[HN Gopher] I'm tired of Google's business products
___________________________________________________________________
I'm tired of Google's business products
I've been trying to start a business lately, and as many people do,
have chosen to rely on Google's suite of products. Google Ads for
marketing, Google workspace for email, Drive for spreadsheets...
The works. While working for other companies, I never really had a
problem with their services. In fact, Google remains one of my
favorite companies of all time for solving the search problem
(their search engine is still the best, sorry haters). However,
over the past few months, I have STRUGGLED against the tide to use
their other services. My Google ads account is currently suspended
for reasons I cannot fathom. My Google Sheets spreadsheet is
currently frozen (the reason I'm ranting right now). Their
administrative setting pages feel like going to the DMV from the
amount of options on screen. Last but not least, their support is
almost nonexistent. Am I alone in this? Is this a problem of my
own making, by using Safari instead of Chrome, and not configuring
my services properly? Or is this a feeling that others get?
Conclusion: I hope Google gets some real competition soon because
it feels like they are falling off. Edit: Shameless plug, my
company peddles a data movement tool called SQLpipe.
https://sqlpipe.com
Author : sqlpipe
Score : 189 points
Date : 2022-04-14 12:50 UTC (10 hours ago)
| taylodl wrote:
| * > I've been trying to start a business lately, and as many
| people do, have chosen to rely on Google's suite of products.*
|
| Just a reminder, most businesses fail - so doing what many people
| do is not necessarily the best thing to do.
|
| Having said that, it's rather foolish to have your business
| depend on Google. They have repeatedly demonstrated they're not
| good business partners and the main thrust of their business
| isn't in providing products and services for businesses. They
| don't support their services, they'll drop them at a moment's
| notice without any regard to the impacts to your business, and
| there's no way to get ahold of a human being when things
| inevitably go sour. Why do you want to partner with someone like
| that?
|
| I bash on the technical merits of Windows all day long but one
| thing Microsoft has done well over its nearly 50 year history is
| serving the needs of business. It's in their DNA. Office 365 is a
| very capable, and supported, platform. Nice thing is you can run
| it on a Mac too!
| Cordivae wrote:
| Exactly. They make major decisions, give you less than 3 months
| to completely change things you depend on. And you can't even
| get someone on the phone (or even email for god-sake) to
| complain to.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Sorry, but as a user, Office 365 is a nightmare to use. Outlook
| on Mac can't even do in-line email quotes. Sharing documents in
| your org is done via SharePoint(tm), the greatest nightmare on
| the planet. Don't get me started on MS teams.
|
| Google products are much better from a UX perspective imho.
| The-Bus wrote:
| I think the comment was about enterprise/business support,
| not features.
| version_five wrote:
| I think it's just a matter of opinion. I've used both O365
| and GSuite extensively at different jobs, and after the
| initial switch, they are not too different, each has their
| annoyances, but I don't see a major change in productivity or
| quality of output between the two.
|
| In my business I like the option of sharing a .docx or .pptx
| and not having to ask a client to use google docs to view
| stuff. But when I had google docs, I made it work. I agree
| with the root comment that MS is much more business oriented
| though. At the end of the day, Google's "products" are still
| just a ruse to sell ads, so they don't have the institutional
| focus on solving business problems that MS has (not that MS
| is in any way perfect)
| agentdrtran wrote:
| You have the same problem with MS or Google, and Google
| probably isn't going to kill Gmail/Drive anytime soon. If it's
| a core service you're fine.
| rapsey wrote:
| You can absolutely contact support for MS products and they
| will be helpful. I've done it multiple times for our tiny
| account.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Google also has support for all paid Workspace tiers.
| tome wrote:
| 1. Nerd snipe Hacker News, for example with a story about how
| Google's services are declining in quality
|
| 2. Link to your company website
|
| 3. Better marketing than your allegedly suspended AdWords
| account!
| Cordivae wrote:
| I _hate_ Google Workspace so much.
|
| Not because of the product, which seems fine. But because 10
| years ago I signed up for google apps. It was marketed as a way
| to have a vanity gmail domain. Free forever up to 10 users.
|
| I thought it was cool, was a huge Google fan at the time, and
| created a custom domain for myself and another one for my
| grandparents. Now, 10 years later they are holding my online
| persona hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make
| Workspaces more profitable.
|
| All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain. I have zero use for
| the business functionality. Fuck you google.
|
| I'm a VP of Cloud Platform for a rather large enterprise and
| quite frankly this is why we won't even consider Google Cloud.
| Broken trust. Broken promises.
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| Is that large Enterprise a bank, or a company where VP actually
| means something?
| greenhorn123 wrote:
| I wonder how many people with some clout have decided to forego
| Googles business offerings because of a bad personal
| interaction with them.
| fatnoah wrote:
| >All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain.
|
| Who owns the domain here? I use a custom domain with Gmail
| Workspaces, but I own the domain, and therefore control the MX
| records. The only thing I'd lose in a switch is stored email
| messages, but there are ways to download those.
| lucasgonze wrote:
| You need to migrate all the other google products you use
| with that email, including Photos, Play Store, Contacts, etc.
| It's about 20 products.
| Cordivae wrote:
| Yes. I own the domains. And if they go through with this I
| will move and leave Google's ecosystem entirely.
|
| It will be a huge pain in the ass trying to do it for my
| grandparents though.
| fatnoah wrote:
| Gotcha. Yeah, IT for the parents & grandparents is
| definitely a challenge for things like this.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's a challenge for everybody. Having to put people who
| aren't computer savvy through it is just a reminder of
| what a pain in the ass it is... The fact that we can
| self-service doesn't make it less of an annoyance than we
| have to do something.
|
| And at this point, the pattern is clear. Google Business
| products are free until they are not. Building them into
| your infrastructure is taking on technical debt that you
| will have to pay down in the future, either by actually
| buying the product when they decide it is no longer free
| or by switching to an alternative.
|
| I still run into websites with a big API disabled
| rectangle where their Google maps integration used to be.
| akrymski wrote:
| I use Gmail with my own domain for free. My domain registrar
| (namecheap) allows forwarding of email for free. You can add
| extra email addresses in Gmail itself.
| criddell wrote:
| When you send or reply using Gmail, does the email appear to
| come from your gmail account or your domain?
| modeless wrote:
| > All I ever wanted was my own Gmail domain
|
| You don't need Workspace to use the Gmail UI with your custom
| domain. All you need is a regular free @gmail.com account.
