9 minutesMan I sure do wish Linux mobile was a thing. I really want a full on Linux phone.
My Google chrome took 10GB space on system disc so I needed to unistal it. Now I use only Firefox.
How unsurprising anymore in this hellish world where corporates hate your desire for anonymity… but try to hide theirs, such as dark expense accounts, tax evasion, secret offshore banking accounts, connections with crime and hate groups, etc.
- Aneb@lemmy.worldEnglish13 hours
The increasing enshittification of every service pushed me to GrapheneOS long before Google could force this shit on me
- MML@sh.itjust.worksEnglish10 hours
The article doesn’t really say but this is just for desktop chrome right now right? I’ve long had chrome disabled since graphene isn’t an option unless I build it myself but I do worry about that pesky web view that snuck it’s way into everything.
It’s funny because they’re trying to find ways to cut cloud costs by offloading to users, but when that’s not a concern, they shove everything into the cloud and then ensure no local running option is available or viable.
- Hakuso@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish10 hours
They want all of your data in the cloud so they own it.
They want all their crap on your device, so you pay for it.
- Zink@programming.devEnglish15 hours
Alarming, but not surprising.
The setup that works for me is LibreWolf as primary browser and Firefox ESR if a site doesn’t work.
I don’t do web development or anything, but I haven’t run into anything that hasn’t worked recently. Librewolf works for almost everything, but if some stupid login page doesn’t like some privacy thing that librewolf is doing, I’ll try one more time with some more loose permissions, then it’s over to normal firefox.
- 14 hours
Can someone ELI5 why they are doing this? I thought all the AI shit was in the cloud?
- trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtfEnglish9 hours
The cloud being a bunch of computational power (servers). A bunch of phones in a network also can be utilized for said computational power. Passing the savings on to you! ;)
- imetators@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish8 hours
I recall this. Pretty much the same idea, but this time it is opt-out(or is it actually?)
- bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.worldEnglish13 hours
AI runs in the cloud because it needs a powerful server to run the biggest (i.e. “smartest”) models.
The cloud servers are doing nothing special that another powerful enough computer could do, just a huge amount of data processing.
You can run an ai chat on a steam deck or directly on a phone, if it’s not too demanding (“smarter” models are bigger data files, so won’t fit in the memory of a small device).
Today, for instance, I had a phone call from “Spectrum Internet support” and part-way through the call my phone blared an alarm and said “possible scam” on screen.
The phone itself interpreted the conversation as sus.
https://support.google.com/phoneapp/answer/15654065?hl=en
For Pixel 9 and later devices: Scam Detection is powered by Gemini Nano on-device
- fiat_lux 🆕 🏠@lemmy.zipEnglish3 hours
Yeah, even there. A page loading is one thing, but browser features are somewhat independent of the content. There’s also a good chance this is being used as a hook for other Google products like Drive or Docs (which are basically websites under the hood) to allow offline file management, creation, etc.
It’s a bad choice, but it wouldn’t be the first bad choice Google has made.
Well everything else is in it.
Shit, Chrome supports the use of COM ports. It’s an OS within an OS.
- T156@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
It’s also cheaper, if they can offload a portion to the user’s computer.
Cheaper for them, that is.
What I want to see is throttleable models, kind of like progressive JPEG, where the default model is “nano” and it has a watch function that analyzes if more tokens might be needed for a certain task and scales up as needed — identifying if the resources are too much for the device and offloading to the cloud (with explicit permission) only if (but always if) needed. Over time as the technology improves, larger models move to the endpoint.
And then people could have a basic set of sliders: on-device only, on-cloud only, or somewhere in between, based on the user’s preferences.
- T156@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
That’s basically model routing, and has existed a while. Open AI’s GPT-5 and llama-swap do that, for example. If the task is simple, it uses a smaller, less intensive model, and only uses the slower, larger one of the task is more complex.
Though most tend to operate with models on the same device/service, rather than a model run elsewhere.
- Jack@lemmy.caEnglish21 hours
Remove and prevent 4 GB Gemini nano install into Chrome, on Windows 11:
- Backup registry
- Start
- regedit
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies
- right-click Policies, New, Key
- confirm Google, Enter
- right-click Google, New, Key
- confirm Chrome, Enter
- right-click Chrome, New, DWORD (32-bit) Value
- confirm GenAILocalFoundationalModelSettings, Enter
- right-click newly created key, Modify
- set value to 1
- OK
- Restart computer. https://pureinfotech.com/stop-chrome-gemini-nano-download-windows-11/
Or, you know don’t install software from companies owned and operated by psychopaths, like Google and Microsoft.
- Limonene@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
I have to use Windows 11 at work. Whenever I complain about it to any of my friends, they say, “it’s easy to work around that. You just have to…” and then they say to modify some registry key, or set up a group policy, or run a powershell command, or use some cleaning tool.
But even if it’s easy to do that, it’s not easy.
- You have to know about the key or the cleaning tool, and there’s a different one for every problem.
- You have to keep up to date with the new user-hostile behavior introduced to Windows every month.
- You have to keep up to date because Microsoft removes those circumventions, because they don’t want you to be able to remove their trash.
