I'm in the UK and today I got asked whether I wanted to leave this on or not - it just notified me and asked me to confirm my consent.

So I think this article's headline is slightly misleading - Google is actively informing users and asking them to confirm their consent.

ADB tools —> remove google services and other spyware apps —> oops, you bricked your phone

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.

"The fact that Google has that locked down surely violates some EU laws. But I'm sure they wave away the laws because of "financial security" or some other bullshit. "

I don't know as much as I'd like to about the regulatory side of this, but I know that Google and other big tech have done a masterful job of proactively building themselves into systems such that taking action against them is difficult.

I think that's part of why the US antitrust case against Microsoft a few decades ago fizzled out into nothing — even though Microsoft was deemed to have been a monopolist, the big question was how do we remedy that in a way that isn't going to be harmful? The consensus on this amongst people who I respect is that the results of the Microsoft case was woefully insufficient and something that helped to lay the foundations of the big tech dominance that we see today.

You really think that the holy OS can even fit in such a small, restrictive device as a cellphone? Of course not! It needs room to truly achieve transcendence.

I just use the timer on my microwave, I suppose the kitchen is the most likely place you'd want a timer. Unless you were using 5 minute epoxy.

That's good. I haven't had anything though, hopefully saved by the EU.

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.

I don't get it.

you're in a thread discussing the finer points of privacy concerns about a corporation snooping on your apps and your only example of a barrier to not use a privacy focused product is...your requirement for government backdoors and spyware?

also SSO works just fine on eOS. unless you're talking about googles MFA. at that point why are you even concerned about privacy?

Do you trust them? The Curve sub is full of people complaining about fraudulent transactions. Kinda makes me afraid of unlocking my card lol.

Mine apparently didn't, but it's an older Samsung. Like, micro-USB era. I'd be surprised if Google ever autoinstalls Gemini because of the age.

Opt-out by default in the EU I'm fairly sure.

You can check here: https://myactivity.google.com/product/gemini

If you don't need any of that¸ you're good!

Enjoy your new linux phone!

eOS is Android

For real, I was puzzled. Like damn, this dude absolutely hates Graphene! I wonder why...

Is there a petition for antitrust charges against Google somewhere? I'm over the duopoly. Both options suck.

God does not wish HolyC to compile to lowly ARM architectures

I just went into my settings after reading this article (and getting a bit frustrated that it was a wall of text with no clear instructions right up front).

I did a search in settings for "gemini" and found the Gemini settings. There's no clear 'off' switch. But there's is an option to switch back to Google Assistant. So I did that. And not when I search for Gemini in settings it urges me to enable Gemini.

I'm taking that as a good sign that I've disabled it permanently. Thought I'd post this info in case it helps someone else. Or so if I'm incorrect somebody else can correct me.

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.

eOS is forked AOSP and has all Google "contributions" removed.

so yes. it's Android.