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.
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.”
Behold, the Linux phone:
Looking at postmarketOS for my phone too, so sick of this shit
PostmarketOS is cool, but as an actual phone replacement it is tough, at least last time I tried.
I haven’t tried, but I took a closer look at their wiki yesterday:
- the Main (official) devices are QEMU, i.e. virtual
- the list of Community devices is long, but whenever I clicked on something there were significant caveats
IMHO they should focus their efforts on getting at least one actual phone working fully.
I want this project to succeed, but until then I use Sailfish OS, btw.
I’m looking at a Volla phone https://volla.online/en/
But I also have no experience of Linux in general yet so I have no idea if this is a good move.
I just really want to get away from android/apple/windows on all of my devices.
I want SteamOS for desktop, because quite frankly gaming is all I really use a desktop for anymore.
Maybe look into Bazzite if you get impatient waiting for SteamOS to become more widely available.
I’m going to second a recommendation for Bazzite. If you’ve used normal Linux before, it takes some getting used to the quirks of an atomic distro, but I’ve been using it for a month or two and love it!
Volla also has a (reliable, judging from reports) community version of SFOS
Didn’t know volla. Looks cool but expensive.
I don’t think steamos on desktop is a good idea, IIRC it targets specific hardware.
Isn’t Android using a Linux kernel already?
Yes, but everything above it (including drivers) is custom-made and tightly controlled by Google.
Yes. IIRC it’s based on latest LTS kernel with Google patches. So it’s been “year of the Linux phone” for a while now.
It’s unfortunate that the slop they put on top of it is such a privacy nightmare. PostmarketOS is trying to change that and supports Plasma, Gnome, etc. But it’s early days yet and still rough around the edges from what I’ve been reading.
Yeah, but the kernel is a low-level module that handles hardware, memory, and processes—it’s not what users interact with directly, so sharing the same kernel doesn’t make it all that similar as you’d think.
What makes Linux feel like ‘Linux’ to users is the stuff on top: the userland—bash, coreutils, package managers, X11/Wayland, etc. Android replaces almost all of that, so even though it uses the Linux kernel, it doesn’t feel like Linux.
This is my fourth comment shilling SFOS here, but it just might be what you’re looking for. It is my daily driver.
That’s pretty cool, I’m working now, but I’m checking out its Android app compatibility.
If it can run my work stuff, I’ll be so happy.
The forum has a thread specifically about banking apps.
Android… is a Linux phone…?
Not really.
android is linux and its great. the problem is the google crud on top of it, and their iron fist ruling it. windows is similar tbh.
we have to fight google not compete with android. the problem is not technology itself, its the oligarchs controlling it.
Android is Linux… sure.
But it’s not what anyone means when they say they want a Linux phone.
I use Linux since debian 3.0 and I don’t think Linux is ready to replace desktop os yet. The universe has come up with bigger and more powerful idiots.
Linux had reached idiot parity with windows at least. Idiot proof OS is a fable that cannot be reached.
Maybe in “appliances” like the steam deck. There are still driver and software support issues. There’s a big “familiarity” gap. There’s a lack of pre-installed systems. We are not at parity yet.
You think there aren’t driver and software support issues in windows 11?
Not what I said.
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
Hahahahhshahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahaha.
Sincerely,
Tech bros.
yes but what if a company has the ability to create billions of close friends who can recommend sponsored products to you? why would it care about whether you want that or not?
also bard was a way better name for google’s LLM. it has its origins in an isaac asimov story about a robot who is programmed to tell random stories.
Is it really the people or just a subset of people that use Lemmy, the vast majority of people seemingly don’t care as is evidenced by the sheer number of people using things like social media.
What might be important to use in this echo chamber isn’t reflective of society on the whole.
It’s mainly tech savy people who don’t use it. Tons of people in companies use this shit. The number of people who use “ai” to take auto notes in meetings is insane. It’s a massive security risk but they do it anyways thinking it won’t be stored.
The majority of people eat at McDonalds. It doesn’t make it a good idea on your finances or health. Sheep gonna baa.
If you for some reason think that megacorporations and big tech aren’t monetizing the literal majority to the fullest extent of every single law they can break while getting away with it, you need to wake the fuck up. Big time. I don’t know if this is some psyop from leddit or what but my doors stay closed, my android plays tablet mode with no sim. Thanks tho.
