Google vs. FOSS Alternatives
We at The FOSS Albatross strongly believe in the power of the open-source community to create software with great features that users can enjoy. But at the end of the day, can FOSS services really compare to those offered by big tech giants like Google? In this article, we’re dueling 10 popular Google services against FOSS alternatives to see which reigns supreme!
Note that this duel is based on our personal experience using both Google and FOSS services, so we’re judging based on real-world use and not just with the aim of promoting FOSS alternatives. Also to keep the duel fair, we’re only including FOSS alternatives that function independently of their Google counterparts; thus, services that scrape data from Google such as NewPipe from YouTube and SimplyTranslate from Google Translate aren’t included.
Let’s get ready to rumble! Stay tuned until the very end to find out which services you should be using!
- Search Engine: Google Search vs. Brave Search
Google Search is the most popular search engine by far, having led to the adoption of the term “Googling” to mean searching anything on the web. Google search uses sophisticated algorithms to provide the most accurate and user-relevant search results, including a vast array of popular sites and other content. However, Google searches come at the expense of user privacy as they track every query and manipulate which results you see for marketing or political purposes!
Brave Search is a privacy-focused search engine that uses its own built-from-scratch index, meaning it does not rely on results from other search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, or Yandex. Brave search prides itself on being private by not collecting data on user queries and transparent with its community-based model to providing search results! Despite its best efforts, Brave search is still in an early stage and thus provides search results that are much more limited and often less accurate than competitors.
Google Search wins this round! Although Brave Search puts up a good fight with its privacy-focused search engine model, at the end of the day, Google search gets the job done with the best search results.
2. Browser: Chrome vs. Firefox
Chrome is the most popular browser by far and whose open-source version, Chromium, is the base of many other popular browsers such as Brave and Opera! Chrome offers all the essential functions of a browser, a vast extensions library, plus integration with your Google account for easy access to services. Chrome does lack privacy features though, such as clearing all browsing history on exit and opting out of all telemetry.
Firefox is the browser developed by Mozilla and used as the base for many other privacy and security oriented browsers like LibreWolf and the Tor Browser! Firefox matches Chrome in functions while offering more strict privacy and security settings. Unfortunately, Firefox is slightly slower and some sites may break due to developers targeting Chrome rather than Firefox.
Firefox wins this round! The added privacy and security features Firefox offers while providing a very similar user experience in terms of features pulls it ahead of Chrome.
3. Operating System: Chrome OS vs. Ubuntu
Chrome OS is an operating system developed or use with Chromebooks although it can be installed on any computer. Chrome OS provides a desktop experience in the Google ecosystem by allowing you to sign in with your Google account and access Google services and applications with ease! However, since Chrome OS is designed to be a very bare-bones operating system for web-based apps, many popular apps will not be available or can only run in a non-native environment with a series of workarounds.
Ubuntu is developed by Canonical and is one of the most popular Linux-based operating systems. Ubuntu offers a full user experience thanks to the wide range of customization options ranging from the desktop environment you can choose to the apps you can install! The main drawback is that for beginners, using the command line may be required to perform specialized setups or install certain apps that are not in the store.
Ubuntu wins this round! Ubuntu provides a much more complete operating system replete with features and functionality not present in Chrome OS, which by contrast is very limiting in customization and apps.
4. Email: Gmail vs. Proton Mail
Gmail is the most popular email provider and hosts the well-known @gmail.com domain! Gmail offers a feature-rich yet easy-to-use experience with web and mobile clients with integration to other Google applications. The issues are that Gmail clutters your inbox with ads and scans your emails to gather data under the guise of features like automatically adding calendar items and autocompleting suggestions.
Proton Mail is a privacy-focused email provider which hosts the @protonmail.com and now the @proton.me domains. Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted among its own users while offering privacy and security enhancements through features such as password-protected emails! Note that some features such as attachment reminders and undo send have yet to be fully implemented, and the Proton Mail Bridge needed to use third-party clients is only available with paid plans.
Proton Mail wins this round! The privacy and security enhancements offered by Proton Mail outweigh its few shortcomings while both Proton Mail and Gmail provide the essential functionality and organization expected of an email provider.
5. Classroom: Google Classroom vs. Moodle
Google Classroom is a learning platform facilitating the creation and organization of course material. Google Classroom provides a simple and intuitive user interface allowing easy interaction among teachers and students through various types of posts! Google Classroom’s integration with its other applications is a pro for those using the ecosystem but a con for those seeking to use other services such as a different video call platform.
Moodle is a learning platform with a similar yet different approach to providing course material! Moodle offers other features such as a Grades tab and a more immersive approach to each post. However, Moodle’s user interface is not as simple and easy-to-use as that of Google Classroom and does not have a per-post comment section.
Google Classroom wins this round! Google Classroom provides a simpler experience for both teachers as well as students, and both Google Classroom and Moodle suffer from the con of integrating specific services in the platform rather than leaving it up to users to redirect to another service.
