Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.
Laughs in eu
Well I guess I’m glad I moved over to apple. But I guess the enshitification of all our phones is coming soon.
Yeah only reason Apple hasn’t done it is because they haven’t figured out a way to connect it all to its ecosystem.
Like they say, the Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
At least so far Samsung is letting me disable Gemini, as I try to do to any bloatware I don’t want running in the background.
I have a Pixel phone im bout to throw in the river
I can’t bring myself to use a Pixel because I don’t trust Google-everything. I have so much to say, and yet I’ve said it a thousand times already. So I’m just gonna sigh.
And yes, I know I’m on Android either way.
Second that, graphene os is really nice. I have all my intrusive work apps like team, google play stuff on a separate profile and my maim profile has all the private data and contacts. Just watch a yt for setup and follow website instructions, take maybe a few hours to set up.
Why not throw graphene or another alternative on it (if supported) instead of turning it into e-waste?
Isn’t graphene left for dead because of Google being a bunch of dildos?
There are ways they can work around it, but their lead developer was drafted into their country’s military. Ultimately, they’re going to have to make their own phone, and it looks like they’re making plans to do that.
For now, it’s fine.
Maybe this gives me a false sense of security but I bought the adguard pro on social stack (I think…). I just turn all of the connections off on gemini, meta and Bixby. Like this
Why do you keep Gemini installed? Does it even work offline?
Android users won’t have a choice after a while.
I didn’t want Google Now. Uninstalled it, and it’s back and updated. Been fighting for years.
I assume it’s better to leave it and have it not work, then them sneak it on without me knowing or baking it into something else
IMO, when Google lost most public support, it really started going downhill because the people who wanted to profit the business as much as possible became more determinant than those that were still trying to throttle the company due to ethical considerations. When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly. Add to that it exists under the US government and how that has completely fallen to corruption.
When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly.
Gives me hope for the future of MS then! Maybe they will decline themselves out of dominance.
If this happens, can we please all make a protest or petition with the FCC?
I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they’d be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell
The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They’re not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it’s a process
I’ve been struggling with figuring out how to get google off my phone. I don’t know if I’m doing a bad job of searching or if I’m just dumb, but are there any good communities in Lemmy you can recommend on the topic?
Just searched degoogle in Lemmy
https://lemmy.world/c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
There are levels to it. The advanced level is using a custom Android ROM for your phone that has no Google play services/apps on it and that’ll depend on what’s available for your phone from community ROM makers. You can see if any of these support your phone or plan any future phone of yours around these
https://itsfoss.com/android-distributions-roms/
An easier first step is just starting with non-Google apps. You can start with replacing Google apps like replace Maps with Organic Maps or something similar. Replace Gmail with something like Proton Mail. Same with calendar and cloud storage. Proton has alternatives. They even have an okay Google docs feature. Use a different search engine like duckduckgo rather than Google.
F-droid as an app store. Instead of Google authenticator use Aegis. Instead of Chrome use Firefox or a fork of it.
It’s difficult so a process over time of lessening dependency on Google applications
But what about banking apps and surch?
I’d imagine you can do everything on the website, which can likely be made into an ‘app’ on Firefox via the “Add to Home screen” option.
That is an issue that I imagine only being solved with a larger user base that banks don’t feel like they can ignore anymore
As the other guy mentioned, the website. All these apps are usually web wrappers anyways or some sort of cross platform software dev framework that does web/mobile so the website is usually pretty much the same as the apps
Do you have any good material to degoogle Android??
Just saw there’s a sort of large Lemmy degoogle community
https://lemmy.world/c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
Personally I think it’s a good start to just replace Google applications. Organic Maps over Google Maps. Proton Mail/Drive/VPN/Calendar over Google stuff. Firefox and forks over Chrome. Duckduckgo over Google search. After that you can maybe find an old old Google Pixel phone and then start flashing ROMs off XDA forums as practice before you try a newer more expensive phone
Ok!!! Thanks. I’ve done all that, so I Think I’m degoogling. It’s Hard to avoid Android in my country, you risk to be out of communication Networks
Saying “You’re not alone” is supposed to be a wholesome thing to show someone that you care. Instead, it’s AI companies squeezing as much data out of customers and injecting as much AI into everything they can.
Society really took a wrong turn didn’t it?
No, Google is using their influence and our reliance to steer society. Please don’t forget how passive language enables the worst abusers.
You’re right, I’m an abuse enabler because I made an observation about companies being shitty. Very well said.
