back to article Google+ replacement ‘Currents’ to end beta and debut in G Suite on July 6th

Google has advised G Suite administrators that its replacement for Google+, “Currents”, will debut on July 6th. Google+ started life as Google’s attempt to start a social network. It flopped in that role and mutated into the collaboration component of G Suite, Google’s web-based alternative to Microsoft Office. In April 2019 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another artificial need

    Right here, on my desktop, my collection of business emails spans the last 20 years of my life. Easily searchable and accessible, even without the net.

    Show me a commercial project or product that could offer something similar. Zilch!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Another artificial need

      If you've ever used a chat client you'd know it's not the same as email. Email is a great tool but without slack or an equivalent homework would be much more difficult.

      We don't need a Google version though.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: Another artificial need

        Some chat programs actually use IMAP as the protocol instead of IRC…

      2. jelabarre59

        Re: Another artificial need

        But Slack doesn't let me log locally (so I can search back texts *without* having to use Slack's CRAP interface). But hey, it's the latest thing all the kids are raving about, even if it is fecking useless.

    2. gobaskof
      Facepalm

      Re: Another artificial need

      "Right here, on my desktop, my collection of business emails spans the last 20 years of my life. Easily searchable and accessible, even without the net."

      My work have "fixed" this by disabling IMAP so that Linux users are expected to use the outlook web client. The is only accessible online and the search sucks. It is a truly modern experience.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge
        Go

        Re: Another artificial need

        Just wait till you try the truly awful Outlook for Android client…

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Another artificial need

          In order to do that I would have to give my work - specifically the IT department at my work - access to everything on my Android device plus authority to wipe it. Since the IT department at my work are a bunch of useless wankers who will be up against the wall before even the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation when the revolution comes, the only possible reply to the suggestion that they have access to my personal device and my personal data is Fuck That Shit.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Another artificial need

        There is an Exchange Web Services client available for Evolution (evolution-ews) which I use to get around a similar restriction. It's a bit buggy, but generally works OK.

    3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Another artificial need

      Indeed. I've recently watched a company's work grind to a halt due to problems with both Outlook's local cache and Exchange's index.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Google Wave

      Google has been trying to kill email for well over 10 years, they keep srpuiking the death of email and everyone ignores them

      Same with Social, they keep trying to take over the successful platforms, with their own, and everyone ignores them.

      I've lost count of the number of "chat" platforms they've killed off, and now they are once again hoping their android platform will allww them to make RCS a new messaging standard, but yet again, most people will ignore it, SMS works quite well enough, and you know google won't be sending to to the graveyard any time soon!

      1. cipnt

        Re: Google Wave

        You're right for the most part, but RCS is an standard developed by the mobile industry as an upgrade to SMS. It's not Google's platform, they are just big advocates for it and rightly so. If you've ever used it, you'll immediately understand why.

      2. DJV Silver badge

        Re: I've lost count of the number of "chat" platforms they've killed off

        There are people counting those and everything else Google kills: https://killedbygoogle.com

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Impossible to opt out!

    You will take this feature even if you don't want it. So there!

    A sign of the times I'm afraid. Like home users fighting to stop Windows updates wrecking their settings.

    Sorry Google, I've opted out... of anything to do with Google (or as far as possible)

    See... it works both ways.

    Yours,

    Gmail/Google refusenik.

    1. cipnt

      Re: Impossible to opt out!

      Chill! That simply means it will replace Google+ and will be included with all G suite packages. You don't have to us it. You can carry on using MS Outlook :)

  3. jake Silver badge

    Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

    It's actually quite simple ... don't use it.

    You can similarly opt out of everything goo kid related. Works for me.

    1. The obvious

      Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

      Oh really? Block Google’s ASN at your router for a week, then tell us if you can really opt out...

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

        I've been doing essentially that for many years now. Try it, you might like it.