Nauseating.
Very. I get sick just smelling it.
It’s mostly lemmy. In real life people go from amused to indifferent. I have never met anyone as hostile as the lemmy consensus seems to be. If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI. Some AI features are gimmicks and they largely get ignored, unless very intrusive (in which case the intrusivity, not the AI, is the problem).
If a feature is useful people will use it, be it AI or not AI.
People will also use it if it’s not useful, if it’s the default.
A friend of mine did a search the other day to find the hour of something, and google’s AI lied to her. Top of the page, just completely wrong.
Luckily I said, “That doesn’t sound right” and checked the official site, where we found the truth.
Google is definitely forcing this out, even when it’s inferior to other products. Hell, it’s inferior to their own, existing product.
But people will keep using AI, because it’s there, and it’s right most of the time.
Google sucks. They should be broken up, and their leadership barred from working in tech. We could have had a better future. Instead we have this hallucinatory hellhole.
They need a tech ethics board, and people need a license to operate or work in decision-making capacities. Also, anyone above the person’s head making an unethical decision loses their license, too. License should be cheap to prevent monopoly, but you have to have one to handle data. Don’t have a license. Don’t have a company. Plant shitty surveillance without separate, noticeable, succinctly presented agreements that are clear and understandable, with warnings about currently misunderstood uses, then you lose license. First offense.
Edit: Also mandatory audits with preformulated and separate, and succint notifications are applied. “This company sells your info to the government and police forces. Any private information, even sexual in nature, can be used against you. Your information will be used by several companies to build your complete psychological profile to sell you things you wouldn’t normally purchase and predict crimes you might commit.”
How are you evaluating inferior? I like the AI search. It’s my opinion. You have yours.
I imagine even the fk_ai crowd appreciate the non-gimmick stuff as long as it is nothing like a chatbot
Tiny example from Gmail:
This is all over, and it can be super useful from time to time.
They say “f AI!” but I mean sure they don’t want better searches than were possible five years ago? If it’s not sycophantic and confabulatory etc. etc.
Good point on intrusivity
PS
PS: I translated news from Iran this week using AI tools and using traditional translators. Who would advocate for the garbage traditional translation—soon as I went the “AI” route, it was suddenly possible to understand what the journalists were trying to say. That doesn’t mean I want translators to lose their jobs, it just means I know what the best available technology is and how to use it to get a job done. (And does not mean just because it translates well that I will also trust it to summarize the article for me.)
It’s one of the reasons I use Lemmy a little less these days as it’s evident to me that it’s an echo chamber for a tiny subset of humanity and at times it just feels like a circle jerk where real change isn’t an option.
Obligatory Lemmy is social media response
Yes, with the key difference being that it’s anonymous. Publicly viewable but the users can be as anonymous as they like.
The problem is there’s a fair amount of tech CEOs that insist this is the future and everyone needs to hop on which between the hype train, the amount of software peeps out of a job because of layoffs and the amount of snake oils salesmen out of a job because this eats google’s lunch this bubble is just ballooning. You have a lot of people hitching on this bandwagon hoping to sell shovels to the next gold rush.
And for awhile everything is just gonna get shittier.
But the AI people that the tech bros can now create outnumber real people by ♾️:1. The opinions of real people have ceased to matter even the tiny amount that they once did. So open wide and try not to gag.
You don’t want to use it.
The companies keep preloading it on new tech, updating old tech so its there, preventing the option from disabling it from even being there, and disabling tech that can’t use it.
This. Shit. Can. Fuck. All. The. Way. Off!
“oh didn we make it not just an automatic update, but you can’t even opt out? Oops! Hee hee don’t worry, you’ll love it in no time. Which is why we’re forcing it on you. You’re welcome.”
Laughs in GrapheneOS
but for how long https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1933177989480456365
X is blocked on network level here, could you please copy&paste?
GrapheneOS @GrapheneOS We’re going to be moving forward under the expectation that future Pixel devices may not meet the requirements to run GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices ) and may not support using another OS. We’ve been in talks with a couple OEMs about making devices and what it would cost. 1:02 AM · Jun 13, 2025
Thanks!
https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1933177989480456365
GrapheneOS @GrapheneOS Jun 12 We’re going to be moving forward under the expectation that future Pixel devices may not meet the requirements to run GrapheneOS (grapheneos.org/faq#future-de…) and may not support using another OS. We’ve been in talks with a couple OEMs about making devices and what it would cost.