They didn’t say you were an enabler. They said that those words are enabling. Just think about the way you phrase things so as to not hide (intentionally or otherwise) guilt.
Surely overreacting to my correct observation that did not reflect on you directly will make you seem more reasonable.
Society really took a wrong turn didn’t it?
Society has been circling the drain since the invention of agriculture…
In the absence of being able to switch to Graphene (Don’t own a pixel), I’ve done everything I can to replace Google Apps with FOSS alternatives, and disabled Google Assistant on my device entirely.
I know none of that will stop a determined Google eventually fucking with me, but at least I’m trying.
I’m so damned tired of the modern corporate world.
I know that they might not be as secure as GrapheneOS, but you should totally give LineageOS or /e/OS a try, as they’re both not limited to Pixels. I haven’t tested them myself however, since I am a Graphene user. The most I ever tried with one of them was testing ROMs by installing LineageOS on my old Moto G7 play.
I usually move to Lineage once my two year warranty is up, just in case.
I know that by law hardware manufacturers can’t deny hardware warranty based on your software (at least where I’m from…I worked in for one of the big three telco’s up here in Canada)
But I’d rather not have that argument with the manufacturer, so I wait for it to run out. If my phone has a rom available I run that until the hardware dies and then I upgrade.
Yet we keep empowering them with every purchase we make and half of the consumer base will never see an issue doing so. Some purchases we have no choice but to make, and that’s where they really have control of our lives. They seized the means of production, distribution and access of things necessary for life and leverage access to those necessities for access to more parts of our private lives. The majority appear to be naive morons who will happily sell all of us down the river for more camera filters and some pretty shoes. Basically, toys. We are losing our rights, our privacy, and control of our lives in exchange for toys…
Consumer activism, by itself, has rarely, if ever, accomplished anything.
The best recent examble was Tesla, but that wasn’t a mere non-buying action. Tesla action involved vandalism and a massive word of mouth campaign.
Basically if we want to fight for a future we believe in, we must stop playing patty cakes and fight like it’s a life and death struggle.
Symbolic resistance is not enough.
Don’t get me wrong, I still avoid buying Nestle products, and have for years, but I know this is not the way to real change.
I want us to stop suggesting consumer activism as a valid pathway to change.
Consumer activism kills businesses and products regularly. We call it ‘trends’.
But manufacturing a boycott for long enough to work is almost certainly going to fail. But like you say, it has a role to play, just not by itself. It must be an action used with precision as part of a larger strategy. We have plenty of tools, but nobody puts them together. It’s always an isolated boycott that flairs up and inevitably fades away. The company just waits it out. We also can’t boycott necessities, and that’s where they really get us. Consumer activism doesn’t work all in those cases.
Did you find a Google Drive alternative? I’m strongly considering Peergos, but still kinda shopping around.
Nextcloud sucks in many ways, but it is functional and works for me.
I use it, too. Never had any problems with it.
It has always worked fine for me. The occasional upgrade process is manual but literally just a command.
I just use Syncthing. No cloud, just keeps any folders I choose on any devices synced with one another. Never had a problem, and while the files yes accessible on the internet technically, they’re not stored anywhere except the devices that have access to them. Works like a charm.
this can be great for a disabled person i guess, i wonder if it works locally in a degoogled way
If there’s two things that have been consistent over time with the recent LLM and AI craze, is that it have some good, helpful applications for people with disabilities, and that none of the big players are looking into them. Some are actively working against them. Probably because it’s harder to monetize “living” from a PR perspective.
probably not, unless you add certain services back onto your phone. currently, gemini needs the google workspace to do anything, even something like setting a timer or reminder. i obviously dont know what change they make with that announcement, but i dont think they would offer such a feature without sucking the user deep into the google service world.
Dear tech bros,
We, the people, don’t want to use your AI shit. Please stop shoving it down our throats. Thank you.
Sincerely,
-The people
Hahahahhshahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahaha.
Sincerely,
Tech bros.
The problem is there’s a fair amount of tech CEOs that insist this is the future and everyone needs to hop on which between the hype train, the amount of software peeps out of a job because of layoffs and the amount of snake oils salesmen out of a job because this eats google’s lunch this bubble is just ballooning. You have a lot of people hitching on this bandwagon hoping to sell shovels to the next gold rush.
And for awhile everything is just gonna get shittier.
Is it really the people or just a subset of people that use Lemmy, the vast majority of people seemingly don’t care as is evidenced by the sheer number of people using things like social media.
What might be important to use in this echo chamber isn’t reflective of society on the whole.
