Comments on: Google’s “Data Liberation Front” – Do You Depend Too Much on Google? (Poll)

By: Evan

Evan — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:07:28 +0000

That's the word I've been looking for – convenience. Although some sites might do some things as well, it is just easy and convenient to use Google. I do shudder to think of what private info I have in the various Google apps.

By: miscbytes

miscbytes — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:48:31 +0000

I'd be in trouble personally if something happened to Google. At work I use Outlook and a Blackberry, but for “real life” I depend more and more on Gmail, which opens my docs in Google Docs of course, plus Google Calendar which emails me when a family event pops up. I definitely hope they never have a big security breach, because I have been very careless about letting Google have all sorts of information. I've traded a little security for a lot of convenience!

By: Evan

Evan — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:50:20 +0000

I'm in a similar boat with my main email account. I also have a regular Gmail account, but my main email is my personal domain, which is set up with Google Apps. If something ever happened to Google, I could switch my MX record to point somewhere else, and keep using the same address. I use Google Calendar for family stuff, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if that were lost. My main calendar is through work, which uses Outlook and syncs to my iPhone.

By: Kosmo @ The Casual Observer

Kosmo @ The Casual Observer — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:13:30 +0000

I basically use Google for search, adsense, and mail service. The mail service is using their POP/SMTP servers (I don't use the web interface), so this would be very easy to switch to another provider.

So it would be an inconvenience for Google to go offline, but I could survive.

I don't trust anyone with my calendar after Excite.com ate my calendar many years ago (I have a big family, so there were a lot of dates in it). I now have a simple PHP/MySql setup for important birthdays and anniversaries - easily portable and very easy to back up. This had been in ASP/Access for several years, before I rewrote it to get away from Microsoft :) Well, mostly because MySql is free ...

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:34:37 +0000

I agree Rena, that most of the competition falls short. There is some nice stuff out there, though, like Zoho Writer, which I actually might like better than Google Docs (but for some reason I still use Docs more).

By: RenaR

RenaR — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:48:32 +0000

I can't image the world without Google. If something were to happen to them, I'd be in serious trouble. I am concerned, but there is really nothing else out there that does what they do as well as they do it. I guess I'll just have to live in fear.