Jun 12, 2025 · 3:02 PM UTC
Same entire thread on Mastodon: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114670995130379882
Long enough for GOS to port Android 16 or get their own OEM, I hope
Nervously chuckles “im in danger” while clicking through to the Graphene rom.
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.
How, its baked in? Gemini isnt installed on my phone but its there. Like the circle to search.
Gemini is an app, I disabled that. I also shut off the key press and there’s some other places you can turn off some of the automatic AI features, and also there’s a setting to disable the “online” AI in general.
But that’s why in another comment I said, I am still not sure I turned it all off (or even if it is possible to).
You can remove most apps using ADB. Universal Android Debloater is helpful for this, just make sure you read the comments for each app so you dont remove something you need.
Have you a link? This sounds like I would need root?
I guess my next phone is going to run NixOS.
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
I’ve been struggling with figuring out how to get google off my phone. I don’t know if I’m doing a bad job of searching or if I’m just dumb, but are there any good communities in Lemmy you can recommend on the topic?
Just searched degoogle in Lemmy
https://lemmy.world/c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
There are levels to it. The advanced level is using a custom Android ROM for your phone that has no Google play services/apps on it and that’ll depend on what’s available for your phone from community ROM makers. You can see if any of these support your phone or plan any future phone of yours around these
https://itsfoss.com/android-distributions-roms/
An easier first step is just starting with non-Google apps. You can start with replacing Google apps like replace Maps with Organic Maps or something similar. Replace Gmail with something like Proton Mail. Same with calendar and cloud storage. Proton has alternatives. They even have an okay Google docs feature. Use a different search engine like duckduckgo rather than Google.
F-droid as an app store. Instead of Google authenticator use Aegis. Instead of Chrome use Firefox or a fork of it.
It’s difficult so a process over time of lessening dependency on Google applications
Do you have any good material to degoogle Android??
Just saw there’s a sort of large Lemmy degoogle community
https://lemmy.world/c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
Personally I think it’s a good start to just replace Google applications. Organic Maps over Google Maps. Proton Mail/Drive/VPN/Calendar over Google stuff. Firefox and forks over Chrome. Duckduckgo over Google search. After that you can maybe find an old old Google Pixel phone and then start flashing ROMs off XDA forums as practice before you try a newer more expensive phone
So there’s an opt-out.
The article seems concerned that the email announcing this doesn’t include a specific path to the opt-out right in the email (which is a weird concern, considering the email provides two links to… presumably that information)?
I’m not sure what this means, either, but it seems the “whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off” line is saying that you can still have Gemini send texts for you even if you disable Google storing your apps usage server-side? I don’t use Gemini as an assistant, so I’m not sure, but looking at the Gemini settings menu on my Android phone that’s what it seems to map to.
I’ve not received any mails or notifications. Though I don’t use Gemini at all. Or Google Assistant. Or any assistant.
I don’t use them either, but still got the email.
Same. My only use is accidental.
Guess I’m should get around to disabling it.
I thought I had disabled it, and I don’t have the app, but I can’t see any way to remove it from any of the settings mentioned in the email 🤷🏻♂️
Pls break Google up. Kthx
Let’s not stop at Google. Break them all up!
So is Gemini on there as an app? It isn’t listed as such on my phone
Yes, it’s on there. I have a phone, never downloaded or installed Gemini, but because it’s a motorola with a special extra button… I can push that button and up pops Gemini.
The only way I can stop it is by disabling the Google app, then the button becomes innert again (which is how I like it).
So yes, it’s embedded in the Google app. Disabling the Google app may aslo cause other issues (such as Google Home/Chromecast not working).
Doesn’t the motorola phone have a settings screen for defining what the button does? For Samsung they like to re-purpose the power button.
First of all, it brought up bixby. I turned it back to powering off the phone and disabled bixby.
Then, with the new update they re-assigned the power button to gemini. So, I turned it back to powering off the phone and disabled gemini too.
However, the problem these days is that I’m never completely sure I’ve turned off all of the AI nonsense on my phone.
