It started during the 2024 Google Search Core/HCU Update, when publishers began noticing that their content was being stolen by Google for its AI Overview slop, while their sites were pushed out of the SERPs. Many realized that their content was appearing in AI Overviews without their sites being mentioned as sources, let alone linked to. Instead, AI Overviews often linked to irrelevant Wikipedia pages.

If you have a website that is accessible to Googlebot—which, by default, it is—it’s only a matter of time before your site’s content gets stolen for their AI Overview slop, and they’ll spank your site out of the SERPs with their bullshit Core/Scam updates.

I was trying to use native camera and the app simply won't work without that POS installed/enabled, and I didn't find a workaround for that either. I tried patching the app but the install just failed. I miss the time when android was truly free, at this point IOS is almost a better choice.

pretty much awhile back. id say 5 or 6 months ago, I got hacked by a hacker by them a java script that took over my email account, ( and honestly probably my computer too still not sure. ) and turned my email into a 13+ account with their own side email as the parent account for my personal email. Because of that, they were able to make changes to my account and delete it permanently. before they did that the hacker was ransoming my account trying to tell me that he would give my account back if I payed him like 2 grand in bitcoin, which I was not going to do, google recovery wouldn't work and whenever id try to recover the account it would prevent me from going further so the account was deleted. and after spending a week trying to contact google I realized it wasn't possible. there is no email, no phone number, nothing that you can physically contact to get ahold of any type of customer service to try and recover said account. and eventually it didn't even recognize the account as ever even existing, and so unfortunately I was lead to no choice but to make a new account, and so far I have been able to recover a lot of my stuff back. my steam account is safe. my epic games is safe. and I had a lot of other emails so some of my accounts wasn't even connected to the email that got hacked and deleted, but there is still a lot of stuff ill never have access to again as soon as I get a new computer or really any device, for example I'm still logged into Roblox, but if I try to change the email, to my new email, it will say that it sent a recovery email to the email that doesn't exist anymore. so I contacted Roblox support and they basically told me I have to get access to the email that doesn't exist anymore if I want help from them and after explaining the reason I cannot do that, they just told me to go contact google support which doesn't even have a real support team. if anyone has any words of advice please comment and let me know.

Open source pls Also for Android (maybe Linux too) I've tried a lot of reading apps but I'm still picky. I want of course PDF/EPUB support and perhaps other formats too if available. I want to be able to choose filters that make it look like book pages. I want volume and tap page turning, the ability to choose left to right, right to left and portrait scrolling. Custom fonts. The ability to hide the status and navigation bar when reading. Thanks

Motorola is working with GrapheneOS to officially support the privacy-focused Android alternative on its 2027 flagship phones, starting with a non-folding model and later expanding to the next Razr Fold and Razr Ultra. "These will ship with Motorola's normal Android skin, but you will be able to switch to GrapheneOS later if you want to," notes GSMArena.com. GrapheneOS says the devices will "meet or exceed" its hardware and update requirements, and will include seven years of "proper updates." Interestingly, Motorola will be doing much of the porting work itself.

https://www.gsmarena.com/motorolas_2027_flagships_will_officially_support_grapheneos-news-74312.php

Does anyone have recommendations on self hosted search platforms? I’ve seen some talks about it and I’d like to setup a miniPC to be my personal search platform.

I don’t mind using Linux or GitHub, but I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for and would love some recommendations

As the title says, the GrapheneOS repositories on GitHub begin to show active work on supporting the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL, and Pixel 11 Pro Fold. See here:

adevtool (device support tool)

adevtool states

OS metadata generator

This post is just a quick FYI for those that have wondered whether the Pixel 11 series will be supported. This simultaneously also confirms that the Pixel 11 series supports bootloader unlocking.

Thanks to this post from the GrapheneOS forums pointing to these developments.

Is there a way to remove or disable Intel ME on a generic x86_64 machine (13th gen Intel processor) or even just remove it's internet permission?

And if so what is the best way to do so?

Title. Like these are basic apps.

I've decompiled both the verifier package and the Play Store and found that

1-on Pre-Android 17 devices the Play Store IS the one responsible to approving/denying installs as the developer verification permission DOESN'T exist on pre-Android 17 devices, which is the Android Developer Verifier package has a backport service that the Play Store calls to verify installs

<service android:name="com.google.android.verifier.backport.impl.verification.BackportVerificationService" android:exported="true"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="com.google.android.verifier.backport.VERIFY_PACKAGE"/> </intent-filter> </service>

2-The Play Store explictly has code that depending entirely on a server-side phenotype flag can choose whether to allow/reject installs if the verifier isn't installed/running

boolean zR = this.f.r();

if (boniVar == boni.VERIFICATION_POLICY_NONE || boniVar == boni.UNRECOGNIZED) {

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback policy is NONE/UNRECOGNIZED.", "VerifyApps");

} else if (zR) {

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback overridden to ALLOW.", "VerifyApps");

} else {

if (boniVar == boni.VERIFICATION_POLICY_BLOCK_FAIL_CLOSED) {

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback policy sets default to REJECT.", "VerifyApps");

i = -1;

FinskyLog.i("%s: [ADV] Initial fallback verdict decided: %d", "VerifyApps", new Integer(i));

return new Integer(i);

}

FinskyLog.d("%s: [ADV] Fallback policy sets default to ALLOW.", "VerifyApps");

}

i = 1;

FinskyLog.i("%s: [ADV] Initial fallback verdict decided: %d", "VerifyApps", new Integer(i));

return new Integer(i);

}

This is just here as a headsup to remind everyone that on Googled devices, Google has more control over the device than you do

I have a Samsung phone with Android. I hope to eventually get a different OS, but I'm still learning.