| First switch your domain to an email hosting service that
| provides SMTP and IMAP, you probably get one free from your
| domain registrar. In Gmail settings for your @gmail account,
| add your custom domain as an alternate address for sending
| mail, using your SMTP server. Also configure Gmail to fetch
| mail from your IMAP server. Voila! Gmail is now a frontend for
| your custom domain, absolutely free. You can continue to use
| your existing custom email addresses, and you can forget about
| Workspace forever.
|
| If you have purchased content such as Play Store apps that are
| tied to your Workspace account, you can downgrade it to a
| "Cloud Identity Free Edition" account, and continue to use it.
| This is a pain, and I think they are finally working on some
| kind of migration tool to move that content to another account.
| Hopefully that happens soon.
| booi wrote:
| This definitely works in a pinch but it's not _quite_ the
| same. Things never work quite right, for example calendar
| invites, push notifications for email and Google Sign In.
| Also, most clients will expose your custom domain AND your
| gmail address when they receive the email. If you 're using
| it as a semi-professional address, this is probably a deal
| breaker.
| frankosaurus wrote:
| Is there an in-depth howto guide to do this?
| saimiam wrote:
| FWIW, this is literally exactly how my product PretzelBox
| (https://pretzelbox.cc) works. We are looking for beta
| users, if you care to take it for a spin.
| lucasgonze wrote:
| You are trivializing a migration that involves more than ten
| times as many components. Here's my todo list for the same
| problem:
|
| - gmail - drive storage - calendar - contacts - keep - photos
| - music - domains - Pay - adsense - webmaster tools -
| analytics - authenticator - Home - maps - chrome - youtube -
| Play - email at external sites
|
| Can you explain your idea about using Cloud Identity Free
| Edition in order to allow an email at a third party to own
| Play Store apps?
| modeless wrote:
| You don't have to transfer ownership of the apps. I'm not
| 100% certain but I believe that you can just login to the
| phone with both your real account and the Cloud Identity
| account, install the apps from the Play Store using the
| Cloud Identity account, and once they're installed you can
| use them with either account. That's how it works with
| other Google accounts. And of course you only need to do
| this with paid apps previously owned by the Cloud Identity
| account. New apps or free apps you can just get in your
| real account.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| > Now, 10 years later they are holding my online persona
| hostage in a shameless cash grab to try and make Workspaces
| more profitable.
|
| I'm in the same boat, but since ~2006 when I started my first
| company (dont recall exactly when I set up my google apps
| account though). I have to chose whether to move my account
| (which thanks to sign in with google is attached to more places
| than I can even remember), or pony up $6/mo/user with 20
| friends and family having email accounts under my domain.
|
| I have not yet decided what to do. But if I leave Google. I
| will leave for life, and that includes multiple other Workplace
| accounts that I already DO pay for. I'm sure losing a few
| thousand a year doesn't matter to them, but mail-in-a-box seems
| like a decent fit for my limited email I actually use on those
| older accounts.
| pandemicsoul wrote:
| I run an online club with about 20-something email addresses.
| We're almost certainly moving to Migadu (which doesn't charge
| per account and seems reputable, according to lots of folks
| here) and then downgrading our account to the "Google
| Workspace Essentials" so our Google Docs don't go anywhere.
| Reitet00 wrote:
| I moved to Migadu from Google Apps a month ago. The only
| minor issue is slightly worse spam filter but everything
| else works well and the ability to use Sieve scripts is
| really nice.
| saimiam wrote:
| My baby, PretzelBox.cc, is no Google but it does give you an
| inbox for your domain and a half decent looking blog
| (https://pretzelbox.cc/blog/) and a way to store and share
| files.
|
| /shameless_plug
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| > which thanks to sign in with google is attached to more
| places than I can even remember
|
| I used to think refusing that option and creating new
| accounts was just me being obtuse, but I don't regret it now
| (and with a password manager it's mostly not a major drag).
| Cordivae wrote:
| Exactly. If I have to leave I will leave forever as well. To
| the point of buying a mac / iphone, and completely leaving
| the google ecosystem. That's how much this pisses me off.
|
| Its now about the principle rather than how much it actually
| costs.
| rvba wrote:
| Will all those people lose their email when something happens
| to you?
| milesward wrote:
| We help with this, it can be easier. Miles@sada.com As good as
| their products are, setup and config and ops are invariably too
| pesky, so we train experts to know how to efficiently navigate.
| dezb wrote:
| move to zoho.com FFS
| Tozen wrote:
| The OP is not alone in being screwed over by Google. I mean, your
| small business can get absolutely wrecked by them, and they don't
| seem to care. There appears to be out of control malicious
| targeting, blacklisting, suspensions, banning, shadow banning,
| and privacy violations without accountability or due process.
|
| The opinions of many is that Google is very unreliable, unless
| you are a big enough customer for them to care. It gets really
| weird when you start paying for various Google services, but
| apparently are not paying enough. There can be an expectation of
| customer service and support, that is not there.
|
| Even worse, if you are not big enough to matter or paying them
| enough, seems you can easily get stepped on (to include odd
| suspensions). Your business revenues can possibly decrease, where
| you thought previously it would been a good idea to use Google
| services and products.
|
| Very good argument, as a small business, not to rely on Google.
| Find other ways, with better customer support and less weirdness.
| Have low expectations of Google, like you would street gangsters
| in the hood squeezing local unsuspecting businesses for cash.
| akselmo wrote:
| I would never use google for my business. I would rather self
| host it, especially with a small team or solo.
| T3RMINATED wrote:
| Saphyel wrote:
| I have used everything from google (as a typical user and as dev
| using their GCP) and everything they do "works" I feel like they
| do something messy and that's it. Kind of let's throw products
| and the client will figure out and if it isn't successful or we
| lose our main team we shut down the product.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| My company (~30 people, healthcare field, engineering, software)
| uses Google. I have heard complaints about the ads, but I use the
| sheets on a daily basis, and we all use the drive to share and
| collaborate on most files. No complaints on that front.
|
| I really like sheets because I learned how to use AppScript to
| automate a lot and I can't imagine working on anything without
| that functionality. Same goes for docs, slides and the rest of
| the suite.
|
| We do have a guy who handles all the support and set-up though so
| I don't have the full perspective on this.
