Mastodawn

Eduardo Sánchez Nov 5

So, do all Android phones come with the Gemini app pre installed, like YouTube and Maps?

No wonder Google says its AI is getting popular. They've added it everywhere, including search engines, and forced users to use it without providing an option to disable it.

This is what a monopoly is all about. Sadly, nobody is going to stop them. They have already killed competition and the independent web, and most of their users have no idea how information reaches them or if it is even accurate

@nixCraft on that last sentence: and they don't care

nixCraft 🐧Nov 5

@nowayitsmae A sad reality. I fear for future generations, as they are only getting the information that big tech or Big Brother wants them to see. We are doomed as species. It is not even funny anymore.

Cogito ergo mecagoendios Nov 5

@nixCraft My fairphone 3 with Android 13 installed the latest security patch and when it rebooted my "ok google" had replaced Assistant with Gemini. That's how deeply enrooted that shit is. They can force gemini on you even retroactively on android versions from when gemini didn't exist.

nixCraft 🐧Nov 5

@elrohir sneaky google

the hatter Nov 6

@elrohir @nixCraft my 7 year old xperia compact running Android 10 sprouted a new head some months back, with Gemini appearing on it too. Of all the backports that I might have hoped for it, that was not one.

Aubrey De Los Destinos Nov 5

@nixCraft That's how they were handling Google+, by merging it with YouTube, to a discontent of many users. And Meta did this with Instagram and Threads, and suddenly there were 25 million people on a new social media platform. The next quarter looks green in the Excel.

petur 😶🇺🇦🇵🇸🇹🇼Nov 5

@nixCraft on the plus side, forcing AI to be active everywhere costs them money, so here's 🥂 to bankruptcy
(we can only hope)

@nixCraft maybe the new phones, but for all the other phones it seems to be a service connected to other apps that you can't uninstall because, so Google says, they are essential to make Android work.
There is also the app, and you can install it, but it's not necessary for using Gemini on Android. You just have to, using a technical term, suck it up.

@nixCraft I went in and disabled it. I don't want this. Any time I have seen an AI result it's because it is built into something and I have tripped over it, and it has been utterly useless.

If a company has to force people to use a product, the product is, most likely, complete crap.

Handler Skyler Nov 5

@nixCraft I use LineageOS, no Google crap and no AI

constantine Nov 5

@nixCraft I don't install gapps anymore

Ingonymous Nov 5

@mage @nixCraft
I would like to do so as well, but there are tons of apps where you do not find a proper replacement. So, how do you deal with that?

ಚಿರಾಗ್ 🌹✊🏾Ⓥ🌱🇵🇸 (he/him)Nov 5

@ingonymous @mage @nixCraft I use @organicmaps instead of Google Maps, switched to Proton for mail, drive, calendar, and docs, and use NewPipe to watch YouTube. Most days, I completely forget that I have a Google account.

Yeah, I need it for Play Store apps, but I preference F-Droid where I can.

ಚಿರಾಗ್ 🌹✊🏾Ⓥ🌱🇵🇸 (he/him)Nov 5

@ingonymous @mage @nixCraft
Oh, and I use Fossify apps for phone, SMS, Gallery, and things like that. I'm also slightly lucky that Samsung replaces some of Google's awfulness with their own, but only b/c it's marginally easier to turn off/ignore.

Ingonymous Nov 6

@chiraag @mage @nixCraft
Thanks fo the insighs; I'm basically on he same track for the basic stuf, but there are some company-based apps which are simply not replaceable, esp. banking-apps in my case, food-delivery, and some other stuff like health insurance app and so on, not even Signal is available on F-Droid.

Ingonymous Nov 6

@chiraag @mage @nixCraft
but organicmap sounds cool, I will take a closer look to that, thanks :)

constantine Nov 6

@ingonymous @chiraag @nixCraft
Of course you might have things limiting you but I usually just go in person to the bank or ATM, and order food via phonecall
I am able to manage my insurance through the website for it

@chiraag @ingonymous @mage @nixCraft @organicmaps I'm doing exactly the same, everything Google/"default" is disabled/uninstalled, I use Fossify branded/open source alternatives for everything: Clock, Calculator, Contact, Phone. I don't use an 'assistant' so I don't see any mention of Gemini luckily. But yeah, I feel pretty hopeless as mobile phone user; there is no longer any viable platform that doesn't require specific hardware (for custom ROMs). Esp with Google killing F-Droid in <1 year. 😫

ಚಿರಾಗ್ 🌹✊🏾Ⓥ🌱🇵🇸 (he/him)Nov 6

@eclecticpassions @ingonymous @mage @nixCraft
Yeah, I wonder how the whole mandatory signing stuff will play out. Like, Mozilla requires it and it didn't kill the extension ecosystem per se (though webext meant the kinds of things you had access to as an extension were severely narrowed for security reasons).

