Readers’ poll

Can you give up Google? In this issue, we’re looking at alternatives to Google ( see p30). We asked you – and readers of Alphr.com – whether that was even a faintly realistic proposition…

Look out Google: many of our participants are already switching. “I use OneDrive as it integrates well with Microsoft Office apps,” wrote Neil McKenzie. “I disabled Chrome on my OnePlus 3 as it seemed to be draining battery, tried Dolphin but settled on Firefox.”

On the desktop, several of you wrote to say that you use Firefox in place of Chrome and DuckDuckGo instead of Google’s search engine. Dropbox was also a popular alternative to Google Drive.

“As for Android, the only true competitor is iOS, which is both freakin’ expensive and annoyingly uncustomisable,” explained Jesse Moes, who pointed out that “YouTube simply has so much great content, it’s hard to find worthy alternatives.”

Anonymous

It’s the best company for creating software, especially AI. Google Assistant is definitely the best voice assistant out there MatthewC

Google knows more about me than my wife does, and probably more than I do. That is scary Ryan Thomas

All right, but apart from the Search, the Maps, Classroom, Assistant, Open Source, Android, Drive, a news gathering system, and public YouTube, what has Google ever done for us? mobailey

Personally, I’ve always preferred Windows 10 Mobile to Android. I adore my Lumia 950 XL and it will be a sad day when it dies