        ::shrugs::

      2. cipnt

        Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

        Google makes some genuinely useful things which are free for the most part: search, email, public dns, android, chromium, etc.

        But you can chose not to use any of their products/services.

        1. codemonkey

          Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

          Why opt out? Chrome? Looks good to me. Gmail, can pass. Search...yep..that'll be fine. Android..yah..fanks...

          Can't say I'm a fanboi, but, why knock a free OS? Sure, it could do with some more security updates, so that only Google can get the info...

          I still don't get the worry, personally.

          1. Gene Cash Silver badge

            Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

            Google sucks... but Apple is worse, so I put up with Android.

            I'm rather forced to use their DNS, as my ISP does ad injection.

            I've had friends get fucked by "you're not using your real name, so we disabled your account" shit from Google, so with a name like "Gene Cash" I stopped using Gmail.

            1. JDPower Bronze badge

              Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

              You're not forced to use Google DNS, there are other DNS servers out there

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

                Or run your own recursive DNS Server? It’s pretty easy!

            2. cipnt

              Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

              Try 1.1.1.1

        2. Falmari Silver badge

          Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

          "Google makes some genuinely useful things which are free"

          It is not free it is paid for through advertising everyone is paying for it when they buy goods advertised through google even if we don't use google, as advertising makes up part of the goods cost

    2. jelabarre59

      Re: Oh, you can opt out. Trust me.

      All it means is they'll be migrating my non-existent data from a service I never used over to a different service I'll likely never use either. Don't think it will be hampering my work.

  4. The obvious

    Another product for google to burn

    I give it 500 days...

    1. mark l 2 Silver badge

      Re: Another product for google to burn

      I agree, who would get too invested in a new Google product these days? If you spend time to adopt it as a tool for your business and then Google pull the plug on it in another 18 months you have to spend more time migrating users to something new.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Another product for google to burn

        Agreed. I've given up on any new Google product, especially any social messaging products.

      2. Kevin Johnston

        Re: Another product for google to burn

        Apologies but I thought that was well known. Any Google product which moves out of Beta is about to be killed off

        1. Gene Cash Silver badge

          Re: Another product for google to burn

          Hm. What Google products have moved out of beta and not been killed off... there's search, and mail, and... hm... let's see...

  5. Matthew Taylor

    Oh good

    Another method for being interrupted every 5 seconds.

  6. Michael Habel

    I thought we already had Google Currents, which replaced Google News?

    1. petef

      That Google Currents was renamed to Newstand in 2014 before being discontinued in 2018.

      1. petef

        So should we refer to the July launch as current Currents?

  7. Frederic Bloggs

    El Reg Randonumerator

    Dear Vultures

    Please could you fix your Randonumerator so that the statistics at least add up, even if it doesn't add any more clarity to what's really going on at Slack et al.

  8. disgruntled yank

    Google+

    How many persons actually used it?

  9. BenDwire Silver badge
    Joke

    In other news ...

    Google have announced their EOL date for 'Currents' which will be superseded by 'Raisin' Q3 2024

    1. Steve K
      Coat

      Re: In other news ...

      Ah - there had to be a Raisin date for this to exist

  10. skeptical i

    I can has '+' signs in searches now?

    Back when google introduced the "plus" social media thingie, the search page instructed to put required words/phrases in double quotes instead of the more intuitive plus sign (e.g., +dog +ball -cat would have to change to "dog" "ball" -cat), else one would be directed to the "plus" group pages for entities 'dog' and 'ball'. Now with the "plus" product in the bin, can one once again use the plus sign when doing searches? Inquiring minds want to know.

  11. IGotOut Silver badge

    I used Google+

    It was a simple way of rigging search results.

    As soon as you posted something about your business/charity on Google+ it flew up the rankings and visibility.

    But of course, in no way did google EVER prioritise their own products.

  12. IGnatius T Foobar !

    IRC

    So ... another replacement for IRC that isn't as usable as IRC, like Teams and Slack?

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