Flickr vs Google Photos

by **bdahm** Sun Jun 14, 2015 5:29 pm

At the Show and Tell, I demoed some of the new features of Flickr, which included a new smartphone app and uploader, and enhancements to its web interface, which allows for editing of photos on-line. These upgrades complimented an announcement made more than a year ago that Flickr was giving 1 TB of free space for storage of photos.

Although the web interface is a little clunky and not very intuitive in some functions, once one learns some of its quirks, it is fully functional.

At Google I/O this year, Google rolled out Photos, their new photo/backup app for the smartphone. Just as with Flickr, the app automatically uploads all your photos for on-line storage and retrieval on all your devices. Google, however, upped Flickr one, by offering unlimited free space for photos less than 16 Megapixels in size. If your photos are greater than that you can choose 15 GB of free space.

I found the Google interface, both on the app and on the desktop to be more fluid and intuitive than Flickr. It’s certainly going to give Flickr a run for its money. One of the things it does, which I haven’t found that impressive, is offer an Assistant function, which animates, creates collages and does special effects on photos it analyzes.

So why is Google doing this? Out of the goodness of their hearts? To compete with Apple and Yahoo (Flickr), DropBox and some of the other on-line photo storage sites? The other question one has to ask oneself is whether you want to turn all your photos over to an advertising company. Google is famous for using keywords in Gmail to served ads. Could we see the day when Google serves you ads based on what it sees in your photos? I wouldn’t be surprised. If you think Google already knows too much about you, you may want to go with another option.

If you do decide to go with Google Photos, you can find the iOS app in the Apple App Store. Android users will find it in the Google Play Store. Here is a link to the app which you can download and install on your desktop or laptop to grab photos on those machines or on external drives.

https://photos.google.com/apps

David Pogue, who has himself been recently acquired by Yahoo, does a good comparison, which should help you decide which of the two fits your bill. I am trying out both right now to see which one works best for me before I decide to upload 25 GB of archived photos on an external HD.

http://tinyurl.com/nj9krq2

-Bill