you can just convert to word or latex when it’s time to revise.
For most of my co-authoring needs I use Overleaf, which is a fantastic online Latex editor.
Yes! The ones I listed are just my preferred solutions for simultaneous co-authoring. Whenever I just need regular office software LibreOffice is my go to. :)
At least their not advertising companies, although Microsoft has gone all-in on generative AI, so I think we can assume anything you do there will feed the beast.
Apple has seemed pretty consistent when it comes to not wanting to do shit with user data, or have access to it. But if you’re not already in the ecosystem, their products would be annoying to use, and there is a solid argument to make about avoiding falling into any ecosystem… there are arguments for it too.
When talking about smaller companies, the future becomes really unsure. Will Dropbox survive in a world of Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud? Will the smaller companies allow themselves to be acquired to satisfy investors and then get promptly shutdown?
With a lot of it I have to question how much I need it. Do I need something like Google Docs or Word to write a paper, or can I just do it in a text editor, store it in plain text, which will be readable by everything forever, and then just do a little formatting in whatever word processor I want in the moment, if I need to hand off a fancy copy for school or whatever.
There are decent alternatives to pretty much everything. YouTube and Maps are the two standouts, but both of those can be used without an account. There are other Maps as well, Google just seems to have the most business information and reviews.
For search I use Kagi, but DuckDuckGo is a free alternative for those who can’t afford to pay for search.
Proton offers Email, Calendar, and cloud storage… and recently a password manager as well. For those in the Apple ecosystem, iCloud is an option as well. There is also Microsoft. Or host your own.
For docs, there is Microsoft’s online stuff, iCloud has stuff, and I think there are a few other smaller players as well. Actual desktop apps are also still an option, like LibreOffice.
If someone has an old gmail account, that can be a lot of work to migrate, but all the other stuff can go and the email process can begin. My gmail account is 90% nonsense these days.
It all depends on how deeply a person is invested in all the various Google services. Once you start and give it some time, a lot of the stuff you may have thought you needed to migrate could just age out and become irrelevant.
Microsoft is not really an alternative lol
Depends on your goals I think. Microsoft isn’t very likely to ever abandon their office suite, since it’s an integral part of their business. Google could do that tomorrow.
If you want to get away from big evil corporations, then no they’re obviously not an alternative.
I think there are Google Docs clones you could self-host.
OnlyOffice, which is included in NextCloud and allows for co-editing, works fine in my experience. Microsoft Office Online is slightly more sophisticated, but it also feels more bloated in my experience.
There’s also a markdown editor allowing for co-authoring in Nextcloud. It lacks proper track changes, but for drafting up a document together it’s great. Then you can just convert to word or latex when it’s time to revise.
For most of my co-authoring needs I use Overleaf, which is a fantastic online Latex editor.
There are certainly options! Good old LibreOffice is still around too.
Yes! The ones I listed are just my preferred solutions for simultaneous co-authoring. Whenever I just need regular office software LibreOffice is my go to. :)
I would argue that anything from Microsoft or Apple are not good, safe alternatives to Google.
At least their not advertising companies, although Microsoft has gone all-in on generative AI, so I think we can assume anything you do there will feed the beast.
Apple has seemed pretty consistent when it comes to not wanting to do shit with user data, or have access to it. But if you’re not already in the ecosystem, their products would be annoying to use, and there is a solid argument to make about avoiding falling into any ecosystem… there are arguments for it too.
When talking about smaller companies, the future becomes really unsure. Will Dropbox survive in a world of Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud? Will the smaller companies allow themselves to be acquired to satisfy investors and then get promptly shutdown?
With a lot of it I have to question how much I need it. Do I need something like Google Docs or Word to write a paper, or can I just do it in a text editor, store it in plain text, which will be readable by everything forever, and then just do a little formatting in whatever word processor I want in the moment, if I need to hand off a fancy copy for school or whatever.