I’ve been trying to tell people for 15 years. It hasn’t worked a single bit. It’s frustrating that people think they have nothing to hide when their carelessness and lack of tech knowledge is ruining the future of the next generations. I just can’t try to explain it to everyone. They don’t link the relation at all. I thought maybe eventually, they would just get it, but here we still are…
It’s mainly tech savy people who don’t use it. Tons of people in companies use this shit. The number of people who use “ai” to take auto notes in meetings is insane. It’s a massive security risk but they do it anyways thinking it won’t be stored.
It’s mostly lemmy. In real life people go from amused to indifferent. I have never met anyone as hostile as the lemmy consensus seems to be. If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI. Some AI features are gimmicks and they largely get ignored, unless very intrusive (in which case the intrusivity, not the AI, is the problem).
If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI.
People will also use it if it’s not useful, if it’s the default.
A friend of mine did a search the other day to find the hour of something, and google’s AI lied to her. Top of the page, just completely wrong.
Luckily I said, “That doesn’t sound right” and checked the official site, where we found the truth.
Google is definitely forcing this out, even when it’s inferior to other products. Hell, it’s inferior to their own, existing product.
But people will keep using AI, because it’s there, and it’s right most of the time.
Google sucks. They should be broken up, and their leadership barred from working in tech. We could have had a better future. Instead we have this hallucinatory hellhole.
They need a tech ethics board, and people need a license to operate or work in decision-making capacities. Also, anyone above the person’s head making an unethical decision loses their license, too. License should be cheap to prevent monopoly, but you have to have one to handle data. Don’t have a license. Don’t have a company. Plant shitty surveillance without separate, noticeable, succinctly presented agreements that are clear and understandable, with warnings about currently misunderstood uses, then you lose license. First offense.
Edit: Also mandatory audits with preformulated and separate, and succint notifications are applied. “This company sells your info to the government and police forces. Any private information, even sexual in nature, can be used against you. Your information will be used by several companies to build your complete psychological profile to sell you things you wouldn’t normally purchase and predict crimes you might commit.”
How are you evaluating inferior? I like the AI search. It’s my opinion. You have yours.
Well, in this example, the information provided by the AI was simply wrong. If it had done the traditional search method of pointing to the organization’s website where they had the hours listed, it would have worked fine.
This idea that “we’re all entitled to our opinion” is nonsense. That’s for when you’re a child and the topic is what flavor Jelly Bean you like. It’s not for like policy or things that matter. You can’t just “it’s my opinion” your way through “this algorithm is O(n^2) but I like it better than O(n) so I’m going to use it for my big website”. Or more on topic, you can’t use it for “these results are wrong but I like them better”
Traditional search often is also wrong, showing some 3rd party website or a link farm.
With AI search I get a summary AND the result list, so I have more info to make a decision.
Well, yes, Google has been becoming shittier for years as they prioritize ads and fail to deal with SEO slop. You have to know what’s a good source, but that was true even when we were doing research in libraries.
The AI summary is making the problem worse. The information it provides is not trustworthy. It also deprives site owners from traffic. It’s really bad on like every metric.
I imagine even the fk_ai crowd appreciate the non-gimmick stuff as long as it is nothing like a chatbot
Tiny example from Gmail:
This is all over, and it can be super useful from time to time.
They say “f AI!” but I mean sure they don’t want better searches than were possible five years ago? If it’s not sycophantic and confabulatory etc. etc.
Good point on intrusivity
PS
PS: I translated news from Iran this week using AI tools and using traditional translators. Who would advocate for the garbage traditional translation—soon as I went the “AI” route, it was suddenly possible to understand what the journalists were trying to say. That doesn’t mean I want translators to lose their jobs, it just means I know what the best available technology is and how to use it to get a job done. (And does not mean just because it translates well that I will also trust it to summarize the article for me.)
It’s one of the reasons I use Lemmy a little less these days as it’s evident to me that it’s an echo chamber for a tiny subset of humanity and at times it just feels like a circle jerk where real change isn’t an option.
The majority of people eat at McDonalds. It doesn’t make it a good idea on your finances or health. Sheep gonna baa.
If you for some reason think that megacorporations and big tech aren’t monetizing the literal majority to the fullest extent of every single law they can break while getting away with it, you need to wake the fuck up. Big time. I don’t know if this is some psyop from leddit or what but my doors stay closed, my android plays tablet mode with no sim. Thanks tho.
Nauseating.
Very. I get sick just smelling it.