Yeah, but the question was as to whether Gemini is listed as an app. The answer is no, Google have snuck it in whether you like it or not.
It’s in the app list for me. I set it to disabled.
Phone is Samsung s24 ultra.
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.
Can you tell me about Graphene?
I got bank and government ID apps (manditory. Denmark uses MitID for all government related things), but they require things like locked bootloaders and Google security features.
Would those apps be functional on GrapheneOS?
Maybe? It depends on what exactly the app checks for. Some apps don’t work because they check if it’s running on the original ROM. It’s hit or miss.
If you can access what you need through the web, you can go that route instead.
how do they make it mandatory? what happens if you don’t have a smartphone?
is it strictly mandatory, or is the alternative intentionally very inconvenient?
I’m asking because it is very weird to me. but also, in my country also in the EU, there’s this misunderstanding that it is mandatory, while actually it can be replaced with any 2FA code generator app. and then it has a bunch of administrative features in one place for convenience
MitID is hard-required to sign into anything government or personal information required. Previously people would be handed a key-card (a white, fold-out card with a bunch of numbers on it. The numbers were one-time use, so the card would eventually run out, requiring a replacement after a few months).
These key-cards have been completely phased out. Now there is the MitID app or a key-device that is almost impossible to get (you’ll basically have to prove that you don’t have/can’t use a smart phone).
The MitID app has almost no features at all. It’s specifically used for authentication. You log into the gooberment website or bank website, then a encrypted, constantly changing QR code pops up. You open the MitID app on your phone, scan the QR code, and then you gain access.
This is all run through the private security company the Danish government has hired, called “NETS”.
I’m sorry you have to deal with this shit
Something must have changed since I got my physical code display then, because I simply went to their webpage and ordered a free code display device a while ago. https://www.mitid.dk/bestil-mitid-identifikationsmiddel/
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
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.
is gemini on all androids? i remember there once was something called bixby, now when i accidentally hold the home button for too long it tells me to enable “circle”. i’ve disabled all of those “smart” features but fuck knows what is going to get automatically installed in an update next week
Bixby is/was Samsung’s assistant thing. Unrelated to Google’s Gemini
What about LineageOS?
My guess is the problematic parts here aren’t open source so they should never show up in Lineage OS?
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.
I’ve been using GrapheneOS for a couple months after having tested it on an older phone for a while. I’m really loving the level of control I have over what I give apps access to. If you have a spare Pixel to test on I definitely recommend it! I’ve been getting away from all Google stuff and finding free open source and self-hosted alternatives. I’m running in the opposite direction of all the AI and data-farming.
Gemini can be disabled. Uninstall/disable the Gemini app if your phone has it then go to Settings > Apps > Default apps > digital assistant > Google > none.
I do have it disabled, but this article suggests that it will ignore that and it will be integrated in apps that I really really don’t want it in. I could stomach it if it was search and other functionality like that only, or even if it 100% ran local with no ability to phone home and train on my data, but it doesn’t. Not that it can be listening to calls, reading messages, etc, I’m definitely hard out.
I’ve seen an article that describes opting out of the app integration as well (even though that by default it’ll be on. There should be a class action against Google doing that! That said, I can’t see Europe taking this as it is.)
Same, I’ve always been android and windows and heavily anti-apple
It’s like people have completely forgotten what Apple was like before the iPhone
I don’t know if I’ve ever really been pro-Microsoft, they had just been what gave me the freedom to get the job done. I even had a Windows CE phone back in the day, because it worked.
When Microsoft started monetizing every little thing and became outright hostile with its users is when I made the switch to Linux, the learning curve was steep but it didn’t take very long to get a handle on it
Early on I think I made the mistake of trying to hurry to get a windows experience out of Linux when I should have started where I started with Microsoft, at the command prompt
I used DOS for a long time before Windows 3.1 was even on the scene. Thinking back, even when I was using Windows at first, I was always finding myself bringing up a command prompt to do things.
Linux brings back some of that nostalgia, but it is so incredibly more capable and customizable than windows
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.
Web search would be a better term since a lot of people use other search engines than Google.
Apple isn’t gonna have your back on this either you minds well run to foss forever if this is gonna be your Hill to die on
For sure, as long as that’s a viable option for me, I’ll do it, but if I don’t have that option…
If you don’t then I’d probably still rock android just for the increase in options it gives me
Not liking Apple for ethical reasons is one thing, but thinking they don’t make good products surprises me. I think the current generation of MacBooks are some of the best computers ever sold.