| floatinglotus wrote:
| It's complete BS and between the forced upgrade to a paid account
| for the same email I've used for about 10 years AND the lack of
| response to an Adsense issue where I could not run ads for a YEAR
| because Google thought a JPEG was malicious software, I'm moving
| everything I own away from Google. Already moved the email and
| domains, working on the drive stuff now.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Just go 100% Linux with the LibreOffice suite and if the business
| takes off, kick down a sizable donation.
| franczesko wrote:
| > their support is almost nonexistent
|
| #1 reason why I will never use GCP. With regards to their
| advertising services, last year their support took a grotesk turn
| - or account managers told us, that we have to create tickets to
| get help (which in fact mitigates the need of having account
| managers in the first place)
| beej71 wrote:
| The primary reason I don't use Adsense is the risk that I'll be
| locked out of my Google account for unknown reasons.
|
| I've heard the same advice here on HN: if you're using Google
| tools for anything, do not use Adsense.
| WYepQ4dNnG wrote:
| "Google Services generated $69.4 billion, or about 92% of total
| revenue, in Q4 FY 2021. Advertising revenue, at $61.2 billion,
| comprised 88% of the segment's revenue."
|
| Most of their money comes from Ads, they couldn't give two crap
| about all other services, including cloud. And that's why they
| keep launching and discontinuing products.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| I decided I wanted to start a blog and run ads on it, created a
| google ads account and was immediately blocked with no means of
| redress or support, only automated "tough luck" replies.
| sqlpipe wrote:
| Me too!
|
| Upon appeal, they emailed me back saying "we can confirm your
| account isn't suspended"... It's like what are you talking
| about? I'm looking right at a big red banner saying my account
| is suspended!
|
| My hopes are not high for a fast resolution.
| salawat wrote:
| Google's stuff is barely hastily patched together, hard to reason
| through crap.
|
| It works, don't get me wrong. But I'm helping a family member
| start a business on the tech front, and most of their offerings
| are opaque to her. Built by tech people to be used by tech
| people, without the benefit of good, solid, onramp documentation,
| tooling, and user hostile offering design.
|
| Example: don't even try to admin Drive with anything less than
| business Standard, despite the fact centralized file handling is
| most useful to those with lower data quotas.
|
| The sharing is a mess. And I was horrified that most searches for
| Google drive administration were either docs that tried to sell
| you on drive, or internet public drives of individual users who
| just left stuff out there with personal information in it waiting
| to get reaped.
|
| At this point, it really frightens me what Google is trying to
| normalize in computing.
| IYasha wrote:
| You're not alone.
| goopthink wrote:
| I completely agree - this is nearly verbatim a personal
| frustration I recorded in my work log from a few days ago:
|
| Extremely frustrated with Google Shopping ads. I can't understand
| how they make money. Spent an hour trying to figure out how to:
|
| - Add custom UTM parameters (can't unless with a manual feed, it
| looks like) because Google doesn't doesn't seem to track shopping
| ads unless you install extra JS events and modify google
| analytics
|
| - Change search queries that products come up for (after deeper
| research, look like you can't - again, handled by the data feed
| but your product title must be now SEO'd to all heck to hit the
| right keywords. Good luck if you have an original product name)
|
| - Fix the product disapprovals (their bot was too dumb to
| understand how to navigate native shopify variants, it keeps
| seeing a mismatch between a variant and its price... and this is
| the data feed that Googles own app in Shopify generates!)
|
| - Understand why the shopping ads dashboard in Google and the in-
| Shopify google shopping ads dashboard show different product
| disapprovals... just why? Genuinely confused here.
|
| It's ridiculous. It wasn't this hard a few years ago. In the
| quest to add more 'automation' and 'smartness' they've made it so
| dumb and so bad it drives me up the wall.
|
| It reminds me of the time when a friend tried to do Google's
| recommendations for "smart" ads and it optimized his local North
| Carolina health store ads to ads for dieticians targetting
| neighboring states, because of a few logical algorithmic leaps of
| "well this is what other users see success with, with ads like
| yours." He wasted a few hundred dollars and time fielding
| confused calls, until we reverted the campaign, turned all the
| recommendations off and made it a simple, dumb but effective
| campaign.
|
| What a joke. A horribly infuriating joke played by a group of
| product managers and engineers. They are literally leaving so
| much money on the table because the platform is so unusable
| (speaking for experience: I regularly have people turn to me
| asking for help setting up their ads because they can't make
| heads or tails of it).
| Kalanos wrote:
| And there is no way to provide feedback!
| mountainriver wrote:
| Yeah they have edges and the support is bad, but they still kind
| of hit a sweet spot of good ux and features all tied into the
| google account you probably already use for mail/search.
|
| I think we will see more competitors in this space though. Google
| isn't investing enough into it and there is opportunity.
| kkfx wrote:
| My main struggle is more broad: I dislike modern crappy and
| archaic IT toolchains. For instance I see no points in using
| Meet/Teams/Zoom when we can do the same without a central
| service, but so far beside few limited software like Jami or
| classic, buggy and expensive stuff (classic VoIP gears) there is
| almost nothing and more important nothing spread so even if
| that's theoretically perfectly possible avoid those modern
| platforms I simply can't: being able to talk to myself alone is
| not much interesting.
|
| Similarly I hate when people send .docx instead of a pdf with
| proper forms (and when people print then scan documents, or take
| photos of their screen to send them instead of a screenshot)
| etc...
|
| Google by itself does not sell anything more crappier then it's
| competitors, so I "hate" them equally seeing not much differences
| between them. Beside that in corporate terms, it's not only a
| matter of internal choices stakeholders choices have to be taken
| into account and in the present time it's no less tedious
| avoiding Alphabet than using it, unfortunately...
| _jal wrote:
| One aspect of building a business is resilience: What happens
| when things break?
|
| Because things break.
|
| I personally would not use Google business products for a
| startup. They're fine for established shops where when Google
| fucks up your account, they 'know' who you are. If you're a
| small-$ nobody, the support policy is "sucks to be you".
|
| But everyone has different risk tolerances and fond feelings for
| certain companies. More important than that choice is to ask,
| "what do I do when Google/whoever breaks, or I have to generate a
| quote and the connectivity is down", and so on.
|
| Speaking of which, is Atlasssian still rebuilding?
| josefresco wrote:
| Google Analytics
|
| Google Ads
|
| Google Workspace
|
| All terrible experiences with overly complex UIs and a nightmare
| to use for small biz.
