Google was down in eastern EU and Turkey

Sure, here's a summary of the themes from the Hacker News discussion:

Impact and Reach of the Outage

Users were acutely aware of the widespread impact of Google's services being down, beyond just search. This included essential services like Gmail and Google Docs, as well as how it affected other workflows and services that rely on Google. There was also a discussion about whether the outage was truly a Google issue or a broader network problem.

• "Still is down - cannot access gmail, tried to Google the status page, then realised I'll have to use Bing for that." (thecupisblue)
• "Google doesn't provide good enough actual search." (immibis)
• "Google being down means gmail, youtube, google docs etc are down in addition to search. Other services that depend on google's services are also down. It affects many more parts of workflows or entertainment or whatever." (freehorse)
• "Lots of services are not working, but it has notighing to do with google." (boianmihailov)
• "No-one in Georgia could access google, everything else worked. googleapis.com and google.com seemed to be the only thing affected." (simonvc)
• "I first noticed when Gmail went down. I was working on a site using Google fonts and that was also struggling." (specproc)

Alternative Search Engines and Dependencies

When Google was unavailable, users suggested alternative search engines like Kagi and DuckDuckGo. This led to a brief discussion about DuckDuckGo's reliance on Bing and Kagi's perceived limitations, particularly regarding non-US content and accessibility during the outage. The inconvenience of Google products being required for other services (like Google social auth for Tailscale) was also highlighted.

• "Could have also used Kagi or DDG, for the record." (xandrius)
• "DDG? it uses Bing under the hood" (high_na_euv)
• "Kagi doesn't seem to work for anything else than American content. At least, queries in non-english or about things unrelated to US culture brought close to nothing (relevant)." (dr_kretyn)
• "Kagi was definitely also not accessible. Certain services (including Google) were accessible via CF VPN, perhaps other VPN offerings also." (larodi)
• "Hilariously, we use tailscale, so thought cool, we'll enable mullvand for everyone, but ofcourse, tailscale needs google social auth to login.. so the fix for our Tbilisi team was install nordvpn, connect to that, login to tailscale, disconnect nordvpn then tunnel out to anywhere." (simonvc)

Cause of the Outage

Speculation about the cause of the outage was a significant theme. Initial thoughts pointed towards BGP routing issues, but this was questioned based on successful TCP handshakes. Other users suggested political motivations, including tests for elections or actions by Russia, which were then debated with comparative data on democracy indices and freedom house scores between Turkey and Russia. A more concrete explanation involving a cable cut was also shared by a user citing a source.

• "Half BGP routing table is gone. Lots of services are not working, but it has notighing to do with google." (boianmihailov)
• "Are you sure BGP is at fault? TCP handshakes were able to comlpete and create a connection. I thought BGP at first as well but if the either BGP border was gone there would be no completed handshakes?" (splitroute)
• "Test run for the Turkish elections probably." (42lux)
• "Russia action?" (redwood)
• "No need to assume Russian action broke Turkey, when Turkey itself is equally corrupt and censorious." (immibis)
• "I spoke to Benjojo (bgp.tools) who heard the incident "was a cable cut shunt near Sofia"." (simonvc)

The Importance of Google and its Dominance

Several users pondered why Google's outage garnered more attention than the recent ChatGPT outage. Some posited this was because reliable search is still a crucial commodity that LLMs haven't fully replaced. Others strongly disagreed with the premise that Google "provides good enough actual search," with one user suggesting Google had the capability but chose not to utilize it for its own search engine, instead providing it for services like Ecosia and Kagi. The overall reliance on Google's ecosystem was implicitly highlighted by the widespread impact and the difficulty users faced when it went down.

• "One thing I find interesting is that people still react to Google being down, half-way down. ChatGPT was down yesterday, almost no one cared." (mrweasel)
• "because llms are a commodity, but good enough actual search isn't?" (arccy)
• "Google doesn't provide good enough actual search." (immibis)
• "They provide (partial) search for both Ecosia and Kagi and both of those to have excellent search results. Google can provide good search, they just don't use it themselves." (mrweasel)
• "For me at least ChatGPT was down as well. Does anybody have an idea what they're using from Google?" (leto_ii)

Advice to "De-Google"

The outage served as a stark reminder for some about the risks of relying too heavily on a single company for critical infrastructure, prompting calls to reduce dependence on Google.

• "I guess this is today's reminder to de-google. It is not healthy or safe to put so much critical infrastructure in one company." (buyucu)

Geographic Impact and Definitions

A portion of the discussion focused on the specific geographic impact of the outage, particularly in Georgia. This also led to a tangential and humorous debate about the definition of "Eastern Europe."

• "No-one in Georgia could access google, everything else worked. googleapis.com and google.com seemed to be the only thing affected." (simonvc)
• "Also in Georgia. I first noticed when Gmail went down. I was working on a site using Google fonts and that was also struggling." (specproc)
• "Term "eastern eu" or "eastern Europe" was always fuzzy to me. If deep down you were never sure where you belonged, use this simple test: when you were a kid and you went to your grandparents house during summer vacation, where did they had toilet? If it was inside the house, it's western Europe. If it was outside the house, it's Eastern Europe. t. Eastern European. But Google is working here." (dvh)
• "Or, were there any statues of Lenin on the way... but I think it also shows your age. A person born in 2000 is already 25 years old." (non_aligned)