Letters

As a dedicated user of Google’s products, I’m afraid Issue 597’s Cover Feature (‘Stop Using Google’) simply proved the old adage that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. My brilliantly simple Chromebook delivers all the services that the average owner of a Windows laptop needs without the high cost, slow startup, viruses and interminable updates. The idea that I should replace Google’s rich ecosystem with a rag-bag of free and paid-for accounts with alternative providers is frankly risible. Better the devil I know.

The feature I’m waiting for is ‘Stop Using Microsoft’. I recently found out the hard way that you cannot install Windows without a Microsoft account and continual nagging to sign in so that you can be tracked for advertising on a product you’ve paid for. And while Office is an unrivalled product, I won’t buy Office 365 since the time I had to use it for a presentation in a venue with no Wi-Fi and PowerPoint popped up a message to say that some of its features were disabled because