| FlyNestor wrote:
| The advantage of dealing with small businesses in tech is that
| they are not huge cold monsters.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > their support is almost nonexistent
|
| This is the critical bit. If you're happy with a vanilla product
| where you essentially search for how to access every feature
| ("how do I make a pivot table?"), Google Suite is for you. I use
| it for just low-value bags of documents, nothing critical in it
| at all. I never have a need for special features, and anything I
| do need I'm confident is actually there because I only use
| spreadsheets for totally vanilla stuff. I also don't depend on
| anything being available, so I avoid the pain every time there's
| an outage.
|
| I think for that kind of service, a few bucks a month is about
| right.
|
| For anything that needs a higher level of service, you don't
| really want to rely on a business whose strategy revolves around
| minimal customer interaction.
| Chyzwar wrote:
| I am now working on a startup idea. We use:
| Fastmail for email Github for code, actions, registry and
| projects management Discord for comms Obsydian + Git
| for notes Cloudflare for domains, analytics Hetzner
| Cloud for hosting
|
| We are not at stage to advertise (pre MVP) but I made a decision
| to avoid Google from day one.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| 10 years+ ago I tried to get google apps (paid) setup for a
| nonprofit. Got in some weird doomloop / eventual consistency
| issue with the temp domain they assign being the admin At the
| time support was no help. Then I got a google home and it didn't
| work with my other google workspace account (I hear this was
| eventually fixed after like 5 years).
|
| Compared to Amazon is interesting.
|
| On Amazon.com I had a tricky high value return that really would
| take some thought to see I was owed the funds (some shipment mess
| with tracking issues). Someone worked it out and I got my money
| (maybe they looked at 10+ years of pretty high use with few
| returns in this).
|
| And AWS dev support used to be good too (haven't tried recently).
| legitster wrote:
| I've never much cared for Google Workspaces. Give me dedicated
| desktop applications. Our corporate Google drive is a hot useless
| mess of ugly, half-finished files.
|
| > I hope Google gets some real competition soon because it feels
| like they are falling off.
|
| Microsoft Office is still a big player, and I personally really
| like the 365 ecosystem.
| asiachick wrote:
| are you playing for google apps/gsuite for a custom domain? I
| have had no trouble getting live support that way. Ymmv
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Observe HN posts for a while. You will notice, that whenever
| Goolge and their support comes up, comments are rich with
| experiences/anecdotes of people, who have been stonewalled by
| Google. Their support is non-existent. Having proper support
| would cost them lots of money. Same for their other big
| disservices like YouTube. How many people have been banned for
| non-sensical reasons and tried to appeal. It has become something
| of a common knowledge, that there is basically no support worth
| mentioning, at least in the tech circles.
|
| Oh and don't think for a second, that using MS' alternative web
| products (Office 365) is much better. You pay for the probably
| buggiest office experience on the planet.
| ilamont wrote:
| I can confirm Microsoft ads (Bing ads or whatever they're
| called) are even worse. We shut off an underperforming campaign
| and they were automatically restarted, repeatedly, until we
| disabled the entire account.
| pocketsand wrote:
| I created a small ad campaign to advertise a side project. The
| projects makes no money, has no plan for monetization, does not
| use passwords. The only personal data it collects is an email
| address.
|
| I bought $50 worth of ads using my credit card. My account was
| immediately suspended for suspicious payment. I appealed, noting
| the card was mine, and I bought the ads. The appeal was rejected.
|
| I have occasionally tried to resubmit the appeal, but it says
| "please wait 3-5 business days before submitting a new appeal." I
| wait more than that and get the same message.
|
| I've called Google to try to talk to them. However, once it asks
| for my contact information, it tells me that they cannot talk to
| me because my account is suspended. It's a circular nightmare.
|
| I currently do not needs ads so it's not a hardship. But it is
| extremely frustrating.
|
| EDIT: One irony is that it is the _same card_ I use to pay for my
| other Google services, linked through the same payment backend.
| They have no issue charging that card for my other services. But
| for Ads, it 's suspicious. Who knows.
| sqlpipe wrote:
| "I've called Google to try to talk to them"...
|
| Currently contemplating this, but am certain it will leave me
| with a feeling of "well, I'll never get that 30 minutes back"
| pocketsand wrote:
| To their credit, the automated system told me I was banned
| and couldn't talk to anyone until I got unbanned, so I never
| got anyone on the phone.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Sounds like a good ol' curfew pass A38.
| lamontcg wrote:
| Sounds like someone forgot to fill out the form twenty
| seven B stroke 6.
| lwkl wrote:
| The support reps are nice and will talk to you but can't do
| much. My experience has been the following:
|
| I have Google One and it annoys me that the new Drive client
| automatically adds a shortcut to my favorites in Finder and
| Explorer everytime I restart my computer. Google has been
| made aware of this a year ago according to threads in their
| product forums from about a year ago (they have thousands of
| upvotes). They haven't done anything about it and I haven't
| heard any feedback from the request that the support rep
| forwarded to the product team.
|
| So from my POV it looks like they have support staff that
| answers to your request, but they have basically no power in
| the company and can't make any decisions. They probably send
| their request into a void where they get ignored.
|
| My guess is that the only way to work with Google as a
| business is to buy their services over a major partner that
| generates tens of millions in revenue per year and has a
| personal relationship with account managers at Google.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| Google has reinvented Soviet bureaucracy.
| ugjka wrote:
| And they are in a position to suppress complaints via their
| search
| grwthckrmstr wrote:
| Can confirm had the same issue. Begged someone in their team
| for 2 weeks to help until they did.
| avipars wrote:
| For whatever reason, if you post and it goes viral on twitter
| or reddit they tend to notice and comply....
| onemoresoop wrote:
| I've noticed this trend. However, this is not a solution.
| There are many people with similar problems who cannot win
| the viral lottery.
| avipars wrote:
| Yes! It's a systemic issue and it has turned into a
| popularity contest online... whoever has more clout gets
| their account fixed... It is a big issue and I agree with
| you.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Be required to burn your 15 minutes of fame to get a reply
| from a company whose services you're paying for isn't
| worthwhile.
| teachrdan wrote:
| OP has just invented "Proof of Grief", a new way to mint
| crypto. Burn one to get an actual human being at Google to
| help you with a problem that they themselves caused for
| you.
|
| The demand for this coin is basically unlimited.