6. Video Call: Google Meet vs. Jitsi Meet
Google Meet is a video call platform available in-browser or on the mobile app. Google Meet provides the essential features of a video call platform and is integrated with the rest of Google’s applications, such as Google Classroom which has built-in functionality for joining a recurring Google Meet! However, Google Meet requires an account and falls short of offering many features available in its competitors.
Jitsi Meet is a web-based video call platform with security enhancements such as end-to-end encryption, improved features, a great free service, and privacy-friendly terms! Some highlight features of Jitsi Meet include connection quality indicators, performance settings, simultaneous screen-sharing, and speaker stats. The major inconvenience that comes with Jitsi Meet is that most people are unfamiliar with it, so you will have to convince your peers to switch as well.
Jitsi Meet wins this round! Jitsi Meet offers a video call experience that simply beats Google Meet and other alternatives thanks to its advantages described in greater detail in our article here.
7. Video Sharing: YouTube vs. Odysee/LBRY
YouTube is the most popular video sharing platform with over 2 billion active users and 51 million active channels! YouTube is home to a wide variety of content from technology to lifestyle and so much more among which users can easily find recommended videos based on their viewing habits. A major issue is that YouTube is centralized, which empowers Google to control what content is seen and shared by manipulating recommendations and blocking certain videos or even entire channels often without reason.
Odysee is an alternative video sharing platform based on LBRY, which is a protocol using blockchain technology to share content that over a decentralized network! Odysee empowers users with more freedom to share and view content that is moderated by a comparatively indifferent policy. But even though Odysee’s user experience is intuitive and in fact similar to that of YouTube, the platform hosts far fewer active channels and so finding content that interests you can be challenging.
YouTube wins this round! The YouTube community of creators and viewers is simply too large and well-established for any competitor such as Odysee to match the breadth of content significantly beyond technophiles and controversial creators.
8. Collaboration Suite: Google Drive vs. CryptPad
Google Drive is a cloud storage and file sharing platform with integration to Google’s G Suite of applications. Google Drive allows easy online access of folders and files as well as real-time collaboration in documents, slideshows, and spreadsheets among other file types! A major disadvantage for those oriented to privacy and security is that Google Drive is unencrypted and relies on trusting Google’s servers, which can access your files.
CryptPad is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage and file sharing platform with office suite applications and integration with OnlyOffice! A significant benefit of CryptDrive is its ability to be self-hosted, although personal users can also select an instance of their choice. CryptDrive offers a worthy collaboration suite but still lacks features in its office suite applications while also being quite slow.
Google Drive wins this round! Google Drive still offers the most convenient way to share and collaborate on files while CryptPad still has room to grow in its office suite and user base.
9. Maps: Google Maps vs. OsmAnd
Google Maps is a web-mapping platform with vast and regularly-updated data for navigation. Google Maps offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, panoramic views, real-time traffic conditions, route planning by various modes of transportation, and details on every location! With these amazing features comes the great cost to privacy of exposing perhaps your most sensitive data: location.
OsmAnd is an app providing offline maps and navigation functionality for the community-driven OpenStreetMaps database. OsmAnd offers accurate street maps and highly detailed topographic layers which is especially convenient for traveling by foot or by bike! OsmAnd, however, does not provide a large or well-indexed database of locations, which can make finding a destination a challenge.
Google Maps wins this round! Google Maps offers so many more features, such as street maps and location details, that add to the convenience of its maps by taking advantage of resources that OsmAnd simply cannot match with its community-driven model.
10. Translator: Google Translate vs. LibreTranslate/Argos Translate
Google Translate uses the Google Neural Machine Translation system (GNMT) to offer translations in a plethora of languages. Google Translate includes many helpful features such as voice input, audio translation, definitions, and alternate translation suggestions! Google Translate is prone to grammatical errors which, combined with the privacy concern of being able to read your input and output, makes the service not suitable for confidential documents.
LibreTranslate is a front-end client for Argos Translate, which is an offline translation library using the Open Neural Machine Translation system (OpenNMT). LibreTranslate can be used through the website or app for personal use or can be self-hosted for a completely offline and privacy-respecting solution! LibreTranslate does unfortunately have far fewer language options and does not offer romanization scripts of translations for appropriate languages.
Google Translate wins this round! Although LibreTranslate offers a great privacy-focused solution, it falls short of offering many helpful features present in Google Translate while not being any better in translation accuracy.
Conclusion
So the winner of this duel is Google, which beats its FOSS alternatives 6 to 4! Google has the advantage of having vast resources at its disposal to develop and implement its services. By contrast, FOSS alternatives are often maintained by smaller organizations or volunteer developers. Based on the duel above, you may want to stay with many Google’s services rather than FOSS alternatives for the best tools to perform their functions.
On the other hand, if you put a greater weight on privacy and security benefits as well as supporting the open-source community rather than big tech, you may choose to sacrifice some functionality! The decision is left to you to determine what you value most in a service.
