To quote someone from a complaint thread on the google forums:
"Google, you were once the leader in clean, sleek, simple and fast websites. Now... you've turned into a doodad whore, your "features" are cumbersome and sometimes downright annoying. Truth be told, Google, you're making me hate the internet. Stop it."
RANT ALERT
Has anyone else been negatively effected in the past three or so years by Google's "updates"?
First things first, I've been a extreme early adopter and advocate of google for years. I've been using gmail since it was still in the development stage and you needed an invite to join. Earth since version 2. Same with sketchup. I was using chrome when they were releasing nightly alpha builds. I got the original droid because of its core connectivity to google. Since the days when Myspace reigned supreme, I systematically wrapped my digital life around google.
No more.
The tide began to turn with an update to google earth, I believe version 6. Street view in GE used to be a layer, where every picture had an icon. This was great as not only could you select EXACTLY the view you wanted, but it also had addresses, meaning it was the easiest way to see where you were. With the update it changed to the google maps blue line style. Gone was the ability to select an individual panorama. Gone the ability to see addresses from above. Several updates later, I almost never use GE. It's slow and frequently crashes, core functionality has been removed in favor of ads, the "melting" 3d imagery is not only disgusting looking, but nonfunctional, and I can no longer turn off terrain. Within a period of a few years, it went from a program I used daily to one I dread having to interact with.
Google maps. Why google, why? GM essentially murdered all competitors, and it was wonderful. It was light, fast and functional. The satellite imagery was crisp and regularly updated. The my maps function was genius, and extremely useful. Ported to my android, the traffic layer and navigation was a breeze. I never could have run deliveries without it. After the latest update, I've gone to bing maps. That's right, microsoft, the epitome of everything that's wrong with software I prefer over google. There is no longer an option for satellite view without hacking over to a "lite" mode. The bottom and side of the screen are so loaded with ads and pictures that have nothing to do with maps yet take up 20% of the screen real estate. The maps themselves are loaded with ads and places that get in the way of reading street names, and the adjusted color scheme is less legible. I can't comment of the "earth" mode, because it is so slow it crashes not only my home PC, but the rendering rigs at my school. From the little I have interacted with though, it sucks. I can't even find the my places function anymore, so much for all the maps I made.
Gmail, what converted me to google in the first place, is also becoming nonfunctional. The organization into conversations has caused me to miss important information more than once when multiple replys come in. I missed out on a job offer because it decided that it was "social", thereby not showing up in my main inbox OR my phones notifications. The new message composition 'window' is less intuitive and harder to use, especially since it does not indicate whether my signature is appended or not. A feature as core as "sign out" is buried in menus.
They sold sketchup, and it's turned into a cartoon. I'm using v8.0, because I can't stand the new iterations. It's the only drafting software I don't update every year. 3Dwarehouse is also overflowing with garbage, wheras it used to have a lot more useful content.
I've never been much of a youtuber, but I hear there are myriad complaints on that front as well.
Even their search engine, previously the pinnacle of minimalist beauty, is declining in usefulness. They broke the advanced option into two menus. Their crawlers heavily lean to social media, which is not helpful at all when searching for scholarly information. The image search frequently returns broken links, and doesn't actually indicate how many hits the search returned.
Anyone else giving up? Any good alternatives? I hate bing maps, but I've been using it for 90% of stuff since the update to google maps came out. I've just given up on GE. I'm contemplating getting a windows phone for my next upgrade, because it seems that being tethered to google has become a detriment to my productivity instead of encouraging it. Every day I find a new feature that I could previously do that is now rendered either convoluted or impossible after an update. I can't remember the last time an update introduced a new feature that was actually useful instead of breaking everything.
GAH!
"Google, you were once the leader in clean, sleek, simple and fast websites. Now... you've turned into a doodad whore, your "features" are cumbersome and sometimes downright annoying. Truth be told, Google, you're making me hate the internet. Stop it."
RANT ALERT
Has anyone else been negatively effected in the past three or so years by Google's "updates"?
First things first, I've been a extreme early adopter and advocate of google for years. I've been using gmail since it was still in the development stage and you needed an invite to join. Earth since version 2. Same with sketchup. I was using chrome when they were releasing nightly alpha builds. I got the original droid because of its core connectivity to google. Since the days when Myspace reigned supreme, I systematically wrapped my digital life around google.
No more.
The tide began to turn with an update to google earth, I believe version 6. Street view in GE used to be a layer, where every picture had an icon. This was great as not only could you select EXACTLY the view you wanted, but it also had addresses, meaning it was the easiest way to see where you were. With the update it changed to the google maps blue line style. Gone was the ability to select an individual panorama. Gone the ability to see addresses from above. Several updates later, I almost never use GE. It's slow and frequently crashes, core functionality has been removed in favor of ads, the "melting" 3d imagery is not only disgusting looking, but nonfunctional, and I can no longer turn off terrain. Within a period of a few years, it went from a program I used daily to one I dread having to interact with.
Google maps. Why google, why? GM essentially murdered all competitors, and it was wonderful. It was light, fast and functional. The satellite imagery was crisp and regularly updated. The my maps function was genius, and extremely useful. Ported to my android, the traffic layer and navigation was a breeze. I never could have run deliveries without it. After the latest update, I've gone to bing maps. That's right, microsoft, the epitome of everything that's wrong with software I prefer over google. There is no longer an option for satellite view without hacking over to a "lite" mode. The bottom and side of the screen are so loaded with ads and pictures that have nothing to do with maps yet take up 20% of the screen real estate. The maps themselves are loaded with ads and places that get in the way of reading street names, and the adjusted color scheme is less legible. I can't comment of the "earth" mode, because it is so slow it crashes not only my home PC, but the rendering rigs at my school. From the little I have interacted with though, it sucks. I can't even find the my places function anymore, so much for all the maps I made.
Gmail, what converted me to google in the first place, is also becoming nonfunctional. The organization into conversations has caused me to miss important information more than once when multiple replys come in. I missed out on a job offer because it decided that it was "social", thereby not showing up in my main inbox OR my phones notifications. The new message composition 'window' is less intuitive and harder to use, especially since it does not indicate whether my signature is appended or not. A feature as core as "sign out" is buried in menus.
They sold sketchup, and it's turned into a cartoon. I'm using v8.0, because I can't stand the new iterations. It's the only drafting software I don't update every year. 3Dwarehouse is also overflowing with garbage, wheras it used to have a lot more useful content.
I've never been much of a youtuber, but I hear there are myriad complaints on that front as well.
Even their search engine, previously the pinnacle of minimalist beauty, is declining in usefulness. They broke the advanced option into two menus. Their crawlers heavily lean to social media, which is not helpful at all when searching for scholarly information. The image search frequently returns broken links, and doesn't actually indicate how many hits the search returned.
Anyone else giving up? Any good alternatives? I hate bing maps, but I've been using it for 90% of stuff since the update to google maps came out. I've just given up on GE. I'm contemplating getting a windows phone for my next upgrade, because it seems that being tethered to google has become a detriment to my productivity instead of encouraging it. Every day I find a new feature that I could previously do that is now rendered either convoluted or impossible after an update. I can't remember the last time an update introduced a new feature that was actually useful instead of breaking everything.
GAH!