| winkeltripel wrote:
| This makes me want to make a startup which is a customer
| service arm for google. It runs a 2-sided marketplace to
| pay real google employees who can help with users who
| need their accounts unlocked/etc. It would have different
| categories for finding a relevant googler, and could even
| schedule them in shifts, with a chat room and shared
| note-taking space for the employees to collaborate. It
| would be a win win.
|
| The next phase is when someone who believes in the
| startup gets to a exec position within google, and can
| hire and shield actual CSRs who only work through the
| startup. That business unit will find more success
| because of the better customer support, which will put
| pressure on other business units to do the same.
|
| It would of course be much better if google just had the
| decency to provide human support.
| nurettin wrote:
| That is a great idea provided that you can find actual
| human beings to make a deal with. I'm sure someone from
| google is reading this with a smug expression in their
| faces.
| tag2103 wrote:
| Customer service through flaming pitchforks and torches
| really isn't a great business model but hey it is Google,
| what do they care?
|
| <insert Lilly Tomlin Phone Company Skit Here>
| Beltalowda wrote:
| Did they take the $50 or was the payment rejected? And did you
| get the money back if they took it?
| pocketsand wrote:
| I do not believe the payment was ever attempted. If I
| remember right, I approved a max spend budget, put in payment
| details, and then the account was immediately suspended
| before anything could be charged as the ad campaign never
| ran.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Google docs is a joke.
| mountainriver wrote:
| Huh?
| The_rationalist wrote:
| PaulHoule wrote:
| If somebody was trying to make Microsoft Office look good
| they would invent Google Docs.
|
| I hate to admit it but I am a boss with Powerpoint, I can get
| almost any kind of business illustration out of my head and
| into Powerpoint with the greatest of ease.
|
| Giving me Google Docs to attempt the same is like giving
| Superman Kryptonite.
|
| I think some people don't know how bad Google Docs is
| compared to Microsoft Word because they've got this idea that
| using Word is like putting your hand in a toilet so they
| never try it. If they did they would be singing 'Google Docs
| is a Joke' (I opened Google Docs a long time ago, don't you
| know how late it reacts...)
| ghaff wrote:
| I used Microsoft Office for years. Leaving aside
| collaborative editing which has been a game-changer for me
| (and, of course, you can get from Microsoft as well now),
| Google products do everything* I need and most of the
| features in Office just get in the way.
|
| *I'm not a power-spreadsheet user these days and every now
| and then I run into some very specific thing I can do in
| Word that I can't do in Docs--or it's easier to use word
| for compatibility with someone else--but for the most part
| I much prefer using Google day-to-day.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I see Excel as the weak point in Office, at least from
| the viewpoint of getting the right answers.
|
| There was that time I went and gave a talk in NYC and
| then came back to give the same talk in Ithaca and had an
| eagle-eyed web developer note an error in a chart I made
| with Excel because of the broken defaults.
|
| There are numerous ways people get wrong answers with
| Excel, plus Excel does some really strange stuff to hide
| the fact that 0.1 + 0.2 != 0.3
|
| in floating point numbers (hint: none of those numbers
| actually exist in the floating point number system, when
| you ask for 0.1 you get a different number that happens
| to print out as '0.1')
|
| There is something brilliant in the spreadsheet model,
| namely, it frees programming from the need to sequence
| operations in some particular order. The CS community has
| seen relaxing this as a way to find parallelism for the
| CPU & friends but not so much as a way to take a burden
| off the programmer who might not need to think about it.
|
| However there is quite a bit structurally inadequate
| about Excel from the grid model which doesn't necessarily
| fit the problem and no support for software eng practices
| to make complex sheets that really work.
| wesnerm2 wrote:
| Former Excel developer here. In Excel 97, the difference
| between the values needed to be less than 1e-16 times the
| magnitudes of the operands to be considered equal. It
| makes sense since such a small proportion is unlikely to
| occur by chance through arithmetic without the values
| being "equal" in the original base.
| InflexHQ wrote:
| In Inflex decimals are not floating point, they're fixed
| precision. So 0.1+0.2=0.3 produces #true. You can try by
| hitting the Formula button here: https://inflex.io/try
|
| And you can choose an arbitrary level of precision:
| https://discourse.inflex.io/t/how-to-increase-decimal-
| places...
|
| RE the grid I agree completely, I have a blog post about
| it: https://inflex.io/blog/whats-wrong-with-the-grid
|
| I've considered adding floating points as an optional
| advanced feature, but on the other hand, unums might also
| be a better approximate number type.
| known wrote:
| mcs_ wrote:
| > their search engine is still the best, sorry haters
|
| Naming or using the "hater" word in the sentence does not make us
| in the right side of the story.
|
| Considering users of other search engines as Haters does not
| sound right.
|
| You think is the best, fine. Recently today, in this network,
| there is an analysis about it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31020229
| huffer wrote:
| as far as I understood it, it was a tongue-in-cheek, a joke...
| or are you trolling too (in which case joke's on me :D)?
| mcs_ wrote:
| You got me...
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Google is an advertising company. Their productivity apps exist
| for one reason --- privacy invasion/data collection --- in
| support of their advertising objectives.
|
| Using Google apps for anything other than advertising is like
| going to a medical doctor for a toothache. You might receive
| something that temporarily eases the pain but the root problem
| remains largely unsolved.
| johndfsgdgdfg wrote:
| Thank you for saying that. We will have to band together and
| fight against Google. I think we should have a separate
| category on HN to expose Google's evil doings.
| ford wrote:
| Do you think Google is reading the contents of drive documents?
| I struggle to make the connection between those kinds of
| business apps and advertising.
|
| Perhaps they get some usage data of how/when people work?
|
| I do believe much of what Google does (i.e. chrome) is to
| benefit their ads business, but I think it's a bit cynical to
| think that's true of _every_ product they have.
|
| FWIW I've worked at companies that use both Microsoft + Google
| suites (mostly drive + calendar + mail) and generally preferred
| Google's. I did not have any issues like the post mentions.
| [deleted]
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _Do you think Google is reading the contents of drive
| documents?_
|
| Google's definition of "reading" involves human eyeballs.
|
| Do they have algorithms in place that can collect personal
| data from drive documents?
|
| Most likely.
|
| It's been proven that they scan your mail for every scrap of
| available info such as web links and purchases receipts. Why
| would they treat other documents any differently when there
| is no legal requirement to do so?
