Hello, ~tech!

I've been really interested in the Google Pixel 3 (non XL) for quite some time, mainly due to my boredom of the Apple ecosystem. I've been primarily an iPhone user since 2014 (currently stuck on the iPhone 6S) and I've recently been eager to make a switch to Android. The Pixel 3 seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. Stock Android experience, a beautiful camera, modern device, and I'm already pretty integrated into Google's ecosystem of services, and I feel the transition will be very smooth.

So, for any Google Pixel 3 users, non XL or otherwise, what do you love and/or hate about your device? Were you in my shoes as well?

Ever since I've heard about how Google tracks you and steals your data and all that, I've been gradually been moving away from their products. With the ones I could live without, like Google search, maps, Chrome, etc. the switch wasn't too bad. But with the ones like Google photos, drive, home, I actually really like these products and I'm not really sure I want to switch away from them. I have so much stuff in my Google drive that I've amassed over the years. It's very easy to use and a lot of my friends/family/teachers use it. I just really like Google drive. Same with Photos. The irony in all this (I'm probably using irony wrong), is that I don't feel good using them because of all the privacy concerns and the like. I'm not really sure what I'm seeking to get out of this. Just kind of wanted to start a conversation. Do any of you have similar feelings about Google products?

Hi there,

Big companies are spending big money on allowing consumers to control everything from their TV, smart speakers, lights, microwaves, etc with voice commands. But do people really want that?

I'm curious because I very much do NOT want to interact with computers vocally. I find it's slow and prone to error, not unlike writing out long passages on a smartphone. It functions, but it's not a great experience and remains a novelty for me.

Bought both kids Echo Dots which is a smart speaker with Amazon's Alexa assistant. It's cool, really innovative. But after a couple weeks both remain unplugged in my kids' rooms - totally lost interest. The only person who I've seen really use a voice speaker is an elderly gentlemen for whom it was the easiest way to interact with a computer (using it specifically to play music and get news).

My friend swears that teens commonly use Siri on their phones to look up information. I can only think of one person I've seen actively use the voice controls and that was an older woman who wanted show her friends how Siri could "rap."

So I was curious how many of you find yourself frequently interacting with computers via voice commands. I personally feel very awkward and self-aware and get easily frustrated because it reminds me so much of the terrible automated attendants on 800 numbers.

Edit: You all are confirming my suspicions. Anyone under age 25 use the voice commands often? I feel like this is all just the first step in designing AI interfacing

I was looking to maybe cut down on my Googleness and replacing Keep seemed like a good start. I need something that has a simple interface and most (if not all) of the same features as Keep. Any suggestions? Also I'm on Android btw.

I have a personal website, and while I don't mind it showing up in SERPs for DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc. I do not want it showing up on Google at all.

Google doesn't send traffic my way, I pay for my site out of my salary from my day job instead of running ads, and preventing Google from indexing my site seems like the best form of nonviolent direct action I can take to protest their continuing dominance and their "embrace, extend, and extinguish" campaign against the Web.

I figure the easiest way to do this is to add the following to my site's .htaccess file since I don't have access to the server config file:

X-Robots-Tag: googlebot: none, noarchive, nosnippet, notranslate, noimageindex

Are there any downsides that I should know about besides not showing up in Google results?