I don't trust Google's motives here, but at the time, it's sort of ridiculous for Google to whittle away at their one true advantage over iOS - their openness.

Draken BlackKnight Nov 5

@nixCraft
Running GrapheneOS on my Pixel since that's the only feasible option right now. There is a way to uninstall Gemini using ADB and the pm command:
pm uninstall -k --user 0 name-of-app

Peter N. M. Hansteen Nov 5

@nixCraft At least on my relatively recent Samsung, Gemini seems to have slithered in as part of a system update.

The "Ask Gemini" prompt keeps popping up pretty randomly, and tends to get in the way of getting things done.

@nixCraft I should have twigged on how bad this was going to get as soon as the Gemini backend for Assistant showed up.

All I wanted was "Add to Shopping List", "Set a X minute timer" and "Turn off the bedroom lights" functions and they crippled the Assistant with the new brain. It *said* it was doing those things and didn't actually do them. It even provided verbal confirmation of the actions it wasn't doing.

@nixCraft I was able to switch a clients phone from Google Gemini back to "Google Assistant" but the sneaky thing was Google changing long-press from reboot to Gemini. Disable that and Google goes into the background to continue its passive data slurping.

@nixCraft yeah I can't stand it either. I traded my Samsung galaxy s23 for a Google pixel 8a last week and installed GrapheneOS on it. Fixed a lot of my issues.

Chris1776 Nov 5

@nixCraft You can still remove apps with Shizuku and Canta (https://github.com/samolego/Canta). Though it's not a real deinstall, just a fancy wrapper of the adb commands to uninstall an app from the user.

GitHub - samolego/Canta: Uninstall any Android app without root (with power of Shizuku). Debloat your device as you wish, no PC required.

Uninstall any Android app without root (with power of Shizuku). Debloat your device as you wish, no PC required. - samolego/Canta

GitHub

@nixCraft Microsoft does the same as Google... For the same reasons.
Only solution: GrapheneOs (may be Linage as well) and GNU/Linux for the desktop.

But the question is always the same: what's the solution for vast majority of people who even don't understand that there is a problem?

Howard Chu @ Symas Nov 5

@nixCraft funnily enough, it's not on my Huawei P60 Pro. De-googled Android ftw...

@nixCraft I had the hardest time turning off my phone the other day because the damn gemini set itself to be activated by my power button. I had to go through so many settings to change it back to normal so I could turn off my device!!

Peter Krefting Nov 5

@nixCraft I don't have a specific Gemini app on my Samsung S23 (yet?), but I think the "Google" app has some AI stuff in it (I never use it, so I have no idea what it is for).

Joey Provolone Nov 5

@nafmo @nixCraft

that's becuase samsung's stuff is what i consider a "fork" of android and includes alot of their own stuff. their AI is bixby

Rodrigo Dias Nov 5

@nixCraft That's why I run LineageOS without GApps. Gives full control back.

@nixCraft e/OS ones don't. They're de-googled completely, or almost. I live mine (rooted it myself).

@nixCraft
You can choose between the old stylee google assistant and gemini in the settings, of course it depends what you want out of an onboard pa?

Ray McCarthy Nov 5

@nixCraft
You can disable Gemini.
Of course you shouldn't have to.

I also discovered you can disable autoupdate for Google apps you can't remove (most can be disabled) so that storage isn't wasted.

Updates are also too frequent.

I installed K9 mail, because the stock mail app is a sort of Google terminal & Google then see all i/O and gets all the usernames, passwords and servers.

They have attempted to pervert SMS. You have to turn off Google's messaging in it.

Joey Provolone Nov 5

for me, aside from gemini, the bigger issue is how much harder its become to flash AOSP roms on android phones to fully remove google and other software giving you a clean base to install FOSS apps

impossibleibex 🇺🇦Nov 5

@nixCraft #GrapheneOS does not have Gemini installed

Sudo Sudo Sudo ⒶⒺⓋ Nov 5

@nixCraft I removed the Google. Now running Graphene OS. No worries now.

𝔱.𝔥.Nov 6

@nixCraft it's the whole internet explorer vs. netscape thing again, but for stuff that most people don't want.