|
| https://mashable.com/article/gmail-tracks-your-purchases
| citizenpaul wrote:
| >Do you think Google is reading the contents of drive
| documents?
|
| It literally says in gdrive tos that they read the docs, yes
| they do .
|
| "Our automated systems analyse your content to provide you
| personally relevant product features, such as customised
| search results, and spam and malware detection,"
| AlanYx wrote:
| They actually removed the statement that you're quoting
| from the current version of the Google Drive terms of
| service. (The old version you're quoting is still available
| online, but it's under an "/archive" URL.)
|
| That being said, I've read through all the Google Terms of
| Service online, and I can't actually figure out whether
| they still use Google Drive content for customized search
| results.
| efa wrote:
| >>I struggle to make the connection between those kinds of
| business apps and advertising.
|
| I'm starting a restaurant. I put together a doc about items I
| need. All the sudden I'm getting ads for restaurant
| equipment.
| goopthink wrote:
| Google's Ad Products have - over the last few years, in the
| pursuit of "smartness" --gotten progressively dumber and harder
| to use, making all sorts of bad and often unchangable decisions
| on your behalf, and having really awful interfaces for trying
| to make any sorts of edits and apply them anywhere. And I say
| this as a technical marketer. Facebook's ads products are a
| godsend compared to the awful nonsense that is Google Ads.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| Which of Google's productivity apps collect your data for ads?
| Can you provide some proof?
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| The fact that Google engages in and facilitates privacy
| invasion shouldn't need proof at this point.
|
| https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/gmail-snooping/
|
| Can you prove or show anything in their terms of service or
| privacy policy that legally prevents it?
|
| Being a profit driven company, the only reasonable assumption
| is that anything that can be used to increase profits will be
| used.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| The link you included seems to have nothing to do with our
| claim that Google is using data from their office apps for
| advertising. It looks like it was about people explicitly
| granting vetted third-party apps access to the content of
| their email. What's the connection?
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _What 's the connection?_
|
| The connection is that they aren't legally prevented from
| using any data that passes through their servers --- and
| in some cases allowing others to use it too.
| jsnell wrote:
| Of course both the privacy policy and TOS are very explicit
| about this.
|
| https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US
|
| > We don't show you personalized ads based on your content
| from Drive, Gmail, or Photos.
|
| https://workspace.google.com/security/
|
| > Google does not collect, scan, or use your data in Google
| Workspace services for advertising purposes and we do not
| display ads in Google Workspace
|
| https://workspace.google.com/terms/2013/1/premier_terms.htm
| l
|
| > Notwithstanding any other term of the Agreement, Google
| will not process Customer Data for Advertising purposes or
| serve Advertising in the Services.
|
| Will you be retracting your claims, or are you planning on
| moving the goal posts instead?
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _We don't show you personalized ads based on your content
| from Drive, Gmail, or Photos._
|
| LOL! Everything from Google must be carefully and legally
| parsed.
|
| No, they don't show ads *from Drive, GMail or Photos* ---
| these services are ad free. They do show ads *from the
| web* --- based on your personal profile and data
| collected from multiple sources. Nothing here rules out
| using data from Drive, Gmail and Photos to profile you.
|
| It's been proven that they scan, collect and save
| purchase receipts and access/scan web links contained in
| Gmail documents. Why do you suppose they do this?
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/17/18629789/google-
| purchase-...
|
| Regarding your *Workspace Premier* terms --- The document
| you quote is not current but paid services do have
| different TOS. This is not a major source of their
| income.
| jsnell wrote:
| > No, they don't show ads _from Drive, GMail or Photos_
| --- these services are ad free. They do show ads _from
| the web_ --- based on your personal profile and data
| collected from multiple sources. Nothing here rules out
| using data from Drive, Gmail and Photos to profile you.
|
| Are you really seriously claiming that there's some kind
| of ambiguity in "Google does not collect, scan, or use
| your data in Google Workspace services for advertising
| purposes"?
|
| If you're going to argue that "advertising purposes"
| wouldn't cover using the data for ad targeting, they have
| text explicitly addressing that too:
|
| https://blog.google/products/gmail/g-suite-gains-
| traction-in...
|
| _Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for
| any ads personalization after this change._
|
| https://www.google.com/intl/en_fj/drive/
|
| _Your [Drive] content is safe, private, and never used
| for ad personalization_
|
| > The document you quote is not current but paid services
| do have different TOS
|
| True, sorry about that! The current version states:
|
| _Google will not process Customer Data for Advertising
| purposes or serve Advertising in the Services._
|
| But given that it's the same text, I don't really see how
| this helps your case.
|
| > This is not a major source of their income.
|
| Why would that matter?
|
| > It's been proven that they scan, collect and save
| purchase receipts and access/scan web links contained in
| Gmail documents. Why do you suppose they do this?
|
| Pretty obviously the receipt thing was due to it being a
| really convenient feature for Gmail users. I used it
| multiple times, and was sad when it was removed due to
| the outcry. For scanning web links, the even more obvious
| reason is to scan the links for malware, phishing pages,
| etc. But I am confident that these things are not for any
| kind of advertising purposes. And so should you: it was
| after all you who set the bar at whether using the data
| for ads was disallowed by the privacy policy or TOS.
|
| When you get to set the standard of proof, and then
| refuse to accept that proof when provided, it doesn't
| really feel like you're acting in good faith here.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _But I am confident that these things are not for any
| kind of advertising purposes._
|
| When your proof is "I trust Google", it doesn't really
| feel like you're acting in good faith here.
|
| It costs Google time and money to scan your email and
| extract and store your purchase receipts --- and you
| think their only motivation was to be nice? Wow!
|
| But assuming your interpretation agrees with Google's
| legal team ... where do you suppose they get all the info
| needed to profile users and deliver "personalized" ads
| --- which is how they make 90% of their money?
| jsnell wrote:
| Presumably from applications like Search, Chrome,
| YouTube, Android, Ads, Play Store, Assistant, Translate,
| News, Maps, Podcasts, Shopping, Google TV, Discover, etc.
| (That list based on the sources that show up for me
| https://myactivity.google.com/activitycontrols; your
| mileage will probably vary.)
|
| But not from the productivity apps, which is what you
| were complaining about.
|
| > When your proof is "I trust Google", it doesn't really
| feel like you're acting in good faith here.
|
| What do you think the reactions from various regulators
| around the world would be if these statements turned out
| to be blatant lies like you suggest? Lying about it would
| be really, really stupid when the option is to say
| nothing.
|
| If you don't trust the TOS and the privacy policy on such
| crystal clear statements, why did you suggest that as the
| proof you wanted to see?
