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 it's the whole internet explorer vs. netscape thing again, but for stuff that most people don't want.
@nixCraft #GrapheneOS does not have Gemini installed
@nixCraft funnily enough, it's not on my Huawei P60 Pro. De-googled Android ftw...
@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 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 a big reason why I dumped Android for GrapheneOS. There was no choice in the matter when it came to Gemini apps and I don't feel like default behavior on a phone I own should be to opt out to protect my privacy.
@analoghobbyist how long do you think we can install and use third party firmware? At some point google is going to stop giving source code or updates and they are working on it. I use iOS because it doesn鈥檛 force chatgpt or gemini and allows to disable things like siri but I fear it is just a matter of time before Apple is going to go batshit crazy like Google
@nixCraft I'm really not sure. It looked like Google was going to do that this past Android update and I was kind of surprised they didn't. I think their push to restrict side-loading is indicative of what's to come with Android as an OS, so I'm hoping my Pixel 8 will last me long enough until there's a viable Linux phone.
@nixCraft on the plus side, forcing AI to be active everywhere costs them money, so here's 馃 to bankruptcy
(we can only hope)