Obligatory Lemmy is social media response
Yes, with the key difference being that it’s anonymous. Publicly viewable but the users can be as anonymous as they like.
it’s mostly just talk. people will hate it and use it at the same time
yes but what if a company has the ability to create billions of close friends who can recommend sponsored products to you? why would it care about whether you want that or not?
also bard was a way better name for google’s LLM. it has its origins in an isaac asimov story about a robot who is programmed to tell random stories.
But the AI people that the tech bros can now create outnumber real people by ♾️:1. The opinions of real people have ceased to matter even the tiny amount that they once did. So open wide and try not to gag.
You don’t want to use it.
The companies keep preloading it on new tech, updating old tech so its there, preventing the option from disabling it from even being there, and disabling tech that can’t use it.
This. Shit. Can. Fuck. All. The. Way. Off!
“oh didn we make it not just an automatic update, but you can’t even opt out? Oops! Hee hee don’t worry, you’ll love it in no time. Which is why we’re forcing it on you. You’re welcome.”
This has got to be a prank.
Every new stupid implementation of AI feels like a prank.
Gemini depends on the Google app, disable it, and it dies.
Have you noticed how the Google app, the one that supposedly just does search and list news articles, has like 400 MB? Over time it accumulated 2GB cache… how?
I recently tried using the Google Translate image translator. Totally locked up now, requiring Play Store and Google App. Still didn’t work, but is was seriously just “if you don’t give us everything now, we won’t do basic shit for you.”
Use Yandex or in use google images in the browser.
Dammit don’t make me switch to apple phones, I hate apple. I hate Google too but FFS all you need to do is stay out of my way and the one thing you continuously do is stand in my way…
GTFO of my way! Piss off with that AI crap that nobody asked for
Apple is pushing AI even for their Mac lineup. Apple is a US company and had to be forced to allow Sideloading in select regions. Jumping to another US company seems like a lateral move.
Moving to dumb phones or custom ROMs is the best alternative available.
An ungoogled android variant has to be a lot lesser of an evil, no?
Problem is that if you have a critical application (like banking) that relies on Google services you’re SOL.
It’s Apple or Google at that point.
“Do you guys not have laptops?”
GrapheneOS can sandbox apps to use the Google services only with permitted apps.
Note I don’t actually have a GrapheneOS capable phone at the moment, but I’ve been getting familiar with it in hopes of switching soon, so I’m just relaying what I’ve read.
You guys are really making me consider GrapheneOS.
Its what made me buy a pixel phone.
Just use the websites instead of the apps.
But then you can’t tap to pay with your phone.
Well then I guess you will have to sell your soul to the devil for those extra seconds of convenience
The apple who recently put AI as the core element of their os?
You dont have to switch phones entirely, and you’re better off if you dont. iCrap is still far worse than anything Google is coming out with.
Just switch to a different dialer/phone app to replace “Phone” and a different SMS/MMS app to replace 'Messages". I’ve used “Should I Answer” in the past for my default phone app, and I currently use QKSMS for texting.
Linux has become good enough to replace desktop operating systems.
Now, we are back at square one. I’ll be the first to inaccurately declare, “This will be the year of the Linux phone.”
All I need is a good enough emulation of android apps to fool them (eg for banking).
Sailfish OS has it.
Unfortunately the project has some closed source bits which, imho, aren’t an issue when you look closer (some parts of the UI). Maybe I’m naive but I trust this EU company.
I use it as my daily driver. It certainly is frugal compared to recent Android versions, but fully functional.
It’s an actual Linux OS (as opposed to any Android version). Things work the same way they do on my laptop & server.
Sadly, SailfishOS is region locked. Being from North America, I can’t purchase their phones, or use the trial/emulation option, which really sucks because I like a lot of what I’m seeing there.
There are a few happy US users on the forums. Maybe check out what they have to say.
I’m sure the company is perfectly happy with having these users. AFAIR the reason they don’t sell licenses outside EU is that it would add hassle, mostly sales legalities.
I didn’t know you cannot buy the C2 in the USA, but I would recommend an Xperia X10 II or X10 III anyhow.
Us here in NA finally get to see what its like on the other side of the region locking coin haha.
Yeah, I’d be happy if they had an unsupported version, but I get that could cause negative publicity for those who couldn’t accept that unsupported means exactly that.
Fwiw I use a phone imported from the UK (Nothing Phone 1) in NA without problems so who knows why they won’t do this.
I used Maemo on my N900 <3.
I don’t wanna use Sailfish bcs of the phone support tho, I’m shallow af & I need my hardware :(.
