this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Laughs in degoogled android

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago

Cries in non-eu, non-degoogled android

[–] [email protected] 71 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (8 children)

I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they'd be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell

The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They're not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it's a process

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[–] [email protected] 200 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (28 children)

Dear tech bros,

We, the people, don't want to use your AI shit. Please stop shoving it down our throats. Thank you.

Sincerely,

-The people

[–] [email protected] 69 points 4 days ago

Hahahahhshahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahaha.

Sincerely,

Tech bros.

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[–] [email protected] 223 points 4 days ago (32 children)

Linux has become good enough to replace desktop operating systems.

Now, we are back at square one. I’ll be the first to inaccurately declare, “This will be the year of the Linux phone.”

[–] [email protected] 78 points 4 days ago (8 children)

All I need is a good enough emulation of android apps to fool them (eg for banking).

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (10 children)

Sailfish OS has it.

Unfortunately the project has some closed source bits which, imho, aren't an issue when you look closer (some parts of the UI). Maybe I'm naive but I trust this EU company.

I use it as my daily driver. It certainly is frugal compared to recent Android versions, but fully functional.

It's an actual Linux OS (as opposed to any Android version). Things work the same way they do on my laptop & server.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

IMO, when Google lost most public support, it really started going downhill because the people who wanted to profit the business as much as possible became more determinant than those that were still trying to throttle the company due to ethical considerations. When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly. Add to that it exists under the US government and how that has completely fallen to corruption.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly.

Gives me hope for the future of MS then! Maybe they will decline themselves out of dominance.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 days ago (34 children)

I've been Android and Windows user for pretty much all of my life. Vehemently anti Apple because of the company and I've thought the products are trash. I've been 100% Linux for over a year and a half, and if this Gemini stuff comes through, I will not have an android phone either. I have a Pixel and my old still functional Pixel. I need to try installing grapheneOS or something else and trial it to see if it will work for me.

If Linux isn't an option for me in the future for whatever reason, I will be purchasing a Mac. I will never have a Windows machine for the rest of my life if I have any say in the matter, work being the obvious and uncontrollable exception. The fact that I'm even entertaining the idea of owning an iPhone or a Mac is really telling about how far Android and Windows and enshitified.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

The user experience of GrapheneOS is basically the same as vanilla Android, except that you have more control (you can uninstall google apps, for example), but at the cost of a small minority of apps (banking ones, for example) not working (out of the box, sometimes at all). My banking app works, and a quick google search will tell you if yours does too. If your old pixel is not too old (4 is no longer supported, 8 definitely is, not sure abt in between), you should give it a go. I think you'll see it's not as big of a step as you maybe currently imagine.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Well I guess I’m glad I moved over to apple. But I guess the enshitification of all our phones is coming soon.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah only reason Apple hasn't done it is because they haven't figured out a way to connect it all to its ecosystem.

Like they say, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Actually, the apple climbs up the tree and claims it made it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

switch to grapheneos unless you're in the eu

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I was writing a comment that my device is unsupported and all the supported pixel phones are flagship priced. Then I decided to check my work and look it up.

Long story short I have a refurbished pixel 6 on the way, it was cheaper than my current phone was.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Thanks, I've wanted to do this for ages, but I got this current phone before I knew about grapheneos and the compatibility issue. Now all I need is to fully switch my main email and I'll be significantly de-googled.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Saying "You're not alone" is supposed to be a wholesome thing to show someone that you care. Instead, it's AI companies squeezing as much data out of customers and injecting as much AI into everything they can.

Society really took a wrong turn didn't it?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago (3 children)

No, Google is using their influence and our reliance to steer society. Please don't forget how passive language enables the worst abusers.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I don't have Gemini loaded to my phone and I have Google assistant voice command disabled

But a few days ago I was having a conversation with my son next to me on the couch with my phone sitting on the arm of the couch.

When I asked him a question, gemini answered with a prompt on the screen I have never seen before and haven't since.

It still creeps me out

I looked up what the prompt for gemini is supposed to lol like and this looked nothing like that. It looked more like a popup dialogue box from a browser but the only browser I use is opera and it is set as default

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

Yeah a couple of weeks ago Google secretly activated Gemini on every Pixel user's phone. I ran into the same problem, my phone suddenly activated and Gemini popped up interrupting a song that I was playing while I was away from my phone. Ended up screwing up the song and having it repeat over and over and over.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 days ago (10 children)

In the absence of being able to switch to Graphene (Don't own a pixel), I've done everything I can to replace Google Apps with FOSS alternatives, and disabled Google Assistant on my device entirely.

I know none of that will stop a determined Google eventually fucking with me, but at least I'm trying.

I'm so damned tired of the modern corporate world.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Maybe this gives me a false sense of security but I bought the adguard pro on social stack (I think...). I just turn all of the connections off on gemini, meta and Bixby. Like this

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[–] [email protected] 52 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (11 children)

I agree it would be concerning if I allowed Gemini access to my phone. Fuck that. This shit is exactly why I am on GrapheneOS.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 days ago

"We spent a lot of money on this, so you're going to have it."

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Gemini depends on the Google app, disable it, and it dies.

Have you noticed how the Google app, the one that supposedly just does search and list news articles, has like 400 MB? Over time it accumulated 2GB cache... how?

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Dammit don't make me switch to apple phones, I hate apple. I hate Google too but FFS all you need to do is stay out of my way and the one thing you continuously do is stand in my way...

GTFO of my way! Piss off with that AI crap that nobody asked for

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago (8 children)

An ungoogled android variant has to be a lot lesser of an evil, no?

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Pretty sure I disabled Gemini as one of the first things I did when I got my phone. But, yes when I read that, to me it did seem like a serious overreach for something that was going to be "on by default" for most users.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 4 days ago (13 children)
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[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 days ago (4 children)
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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 days ago (8 children)

Remember when Google+ was the future?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 days ago

“Google is making it easier for Google to pry into your personal data.”

“Water is making it easier for water to make you wet.”

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 days ago

I guess my next phone is going to run NixOS.

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