ecrevisseLiteral Hostage Situation
Why even install this crap?!
cRazi_manPeople don’t know. Researching good image backup/sharing options is beyond most normies. Privacy invasion isn’t even a known problem for them to care about.
My parents certainly won’t be able to comprehend this. My brothers are tech savvy, and it’s taken years for them to come onboard with self hosting since I’ve started advocating it (one still can’t because his wife finds it difficult to move away from Google photos).
If you’re on iOS you have to actively install this. So either they or someone else chose this. Plenty of options to move away from Gagle. It’s 2025.
What other option is there for automatic backups, image editing and touchups, and index and searching for photos?
I’m currently in the process of learning to set up Immich on a home server. That will take care of automatic backup and indexing and searching.
For touchups, I do that on device with an image editing app it needed. Although I never need to edit really.
By indexing is that by fine name and meta data or does it do face and location matching like Google. I know I’m moving goalposts but that’s the real killer feature IMO.
It’s many to have facial recognition, etc with a locally run AI
Interesting I’ll check it out.
The basic photos app on iOS does all that on device
They follow the same privacy standards as Google in the USA. Sure they don’t sell ads but the real issue imo is warrantless requests for that info for the government.
You can literally disable iCloud and still use it all. No privacy standards will matter, it’ll stay in your device.
That’s not what I want. I want it infexed and searchable, backed up, and easily shareable.
It is indexed and searchable locally, you can share with the share button to anywhere you like.
It just won’t be backed up to iCloud.
What other option is there for automatic backups, image editing and touchups, and index and searching for photos?
Immich and Gimp.
Stopped reading at gimp. GTFO 🤣
Just clueless nerds everywhere expecting people wanting to deal with magically editing hundreds of photos. Get a clue.
Blocked. I don’t need this kind of low quality interactions, even less while genuinely trying to help others.
TrickDacyJust because it’s super easy and well known I would assume
What other option is there for automatic backups, image editing and touchups, and index and searching for photos?
The standard iOS app?
They follow the same privacy standards as Google in the USA. Sure they don’t sell ads but the real issue imo is warrantless requests for that info for the government.
Apple does keep the photos and metadata encrypted in flight and at rest which I would assume is better than what Google does, but I haven’t seen Google’s policy in a while. Apple Photos Legal Page
Ente.
Easy way to backup your photos, create shared albums and it has nice “this time year ago” memories stuff.
Just like the standard app. Again, no added benefit.
And do your friends who use Android use the standard app too?
We’re talking Google photos on iOS
And that also works and is used by people on Android. But you said the “standard app” is a good alternative on iOS but do people on Android use it, so you can actually benefit from shared albums and such?
Is this real?
I’m so used to computer-things being files I edit sovereignly on my device that I find it hard to understand the serfware.
Yup, literally went through it today.
real_squidsI can believe that, even on android their functionality has been declining for years. Can still edit (poorly), and copy on my slightly outdated version, but overall the experience is worse than before.
Android is nos good either. Google Calendar requires access to all my contacts to run. Nope.
I might be on an old enough version that it still functions as intended without that permission (its from 2021 lol). Photos on the other hand nags you to update and eventually completely stops you from using it unless you “update”. Thankfully I can disable both apps so it’s not a big deal for me
sp3ctr4lAndroid isn’t really that hard to like 90% de-google, you can replace most google apps with FOSS alternatives, then disable and deny all permissions to almost all google apps, even uninstall many… you can do that all without root, without even ADB.
To get to 100%, yeah, you’re gonna need ADB and root and some kind of replacement OS… but you can do a lot without it.
It is real. Even granting limited access to Google photos will lock down key functionality. I was on Android until just recently with a decade of content I still want to access on an iPhone.
I need to follow these instructions but haven’t made the time for it: support.apple.com/en-us/120924
I’m so used to computer-things being files I edit sovereignly on my device that I find it hard to understand the serfware.
I like your framing and terminology!
Lyra_LycanYou I can’t open the app without giving full access, and the only reason I use it is it’s the only way to have a personalised album on the Chromecast. I’m in the progress of degoogling
LineageOS has android TV builds, KDE has “Plasma Big screen” and theres a lot of cheap Android TV boxes that can be rooted and have their bloat uninstalled. Raspberry Pi’s look like the go to right now, seeing you can get a Pi4 for under $40, and a cheap USB remote off eBay or aliexpress for less than $5
Thank you!! I didn’t even consider RPi, and I’ll look into LineageOS TV
Youre welcome! Another thing to consider is if you have any old desktops or (soft moddable) consoles kicking around. I have found that the Nintendo Switch makes a wonderful portable Android TV after getting homebrew on it. An old laptop or desktop could be used similarly :p
There was an LTT video last year that recommended a $20 ‘Onn.’ (Walmart store brand) Android TV for its ability to be rooted/hacked. I bought a couple to replace my Roku, but haven’t actually gotten around to messing with them yet.
If it hasn’t changed/been locked down since then, I think it’s a better option than a Raspberry Pi at over twice the price (you forgot the cost of the case and power supply, BTW).
The Onn. boxes have been patched and bootloader locked unless you got one manufactured before 2024 and it was never updated past 2024. The current ones are boot loader locked and full off ad-ware
Spoiler: Roku doesn’t either. Immich + a RaspberryPi or other SBC is the way to go…
Roku’s on my eternal blacklist after something… I think it was forcing users to accept data harvesting terms to continue using their tv’s. Whatever it was, I know they’re dead to me for life.
I remember when privacy requests were requests, asking if you’re 13 or older. Now they demand that you must be 13 or older because they will be harvesting from you.
They have forced ads on your homescreen on the most expensive Roku you can buy. Completely bullshit. I immediately switched to Apple TV after buying the most expensive Roku and having that happen.
A raspberry pi or mini PC is more useful but the 10 foot interface for streaming services can really suck. Unless you pirate then the world is your oyster.
fushuan [he/him]that the app has limited functionality without those permissions is scummy, but you should be able to access those photos from another app, Google Photos isn't locking them out of access, right? what's hostage about this?
I’ve just set up a self hosted server, with lots of useful Docker containers. Any suggestions for a good image host? I saw immich, and it sounds tempting, any thoughts?
getting my family off of google is proving to be a years long process but it’s going to be worth it and i’m not letting corpo scum fool me again
So happy I went the NAS route for photos solution… sure it costs more and takes some knowledge of how to do it, but it’s not its only purpose either.
my nas save me on cloud storage cost, since i got a tons of pictures and videos, so it pays for itself
Ho is this extortion when your fotos are just there, on your phone?
No. You have to choose to download google photos.
Many people have it because they’ve got no clue about this stuff and google photos is for “free cloud storage” or the “shared family album”.
Oooooh. I understand. Thank you, kind stranger.
Similar situation with WhatsApp on Android: you can’t share images or videos without giving the app full access to your entire filesystem. You also can’t video or voice call without giving the app full phone permissions.
MothraI have WhatsApp on Android and have restricted its access to my photos. Every time I want to share an image I need to first select which new photos I want to give Whatsapp access to, then select the photos again to send them. Next time I tap to share an image I won’t see any new photos in the options no matter how many new photos are in my gallery.
I can also share to Whatsapp from my gallery, which will prompt again the permission for this individual photo thing. Same.
maybe they’re serving different versions of the app to different regions or something. I am 100% sure this doesn’t work for me.
That is a an Android feature. A user can select the media they want to share without giving full access to the media folder.
And apps have to support it, which WhatsApp doesn’t
Not sure about that because I can use it with WhatsApp.