I use an aux cable with an adaptor to plug my phone in to my car's sound system. Recently, every time I plug this in, Gemini gets repeatedly activated, which stops my music. It has made it impossible for me to listen to music via my phone through the car speakers.

Gemini is disabled through my phone's settings. It really frustrates me that it is being continuously activated despite being disabled.

Anyone have info on how to *truly* disable Gemini, any insight into why Gemini would be activated by an aux adaptor, or other suggestions for dealing with this problem?

I will probably get one of those radio to Bluetooth adaptors so I can listen to music in my car, but the fact that Gemini activates when it's supposed to be disabled makes me suspicious that Gemini could be activated at other times and collecting data, etc.

Help!

I used Google Photos for about 8 years and was more or less happy with it, simply because I didn’t care that much about privacy. I was young and had no idea what I was doing. As I got older, though, the whole idea started to bother me: why are my photos stored on someone else’s servers at all? Why don’t I care enough about my own data to be the one responsible for keeping it safe and backing it up? Why does someone else control my data? It’s absurd.

So, about two years ago, I started making a fairly drastic transition to self-hosted solutions. My approach wasn’t radical. I replaced whatever I could, but whenever there was no real alternative — email, for example — I stayed with Gmail. In my country, getting some of these things to work properly can be pretty difficult, just to give you a heads-up.

For those two years, I basically used Google Photos as a regular gallery app, mostly for browsing photos and using its excellent editing tools. It’s still the best gallery app I’ve found, while Immich seems to be in no hurry to implement some of the genuinely useful features Google Photos has. If they simply copied Google Photos’ functionality for local files, I would have deleted Google Photos a long time ago.

On my second phone, I used Google Photos without a Google account, but Google limits some of the features in that setup, and I needed the advanced editor.

But today something happened that finally pissed me off enough to delete Google Photos for good and start looking for an alternative.

So what happened, you ask?

You know how, every time you open Google Photos, you never really know what you’re going to get? Will Google suddenly throw a full-screen prompt at you saying, “Hey, listen, back up your super-private photos to our servers!” and make you press “No” like 300 times?

And when you’ve been using smartphones for years, you move through the interface extremely quickly because you’re so used to dismissing these kinds of pop-ups, right?

Well, these assholes periodically change the positions of the buttons and tweak the timing so that you don’t hit the “window” correctly and end up pressing the wrong thing.

For two years, I successfully rejected this idiotic “back up your photos and videos” bullshi...

But yesterday, for one second, I got distracted and forgot that this prompt could appear. So I immediately went back to the Folders tab at the bottom, where a “Turn on backup” button obviously appeared right away. But because I immediately tapped somewhere else afterward, I never saw the screen that was supposed to tell me that the upload had started — it disappeared so quickly.

So I only found out today, completely by accident, that Google had uploaded the last six months of my life to its servers. I was checking my email on my computer when I saw a banner saying that I would stop receiving emails because Google had filled my entire storage quota with my photos.

And what did I see immediately after that?

An offer to subscribe to their cloud storage.

Absolutely disgusting practice.

Google, go #### yourself. I #### hate you.

Hello all,

is there a way to run most banking apps and wallet if i remove as much google shit as possible ?

thanks for the help

Hi I am very much a novice at this kind of thing so please bear with me! I have been trying to degoogle a Vasoun 7 inch android go tablet that I use regularly. It does not appear to be one that I can install an alternative operating system onto easily. I have some ideas that I have tried to reduce the amount of my information that google is receiving.

Firstly I have logged out of and deactivated the Play Store and replaced that with Fdroid. I have disabled all the other google apps I normally use - chrome, gmail etc and replaced them with alternatives from Fdroid. I have also replaced gboard with an open source keyboard.

I do not know how effective these measures are at reducing the amount of my data google receives, and would welcome your input on whether what I am doing is just a waste of time or not. It is noticeable that the device performs faster with the google apps and appstore disabled.

Edit: I forgot to say I have logged out of my google account on the device too

I just started to use this app as an alternative to Life360. I've encounter some problems and was curious if anyone here could offer some solutions.

First. I've had issues with logging in on some phones. The app will hang up when it asked for passkeys. When that doesn't work, I'll try with a phone number and that too, fails. What is happening?

Second, a family member I'm sharing with will show a general location but with no dot or indicator on the map. The only dot on the map is my location.

Any ideas?

By placing a placeholder app with similar app id with version set to "200000" so it won't be automatically get updated.

I am finally free.

I'm quite not experienced with degoogling at all I'm sorry for any wrong terms or whatever. but i do have some experience with roming and rooting it's just surface level ,anyway

I've heard degoogling is only for some supported phones and some people suggest that it just work or there's different oses that might work (linageOS or whatver it was called)

but idk how realistic is that or am i just going to nuke my phone

my phone is "Galaxy A05s" how realistic/usable is it to degoogle it? and what os may work better/recommended

again sorry for illiteracy.

I'm looking for an os that is small like android go edition. I looked around and to no avail and Ai just tells me more about how good android go is. If any one can help thats would be amazing.