Google Reader and iGoogle are my primary gateways to the internet, and now Google has cancelled both of them. This makes me fear for the future of Gmail and Blogger. (Or search, for that matter).
Google just cancelled another thing that I use: Gmail Notifier. It's a tiny, harmless little program that runs in your tray and alerts you when you have an email. And the other day, it just randomly stopped working, and googling around the problem told me that Google had discontinued it.
The internet tells me they apparently sent out a message telling people about this discontinuation, but I didn't receive anything!
However, the part that annoys me is:
If you want to continue to receive notifications, you can use any of the following alternatives to Google Notifier Beta, using the Chrome browser. To see the number of unread messages in your inbox at a glance, install the Gmail Checker Chrome app. To preview new messages on your desktop, go to Gmail's settings and enable Desktop Notifications.So basically they killed Gmail Notifier in an attempt to force people to use Chrome if they want to be notified when they have new email.
Originally I started using Firefox instead of Chrome because at the time the Chrome interface looked kind of "wrong" to me. No big attachment or anything, I just tried two and I found one a wee bit visually irksome, so I went with the other. However, since then, Google has been killing off things I use in an attempt to get me to switch to Chrome. They killed the Google Toolbar for Firefox in an attempt to make us use Chrome exclusively if we wanted that kind of toolbar interface. They killed iGoogle and suggested a range of Chrome apps as a replacement. And now they kill Gmail Notifier and suggest a Chrome app as a replacement.
And every time they do this, it makes me more determined not to use Chrome. I don't want them win! I've found Firefox add-ons and websites to replace everything Google has killed, and I'm determined not to let this strategy of theirs be successful. Before they started doing this, I had no objection to Chrome, I just chose to use Firefox. But every time they kill something to get me to switch to Chrome, I dig in even more so they won't win.
9 comments:
Firefox is the only open source browser, and the only browser worth using. Unfortunately, Mozilla seems to want to make the user interface more Chrome-like.
I left Firefox when it stopped working well with Blogger, and when it stopped accommodating the Google toolbar. If one doesn't care about open-source (which I don't), Chrome seems to me far superior.
I know about digging in the heels - kind of like me and my BlackBerry, and my refusal to use an iPhone - but at some point the stance can end up hurting more than it helps. Hopefully neither of us are there yet.
I don't know why Google would kill Gmail. I could see them shutting down Blogger one day, but Gmail is so widely used, and they sell a ton of ads on it.
As an aside and for anyone who might google their way here, people have since created unofficial Google Toolbar add-ons for Firefox, so that's no longer an issue.
When I lurk around websites with younger demographics like Reddit, sometimes people talk about email like it's obsolete and irrelevant, and express surprise that anyone would use email for their social life rather than texting or facebook. I can imagine that combining with Google's focus on novelty and recent decisions to kill things because they weren't growing as fast as newer things (even if they were widely used) to lead them to kill gmail one day.
I hope very much to be proven wrong on this.
Chrome is only faster if you don't do any serious work with your browser. It is sort of the "My First Browser" of those available -- it's slow when you get beyond 10 tabs or so, the extension model is vastly inferior, and it doesn't handle a real load well at all. In Firefox, I've had 5 browser windows with 40 tabs in each (and using all of them) with no issues. Chrome would utterly and completely choke under such conditions.
That said, Firefox is getting worse quickly and is looking and acting more like Chrome. This mirrors the larger move to alienate power users occurring also in other arenas, e.g. Windows 8.
Gmail being shut down is pretty likely in my opinion. Perhaps not shut down completely but rolled into Google+ and made far more social and Facebook-like.
This will happen I'd guess within the next 3-5 years.
When I lurk around websites with younger demographics like Reddit, sometimes people talk about email like it's obsolete and irrelevant, and express surprise that anyone would use email for their social life rather than texting or facebook.
I hear that from younger people too. I have young friends and associates who barely answer their email and insist on FB for almost everything.
However, as those people use mandatory email for university and work, they may start to see the limits of Facebook and texting, and use email again.
Of course it's possible that Google will kill Gmail, but right now, ads on Gmail and YouTube are its primary profit centres. Without those, they would not exist.
For that to change, there would have to be a massive shift in their business model.
Also, I do "serious work" with my browser. And I have no problem with Chrome. I can have tons of browsers and tabs open with no problem.
Although why I feel the need to argue with an anonymous commenter is a mystery.
The other mystery of people who prefer facebook and texting to email is that if your primary communications device is your cellphone (which is increasingly common, and especially common among younger people), it's essentially the same process to check and reply to email as to check and reply to facebook or texting. You get some kind of an alert, click on it, and type a reply on your dinky little phone keyboard. It's no less inconvenient!
(Or "no less convenient", for that matter. Both are true.)
it's essentially the same process to check and reply to email as to check and reply to facebook or texting.
Yes! I wonder if it's because parents, universities, businesses, etc. all use email, and so for some people it seems more business-like and less casual, less friendly? Whether consciously or no?
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