I think Google used to be seen as not evil because Microsoft had that fame better than anyone. Nowadays Microsoft is way more “not evil” with Nadella than Google ever was, and Google is not being very good at being not evil lately. In turn, Apple is the most mercenary of them all.

Google used to be seen as the hero of tech because it spearheaded much of the current open source and free culture, much before it became mainstream. It embraced Java while Microsoft made .Net