I should rephrase. They don’t make cheap bad products. I think iOS, Mac OS, and their walled garden approach makes their hardware a bad product. Compound that with being exorbitantly expensive for what you get, and that’s always been too much to overcome for me to support. Now they are/have becoming the less bad option.
Yeah for sure. Every Apple device I’ve had has been well built. Every interaction I’ve had with Apple Incorporated as a company has been a dystopian nightmare, and with the walled garden it’s not possible to separate the product from the company. Therefore, it’s a bad product.
Last year’s tech for next year’s prices.
That used to be true but no longer. For anything but gaming Apple’s M series chips are amazing.
I’m a 30+ year Windows and Linux user and developer that preferred machines I could build myself. A few years ago switched jobs and was given an M1 Pro for work… it’s incredible how good, fast and low power the M series are. I’ve used my laptop 8 hours straight without plugging it in. That’s simply not doable with any other machine.
I still dislike their walled garden, and for high end gaming Apple’s a no-go, but for most things it’s hard to argue with how good they are. The machines may come at a premium, but they are high quality, work great and for battery use they don’t have a rival.
For anything but high end gaming, my kids 8 year old Chromebook is awesome and can still run for hours without a battery charge. And it cost $250 new 8 years ago.
Tbf, I’m not in the market for a new device though. I’m happy you enjoy yours.
?! Have you seen a M4 chip in action? Low energy, high performance. Silent computers, long battery life. Good value on a simple benchmark basis. Not credibly last year tech.
Pre-ARM Macs, sure, but that was five years ago.
Lots of other hardware issues to complain about, however.
MacBooks are some of the best computers ever sold.
Yeah, but that’s just one generation out of many. For me MacBooks have terrible keyboards (personal preference, I know, but I hate them), had very common issues with battery, terrible reparability and stupid features like the Touch Bar (which they finally removed proving right everyone who said it’s dumb). So yeah, new MacBooks have great performance but overall the line was not that great IMHO. Very nice design, good quality, not great usability.
I was never a “Mac” person. But I took the leap to escape windows with the Mac studio ultra. I use video and photo edit tools a lot. Used my existing peripheral devices. Expensive but the most silent and powerful machine I’ve ever owned. Software is my only complaint at times but I’ll live with it. I’ll definitely continue down M series for my main device.
In context of the larger thread, I need to figure out how to get graphene on my current phone. I nerfed the AI crap Samsung was forcing on me. But who knows if I got everything. I’ll assume I didn’t. Fdroid or graphene… That’s my summer project.
I’ve been GrapheneOS on my pixel7pro since march and I have no complaints. Everything works, and I have control over what apps have access too. The only thing I will say is that if you need the camera to take gr3at photos, its not nearly so good with grapheneOS. I pretty much always have a mirroless camera with me anyway so it dosent bother me. I just use the phone camera for quick snap shots
If you want you can install Pixel Camera (official Google camera) from Aurora Store, and deny it Network permissions and any other permissions you want. It still works pretty well for point and shoot but I can’t speak for every single feature. Also you can install simulated services that the Gcam requires to function, without having to run Play Services.
Novice question: I think I am understanding that Aurora is a way of accessing the Google store without actually installing the Google Play Store, but is there a software package that it comes with? Is it MicroG? I am a little lost with how these relate to each other.
I installed Lineage and MindtheGapps on my Pixel 3a yesterday, but I’m interested in alternatives before I commit to this setup. It seemed like the easiest route given my lack of know-how, but my hope had been to de-Google gracefully and I don’t know if that’s possible with system-level Google still installed on my phone.
Good to know! Thanks!
Hey, what camera do you use? My phone is showing its age and I was thinking of getting a secondhand pixel, but I’ve also been looking at cameras to stand in for the phone camera.
I was thinking I should go for beginner friendly and small.
I use a Sony A6400. Its pretty nice, fairly small. Pick up a used body off eBay, and a Sigma 18-55mm lens and you are pretty set. Oh and get photo processing softwear for your computer. I use Darktable on Linux.
If you want to know anything about photography feel free to hit me up. I’m a huge photography nerd lol