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| _Presumably from applications like Search, Chrome..._
|
| And presumably Google Docs and Google Sheets --- which
| are productivity apps. Basically any of their "free"
| services.
|
| _What do you think the reactions from various regulators
| around the world would be if these statements turned out
| to be blatant lies like you suggest?_
|
| They're not blatant lies. I showed you above, Google is
| perfectly OK with you interpreting things in a way that
| differs from the legally plausible argument they will put
| forth in a legal setting.
|
| Your TOS quotes are from their _paid_ "premier" products.
| These are not their only productivity apps.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| > by using Safari instead of Chrome, and not configuring my
| services properly
|
| I use Chrome for work and Safari as my personal browser and the
| amount of FUD created by Google is almost hilarious. In 90% of
| cases it's just a small glitch (e.g. a piece of UI looking a bit
| shitty on Safari), but in the remaining 10%... I get spiking CPU
| usage to the point where I could start frying eggs on my MacBook.
|
| I still prefer my browser being occasionally sluggish when using
| Google services to the ad-infested cesspool my parents' Chrome
| is.
|
| OK, my Safari can get a bit slow when using Gmail, but at least
| I'm not browsing the web through a storefront.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| > _Is this a problem of my own making (...)? Or is this a feeling
| that others get?_
|
| I can understand why you "had" to rely on Google Ads. But in my
| opinion choosing Google Workspace/Drive falls unfortunately under
| "problem of your own making". None of the problems you describe
| is new nor unknown, and there are plenty of products that are
| just as good.
|
| > _I hope Google gets some real competition soon because it feels
| like they are falling off._
|
| I think that that's the issue: maybe not in ads, but there _is_
| competition for everything else.
| jatins wrote:
| > and there are plenty of products that are just as good.
|
| Other than MS Office, what's a good suite providing all of
| shared docs, spreadsheets, email, and a cloud drive?
| warrenm wrote:
| If you're in the Apple ecosystem, file sharing through iCloud
| and the Apple quite of apps is pretty good (not quite as good
| as O365, but worlds better than Google Docs)
| booi wrote:
| I have to disagree here. iCloud file sharing is atrociously
| bad. I share a fairly minimal amount of files with another
| apple account and there's constant sync issues, it's not
| anywhere near realtime or even "soon". Shared files and
| folders routinely never show up in iCloud drive even when
| they appear on the web interface. Restarts seem to be
| required to fix problems as they arise.
| warrenm wrote:
| I've had nary an issue in the last several eyars since
| first trying it ... guess this may be a ymmv situation?
| delgaudm wrote:
| You might take a look at the Zoho One suite, my experience with
| Zoho has been great as a small biz, and you definitely get a
| human when you need support, they are very responsive and
| helpful. Not affiliated with them in any way, just a happy
| customer.
| sqlpipe wrote:
| I love Zoho! Used it on another project, and will certainly use
| it going forward.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Am I alone in this?
|
| No: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30855065
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30811297
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30771057
| dep_b wrote:
| Microsoft has actual customer service
|
| Just don't touch Teams and you'll be OK.
| warrenm wrote:
| I never understand the hate Teams gets on HN - I use it more-
| or-less all day in both $WORK and $CUSTOMER environments ...
| rarely have more than a momentary hiccup in file sharing,
| screen sharing, group calls, chats, task tracking ...
| mikece wrote:
| Makes me think of a question I've pondered but to which I don't
| have an answer: is there a way to use Libre Office synched
| through cloud storage such that multiple people can work on
| different parts of the same document at the same time and see
| each other's changes?
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| There is a Libreoffice "cloud" project, but I'm not sure how
| stable and reliable it is.
|
| https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/
| doubled112 wrote:
| Nextcloud with Collabora CODE has worked pretty well for me,
| but please keep in mind I'm only using it at home.
|
| They offer a more enterprise option, I believe. CODE is more
| the development track.
| trelane wrote:
| Collabora is also a major LibreOffice developer. They're
| pretty great from about all standpoints.
| yumindev wrote:
| I used google ads in 2009 when it was still doing business in
| China.
|
| Before I made the payment, i can always get through their cell
| phone, after I made the payment, there is no human tech support.
| And they own me 500 CNY.
| endisneigh wrote:
| dear diary...
|
| In any case, Google has plenty of competition in the areas you're
| talking about. Try the Office suite + Microsoft Ads.
| troymc wrote:
| I agree. Other options are Zoho [1] and ONLYOFFICE [2].
|
| [1] https://www.zoho.com/
|
| [2] https://www.onlyoffice.com/
| arkitaip wrote:
| Microsoft Office+Outlook+Teams is some of the worst software
| I've recently used. Poorly designed and poorly integrated with
| tons of overlapping functionality cracks where productivity
| goes to die.
| godshatter wrote:
| I was one of those people who was hesitant to jump on the cloud
| bandwagon as a personal user, I didn't trust it. I didn't foresee
| the random account closings, but I file them under "service
| interruptions I can't predict". I don't own a business, but if I
| did I'd strongly question every attempt to give up control. There
| is nothing worse than having your business threatened by some
| crazy algorithm that won't stop banning you for who knows what
| obscure reason, or whatever the next thing will be in a few
| years. It's obviously an unaccounted for risk and it should be
| handled as one. If my business depends on it and I can't
| reposition fast enough, it could be disastrous.
|
| I also distrust "free". If I'm not signing a contract, I have to
| assume I don't have any real recourse if something random like
| this happens.
| allisdust wrote:
| I have been trying to increase the quotas they set on my gcp
| account and the whole thing has been an absolute madness :
|
| 1) Try increasing number of nodes - > fails with some cryptic
| message saying number of in use addresses is hitting the quota
| limit.
|
| 2) Search through their absolutely garbage console to go to the
| exact page which has the quotas. Try editing - > See a tooltip
| (not even an error message just a tooltip) saying I can't do it
| my self and has to contact their support.
|
| 3) Contact their billing support and ask for quota increase.
| After taking all the details they redirect me to their sales
| support.
|
| 4) Contact their sales support and its like dealing with second
| hand car sales people. Even after clearly stating that I'm an
| existing customer, they want a complete biography of my whole
| business, its needs and everything else. At the end they say they
| don't have anyway to actually raise the quote increase request
| from their side.
