@evacide I have a BLU phone, never locked, using Ting rather than any major carrier. I never installed Gemini, but there are settings for Gemini that you can search for in the settings application. Right now everything is turned off, but every time there's an update for anything from Google, I'm going to have to re-check those settings. This android phone cost me a bit over $200 brand new. We need open Linux phones to catch up, Because as long as it is controlled by Google Android is going to become a worse and worse option. ( but at least it's not a fruit phone!)

@evacide
Let's call it what it is: rapist mentality.

@evacide This is exactly (in part) why I built Schedule Us. I don’t want Google reading my emails—but that shouldn’t mean I have to go without the ease of #ai when it’s time to put something in my #calendar. Why does every AI tool need to get ahead of you and predict what you want. When I want AI to do something for me, I’ll tell it. Until then, it should keep out of the way. https://scheduleus.online/faq/google_copilot_already_do_this

@evacide I wonder if this is at least a partial explanation for the aggressive “not even we can read your WhatsApp messages” ads from Meta that we’ve been seeing recently on streaming services. Trying to get ahead of this?

@evacide
Hey @signalapp are you affected by this #Gemini#Spyware from #Google as well?
Or do you have some mitigation for it in place already? Like e.g. something similar to what you did for the spyware from #Microsoft?

@evacide You mean fascist American Army can read every Android phone data. Remember that Google now has Officers in the US Army.

@evacide

Good call: “potentially endangering the privacy of communications” & contractual obligations for confidentiality, as others have noted. 😐

@evacide If it was only Google.. Bing, DuckDuckGo, all of them.
You cannot search nowadays without being forced to either see bullshit AI or go through the menus to disable it

I hate this. Climate EMERGENCY! Are they fucking stupid!? Why are they insisting on a technology that fucks up the planet even more??

@evacide im so tired.
I am constantly trying to keep Copilot off my computer and I have dropped almost everything from Google. I’ll keep trying to steer clear but get the sense it’s inescapable.

@evacide I can't reconcile their unlimited data theft with the fact that Gemini is hot garbage. If they're going to be stealing our data, at the very least we should be getting some functionality out of the deal.

@evacide I've already removed Gemini via adb once. I'll do it again if it comes back after this forced opt-in.

I am not going to tell anyone that the Gemini app package is actually called com.google.android.apps.bard. I am also not advising anyone to follow these instructions:

1. Download and install ADB on your computer from the Android SDK Platform-Tools package

2. Enable Developer Options on your Android device:

3. Go to Settings > About phone > Software information

4. Tap "Build Number" seven times

5. Go to Settings > Developer options > USB debugging

6. Connect your Android device to your computer using a USB cable

7. Open Command Prompt or Terminal in the folder where ADB is installed

8. Verify the connection via command prompt or terminal by running the command: adb devices

9. Then run one of the two following commands:

adb uninstall com.google.android.apps.bard

Or

adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.apps.bard

10. Then verify the package has been removed by running: adb shell pm list packages | grep bard

@evacide

What a shit-show. You might see me at a coffee shop with my Xbox running Linux....

@pluralistic

@evacide Thanks for the heads up. Do you know if we need to worry about this if we never enabled Gemini in the first place? When I try to access Gemini settings on my phone it takes me to an opt-in screen which I'd rather not consent to.

@evacide This stuff is so incidious! Why can't they just leave us alone!