Google Alternatives?

I've been with Google since the beginning, but recently my patience with the company has run thin. They have no respect for their customers and lately they've retired many of the services that I (and others) used regularly and are forcing additional services on users that are useless to many of us.

Google is all about the $£. I realize this now, but kept holding on because they were once the "Don't be evil" company. Obviously, they've climbed the ranks and are now the Demon King of the internet.

Does anyone have suggestions for alternatives?

Yahoo is not an option for me. And I've considered setting up my own e-mail server, but am worried about getting too much spam. I'd like a service that's been around for a while and doesn't show signs of disintegration. The more basic and user friendly the service, the better.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Hotmail's been around for a while. Microsoft is pretty standard still.

Connor Lidell wrote: Hotmail's been around for a while. Microsoft is pretty standard still.

Thanks, Connor. I hadn't considered that. I think I have an account there anyway (didn't they integrate Hotmail with Live.com at some point?).

My domain name is connected to Google (Google Apps), so I can send and receive e-mail from my domain. I seem to recall Microsoft working on an option for e-mail via a custom domain name, so I'll look into that as well.

I appreciate your response.

Yeahyeah! No worries.

Exactly what service are you looking to replace? Search engine? Email? Start page portal?

Proteus wrote: Exactly what service are you looking to replace? Search engine? Email? Start page portal?

I'm not too worried about a start page (though I did use iGoogle, which you may know is being retired in November). And I use DuckDuckGo as my search engine most of the time now.

Mainly, I'm looking for a new e-mail system. I'm researching Hotmail/Live/Outlook at the moment, and that option seems pretty decent (they have a Google Apps alternative so I can still utilize my domain name when sending/receiving e-mail). I'm not sure it's a step up, but it seems acceptable for what I need (which isn't much).

Outlook has received a Lot of positive reception for many things including its spam filter which stood up against gmail's almost dominantly. It's surprised a lot of people. If I didn't or couldn't use gmail, that would be my personal choice of alternative.

Bing doesn't do it for me. Altavista used to be better then Excite IMO back in the days before Google, then Google killed them all with that clean interface and great results.

I've noticed in the last few years the quality of the results are dropping. Google still seems to be the best for me though. What don't you like about Google, despite their persistent need to push paid results into peoples faces, anything in particular?

I use gmail quite a lot, and love gmap's.

Adder wrote: Altavista used to be better then Excite IMO back in the days before Google

I loved Altavista back in the day.

Adder wrote: What don't you like about Google, despite their persistent need to push paid results into peoples faces, anything in particular?

I didn't mean to sound so cranky in the original post. In short, Google has been streamlining the services that it offers over the last 2 years and I've lost many of the tools I used to use regularly, I don't find the new services they're forcing on users useful, the user interface (even with customization) is not intuitive to me and feels unnecessarily bulky, customer service is non-existent for free users (and is lacking for paid users), and I have issues with both the old and new privacy policies.

This started a while ago, however, when Google automatically merged my Gmail and YouTube accounts - the result being that I couldn't access my YouTube account or videos and had to create a new one (because the two accounts used the same login). I tried to get help and was denied on various fronts. The one answer that I did receive (as a free user at the time) was "Google doesn't offer technical support."

I think I've been looking for an excuse to jump ship for a while.

I think everyone who's been online a while has used altavista at some point

I too am annoyed at google'd direction, ever since they decided to be social (buzz and plus). I despise the javascript search stuff, it's slow and often breaks imo. I hate having to merge my google account with my YT account, although I too had the same login but didnt lose anything?

All the interfaces, youtube gmail, etc are getting worse and worse. I miss the old beta gmail (I got my account way back, when it just started and you needed to be invited to be able to use it).

Anyway. I just survive with google. I still feel that overall they're better than what I've seen elsewhere.