|
| 5) They have helpfully assigned me a relationship manager for
| further 'assisting' me with evaluating their products and that I
| got a meeting request for next week to discuss our 'needs'.
|
| Absolute garbage company with third rate support and sales
| people. And I can say that with confidence because I had the
| exact opposite experience with Linode when trying to raise limits
| on my account. Got a human to both respond and increase the limit
| almost immediately and I didn't need to provide any details about
| my business.
|
| I'm with OP - Google products are absolute trash.
| notreallyserio wrote:
| It's funny they manage to have resource quotas but folks around
| here claim they couldn't possibly add spend quotas.
| stefanve wrote:
| I worked a lot with both MS online offerings and google's. My own
| money go's to MS when it comes to documents etc . It is better
| than the offering of google especially if you need a bit more the
| the basics. Support is also better.
|
| I don't thing that google office suit is bad just that MS is
| better
|
| That being said I'm contamplating to stop with MS as I have less
| needs for a good office suit and just use what apple offers
| gumby wrote:
| Drive is incredible...ly terrible.
|
| Our non-technical staff (and some good technical people too) are
| always losing track of where files are. They write a doc then
| can't find it later.
|
| The desktop tool (so you can use it like Dropbox) keeps getting
| confused and disconnecting on the Mac.
|
| I'm also part of a scout troop that uses google to organize its
| activities. In the troop's Drive I've found doctor's patient
| records, the marketing plan for a major public company often
| mentioned on HN, and other documents clearly accidentally
| stored/shared with this group.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| If you can't find files, are you saying they're disappearing?
| I'm having a hard time understanding what the problem has to do
| with Drive specifically.
|
| If people just forgot where they put something, it seems like
| you need to develop and practice some organization. I work with
| lots of clients and use Drive and organize things into folders
| named for each client, and then into separate categories based
| on what the file is. It's relatively easy to find things.
|
| If I happen to forget, then I've found the search works well. I
| use the cloudsearch page at cloudsearch.google.com
| saynay wrote:
| We have had a few files just seemingly disappear, never to be
| seen again. Only once or twice, but still.
|
| Mostly, organization of files behaves... oddly. It is weirdly
| hard to ensure everyone has a consistent view of a hierarchy
| / folders. Search does work, so long as you have a good idea
| what you are searching for. It isn't great for
| discoverability, or if you only have a vague idea what it is
| you are looking for.
| gumby wrote:
| The interface does not make it easy to figure out where a
| file you have opened is located.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| I consider myself a technical person, but opening the files
| on Drive is always stressful for me (fortunately I don't need
| to do it often). The navigation sucks (I don't see the files
| that I know are there), the search is the only thing that
| works - if I know what to search for. I wonder how many files
| I simply don't know I have.
| agentdrtran wrote:
| Drive's organization is a usability nightmare and I hope
| someone at Google has a plan for this. Shared with me is a
| graveyard, file permissions are a nightmare to manage, and
| repairing mistakes is painful to impossible.
| gumby wrote:
| > usability nightmare and I hope someone at Google has a plan
| for this
|
| One of the things I love about HN is the humor.
| krinchan wrote:
| I used to be part of a volunteer organization that is a loose
| confederation of local chapters that are all kept in line with
| a bit of copyright law by the original chapter. The central
| council that meets nationally on a monthly basis is organized
| almost entirely through Google Drive.
|
| The problem with the Business side of Drive is how Google
| conflates Groups, the message board/mailing list product with
| Groups that you apply permissions to. The chapter I belonged to
| had our own Google Apps domain. My account on that domain was
| added to one of the mothership's Groups so I would get
| announcements and participate in discussions.
|
| Unknown to them, that Group inherited a lot of default
| permissions from their Shared Drives. I couldn't _get_ to the
| drives by browsing, but if I searched for terms that matched
| documents in those shared drives, I could open the documents
| AND open the containing folder. At which point I could browse
| up to the root of the shared drive.
|
| I reported it on the sly, one Mistress of Webs to another. We
| had a good "holy sh** what?!" laugh about it.
|
| It got fixed but as I've spoken to people at other NPO orgs
| that use Google apps, I've found that most have had the same
| mess happen: A group with external members was created as a
| convenient mailing list. Then, later they discovered that if
| the external member was also a Google for Business account they
| "inherited" some interesting access to things in Drive.
| thisiscorrect wrote:
| I'm not making the trip. It sounds like you're saying users are
| moving files to the the wrong folders on their computers and
| the desktop tool respects that. What should the software do
| differently?
| huffer wrote:
| I guess the idea was that it's very confusing for non-
| technical people, and very easy to misplace..
|
| (sorry if your message was accompanied by an "/s" -- I didn't
| see any)
| ghaff wrote:
| I can usually find the docs I've created pretty easily--but
| then I'm pretty good about sensibly filing things.
|
| But finding random Shared with Me is pretty problematic
| especially if I don't know _exactly_ what I 'm looking for.
| And, of course, as you say, if you're sharing docs, it's pretty
| easy to share with someone you don't mean to. Of course, the
| same could be said with sending around docs on email.
| gumby wrote:
| And docs shared with me can't be moved into my filesystem
| ghaff wrote:
| Whether you can make a snapshot copy depends on permissions
| I think.
|
| But, yes, what I'd really like to do in many cases is to
| basically create a symlink to documents I know I'll be
| referencing/working with somewhere that they aren't mixed
| in with all the shared meeting presentations and the like
| I'll never look at again.
| gumby wrote:
| Indeed because a snapshot loses the shared editing, which
| is only sometimes what you want.
| orangepurple wrote:
| If your drive folder has more than 50,000 files and you try to
| download an archive ZIP of them, your files will disappear at
| random. The only way to avoid this outcome is to install a
| desktop client and sync the folder.
| gumby wrote:
| > The only way to avoid this outcome is to install a desktop
| client and sync the folder.
|
| Except the google desktop client is utterly flaky. They make
| Dropbox look good.
| kingcharles wrote:
| And that's a low barrier. The Dropbox client is totally
| flaky with me. I've never managed to get it to sync my
| files, because I have too many I guess? I just used rclone
| to get everything out of my Dropbox so I can close it.
| 72deluxe wrote:
| Use rclone to grab them instead.
| johnywalks wrote:
| I'd rather pay to use Dropbox than have 50GB+ free on gDrive.
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