(I also have a few other Sailfish issues, the source code/availability/package, the licencing - but I feel like all of those could/would change with some growth.)I understand. But I think it’s right that they concentrate on a few devices. There’s also something about SONY openly providing firmware and encouraging unlocking, something “Open Devices” iirc.
Ah, the N900…
Yes, I agree.
But Sony has drivers out there for a few more devices.
Do you by chance know if WeChat and Facebook messenger work on it?
Those apps are critical for my work.
Check the forums.
FWIW, Signal works perfectly, WA too.
Unfortunately banking apps are only going to get harder to run on software uncertified by Google.
Just monopoly things.
Can you get by with web access? That’s what I do and it’s fine.
Depends who you bank with. Some desktop websites suck on mobile and some don’t even allow certain actions on desktop. For some ungodly reason Wealthsimple requires me to do almost everything via app. It’s one of the reasons I barely utilise their services.
Not for depositing checks
Yup. I use my bank’s website on my phone. Works plenty fine for me.
“Hello there.” - Play Integrity API
android is linux and its great. the problem is the google crud on top of it, and their iron fist ruling it. windows is similar tbh.
we have to fight google not compete with android. the problem is not technology itself, its the oligarchs controlling it.
Android is Linux… sure.
But it’s not what anyone means when they say they want a Linux phone.
i know that.
my point is that it doesnt really matter while the oligarchs control the mainstream OS.
Its a vexingly pedantic point.
Android… is a Linux phone…?
Not really.
Looking at postmarketOS for my phone too, so sick of this shit
PostmarketOS is cool, but as an actual phone replacement it is tough, at least last time I tried.
I haven’t tried, but I took a closer look at their wiki yesterday:
- the Main (official) devices are QEMU, i.e. virtual
- the list of Community devices is long, but whenever I clicked on something there were significant caveats
IMHO they should focus their efforts on getting at least one actual phone working fully.
I want this project to succeed, but until then I use Sailfish OS, btw.
I’m looking at a Volla phone https://volla.online/en/
But I also have no experience of Linux in general yet so I have no idea if this is a good move.
I just really want to get away from android/apple/windows on all of my devices.
I want SteamOS for desktop, because quite frankly gaming is all I really use a desktop for anymore.
Didn’t know volla. Looks cool but expensive.
I don’t think steamos on desktop is a good idea, IIRC it targets specific hardware.
Maybe look into Bazzite if you get impatient waiting for SteamOS to become more widely available.
I’m going to second a recommendation for Bazzite. If you’ve used normal Linux before, it takes some getting used to the quirks of an atomic distro, but I’ve been using it for a month or two and love it!
Volla also has a (reliable, judging from reports) community version of SFOS
Behold, the Linux phone:
That looks far too polished with locked in specs for them to not have any prototype. I’d trust companies that have actually made a product that has a janky Linux implementation that’s improving, than one that doesn’t exist yet relying on crowdfunding.
This is my fourth comment shilling SFOS here, but it just might be what you’re looking for. It is my daily driver.
Wish it was supported in more countries.
That’s pretty cool, I’m working now, but I’m checking out its Android app compatibility.
If it can run my work stuff, I’ll be so happy.
The forum has a thread specifically about banking apps.
Isn’t Android using a Linux kernel already?
Yes, but everything above it (including drivers) is custom-made and tightly controlled by Google.
Yeah, but the kernel is a low-level module that handles hardware, memory, and processes—it’s not what users interact with directly, so sharing the same kernel doesn’t make it all that similar as you’d think.
What makes Linux feel like ‘Linux’ to users is the stuff on top: the userland—bash, coreutils, package managers, X11/Wayland, etc. Android replaces almost all of that, so even though it uses the Linux kernel, it doesn’t feel like Linux.
Yes. IIRC it’s based on latest LTS kernel with Google patches. So it’s been “year of the Linux phone” for a while now.
It’s unfortunate that the slop they put on top of it is such a privacy nightmare. PostmarketOS is trying to change that and supports Plasma, Gnome, etc. But it’s early days yet and still rough around the edges from what I’ve been reading.
I use Linux since debian 3.0 and I don’t think Linux is ready to replace desktop os yet. The universe has come up with bigger and more powerful idiots.
Linux had reached idiot parity with windows at least. Idiot proof OS is a fable that cannot be reached.
Maybe in “appliances” like the steam deck. There are still driver and software support issues. There’s a big “familiarity” gap. There’s a lack of pre-installed systems. We are not at parity yet.
You think there aren’t driver and software support issues in windows 11?
Not what I said.
What you said only makes sense if you believe that to be true.
Nope.
