We asked, you told us: It’s Google Discover or nothing for you

Many smartphones today ship with news aggregators to the left of the device’s homescreen, providing both weather and news updates. Between Google Discover, Samsung’s own news aggregators, and the OnePlus Shelf, there are quite a few options on offer.

So that got us wondering about Android Authority readers’ favorite news aggregators in this regard, or whether they even used this feature in the first place. And it’s really a two horse race when it comes to occupying the area to the left of your homescreen.

Do you use a news aggregator to the left of your home screen?

Results

A total of 1,948 votes were tallied at the time of writing, and just under 50% of respondents chose Google Discover as their aggregator of choice on the left-most screen. This isn’t really surprising due to the fact that Google’s solution ships on a ton of phones around the world.

It really was a two horse race, as a massive 42.5% of polled readers said they don’t actually use a news aggregator on the left-most screen. At least two comments pointed to the presence of ads as a driving factor behind their decision.

Related: The 10 best news apps for Android

Meanwhile, third-party news aggregators, OnePlus Shelf, and Samsung’s own solution brought up the rear in that order, with none of them reaching 4% of the total vote.

Samsung’s solution being so far down the order is pretty surprising, as it’s the most popular OEM and its news aggregators are generally preinstalled. We wonder whether Samsung would be further up the list if the average Android-toting consumer chimed in too (or if even non tech-savvy people don’t care for its news aggregator).

Comments

• Wongwatt: One of the first things I turn off on every new phone.
• Amr Ahmad Muhammad Khedr: Funny thing that I saw this article in Google Discover
• Jumperone: One of the first things that i did on my new Galaxy was turning this feature off.
• Roberto Mezquia Jr: I literally found this article from the Google feed on my Pixel 5.
• Walter Kowalski: Don’t like wasteful features so no
• My Galaxy Prime: I have it turned off on my S10
• Joe Black: Never used it on any device 😀 I even deactivated it when it was possible.
• Saurabh Dhaul: It’s one of my favourite features in Pixels. Those plagued my Samsung feed will never understand how good it is. Use Google!
• PhoenixWitti: Just more adware, so no.
• Jakub KoÅ‚akowski: I was using the Google Discovery/News for a very long time, but recently I saw 2 (or more?) ads in the feed each time I visited it… Just some random ads that even weren’t adjusted to my ad profile. I deactivated it 2 days ago, so basically I’m back to feedly-only option.
• jdrch: I read the news daily and don’t need it spoonfed to me, so I disable the feature.

That’s it for this poll results article, thanks for voting and for leaving comments! What do you make of the results? Do you use news aggregators to the left of your homescreen? Let us know by leaving a comment below!