Technology

My recent experience with my phone is I tell it to set a 5 minute timer and it sets one in the fucking Google search browser, and if I page away I lose the timer.

When I first got into Android (I miss my Nexus 6 T.T ), it felt like I could do so much more with my phone than I can now. I had so much cool automation shit that leveraged stuff like Google assistant voice commands, but now it's shit on so many levels. It goes beyond the user facing side of things; I used to use the app Tasker for a lot of the automation stuff, and over the years, it seems like the dev has been climbing an uphill battle against Google gating off functionality, and generally making things opaque and difficult for developers.

Google: Laughs in "Everybody else you communicate with who has that shit enabled"

Is it just me or does it seem slightly sus that GrapheneOS is only available for Google hardware...

Not a day goes by that I don't regret installing that on my phone.

I believe /e/OS supports a broader range of devices, and it's also pretty great in my experience. The focus is on getting rid of google (replacing all services with MicroG and nextcloud integration) and blocking trackers while providing a smooth user experience, so it's security features are not as over the top as Graphene. It's still a huge freaking improvement over stock Android though, and I find it to be a joy to use.

On devices supported by the online installer it can be up an running in like 30 minutes, no technical skills required. :)

I'm still praying for TempleOS mobile version.

FairPhone can run Postmarket OS, eOS, iodeos, calyxos and lineageos.

Some have longer support than others. Also you can buy separate parts for their phones and they are modular.

I mean there were no instructions up front because literally Google is refusing to give them, basically.
No more choice just the company force feeding the user and saying it's good for them.

Nowhere in the email or any of the Support pages did Google say how to remove all Gemini integrations from my phone.
I then emailed Google PR and... I asked if someone could provide actionable guidance for my readers who want to ensure Gemini integrations are completely disabled. Instead of answering the question, the person responding to my email wrote, in part: “This update is good for users: they can now use Gemini to complete daily tasks on their mobile devices like send messages, initiate phone calls, and set timers while Gemini Apps Activity is turned off. With Gemini Apps Activity turned off, their Gemini chats are not being reviewed or used to improve our AI models.”

Literally that reads like you can't turn it off and they just scrape less of your data on a technicality.

AICore under all apps. Disable and delete files. Done.

While I wouldn't assume anything is permanent these days, I'd agree for the moment. I had already uninstalled Gemini on my phone (2ish months ago) and just verified I still see Google listed as the default assistant.

up to 72 hours

(then we permanently add them to our private fingerprint folder based on any google-related link or api you've ever interacted with)

The time limits on their spyware might as well be ignored.

Yeah, this seems like an easy lawsuit in the EU tbh

I live in Finland using Android on a Nokia and I can switch Gemini off completely and choose to use the old Google Assistant instead. It did initially appear out of nowhere when they patched it in, but I could immediately turn it off with the same prompt that the other guy also got.

If it's unavoidable it seems to be an US only thing atm.

Yes, for the amount of hate Google gets... Which I think it is fair to be critical of any product that compromises privacy... I recently tried helping my mom clean up her iPhone, and seriously like 100x worse. Almost everything you do on Apple demands you have another Apple device. One of the worst experiences I've ever dealt with.

Yes and you have to untoggle it for each and every app individually