- You have to vet the tools, make sure they’re not malware. And continuously make sure it’s not replaced by malware in the future. There’s no central repository of Windows programs like there is for Debian or Ubuntu, so if you just web search for the tool name every time, you might click on a malvertising link in the search results instead.
- Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
Hell, even borking my linux install was a relatively painless experience. I was updating from Fedora 43 to 44 and noticed at one point that my keyboard had power but nothing was displaying on my monitor. Capslock still responded so I wondered if the update had messed up the video display or something and restarted after seeing someone say that they saw the same and restarting seemed to actually kick off the update.
Well, for me, it fucked the dnf5 install, which I tried fixing from the command line for a bit before deciding to just grab the 44 iso and install it fresh. I kept my home and game partitions and just reinstalled the root dir, then created two new accounts, renamed one of them to my old username and took over the old home dir, logged in and it was like the update had just worked. Only thing I need to do to get back to where I was is reinstall some packages or software. All the settings are stored in my home dir, so even the ones I don’t have yet will get their old settings back when I do get around to installing them. All I had to do was install steam and it launched like it normally does, all my installed games still there.
And I’m pretty sure I could have even done this with a different distro and whatever was the same would have preserved settings, too.
No cloud involved or even saving any files specifically. I did ask an LLM what I should preserve to make sure I wasn’t missing anything but everything it suggested waa already in home. It could have gone even quicker if I wasn’t overthinking it so much, but it was just like an hour or so before I was back up and running once I started the install process.
- antonim@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
I’m considering switching to Linux and at this point I’m trying to ignore the “recommendations” of this sort.
- Auth@lemmy.worldEnglish8 hours
Im laughing at the image of linux users trying to sell someone on linux by talking about how painless of an experience borking their computer was.
It really goes to show that giving people the tools to solve their problems is the better route. Windows has the same thing, if they bork the root partition you can hit repair and it tries to attempt to do what you describe but if it fails to automatically detect and resolve then thats it your fucked. But it might be a simple problem that the user could correct and fix if they were given the option or included in the process.
- mechoman444@lemmy.worldEnglish13 hours
Omg!!! You’re absolutely right! Running through YouTube tutorials from India or Linux terminal videos from India is exactly the same!
- trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtfEnglish9 hours
Honestly you only need like a handful of commands to install, update and remove applications. It’s not like your compiling each package by hand (unless you’re into that sort of thing). Also those commands can be located in the documentation.
I’ve spent countless hours in the registry. Linux filesystem is cakewalk compared to the bloated abomination that is system32.
- rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish19 hours
Naw, Linux is easy, until OBS won’t start virtual camera because V4L has dependency on the previous kernel which is pretty old.
if you did’t run it right after the update, you might not even put together it was a kernel issue.
No easy errors, start obs from cli see v4l errors out, start digging into v4l, it’s not hard, but you have to know about it, then you have to know grub well enough to select an old kernel.
If there is one thing AI is useful for, it’s to make sense of and learn Linux.
- Godnroc@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
It can be good at sifting through the top search results, but if people stop posting those questions because of AI where will the answers come from?
- trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtfEnglish8 hours
Hopefully nowhere so I no longer have to read comments like “its good for making sense of Linux”.
These people don’t care how LLMs function, nor that information is true, false or complete nonsense. It strokes their false ego.
- rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish9 hours
It’s spectacular at working with nixos. I can tell it to do whatever to the declarative configs, if it f’s it up, i have git backups.
Yeah, that’s a relatively easy issue to debug. It goes to show that it’s really about where your familiarity level is.
- 14 hours
Personally, my familiarity level is maybe 2 out of 10. Don’t really know what I’m doing with Linux, only made the jump a few weeks ago. I’ve had to google some stuff but it’s still much less hassle than windows. I just got bored of seeing all those ‘switch to linux durr’ comments so I gave it a try, turns out they were right.
Those comments really do get tedious. But there’s no billion-dollar company pushing desktop Linux and buying podcast ads and whatnot, so … there’s really no other way to get the word out.
- ID10T@programming.devEnglish19 hours
I think the overlap between people who think using Linux is hard and the people who would open regedit in the first place is basically zero.
- XeroxCool@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
I’m in the overlap where I can easily follow reg edit direction and similar tutorials but can’t actually diagnose it myself. I wouldn’t have a clue. These known regedit edit workaround posts exist and are spread because there’s a ton of people in this overlap. We just aren’t vocal because it’s not one of our hills to die on.
But I can deal with cars, fix older models, and avoid buying an internet-connected model. Shit, I even learned how to fix drum brakes to maintain my options. I also disconnected my smart TV and grabbed a retired pc with win 10 pro or whatever to get some control back over that.
I do what I can, but at the end of the day, I still need to relax at some point.
- zalgotext@sh.itjust.worksEnglish16 hours
Honest question, not necessarily for you but for maybe one of those people that actually understands the registry - how do those people figure that stuff out? Like, do software authors actually publish their registry config, or do people have to decompile/reverse engineer things to figure out what registry settings a given program might use?
- 16 hours
keys tend to be organized (that’s a horrible word for whatt he registry is lol) in a handful of locations depending on context. so those chrome keys are next to the other chrome keys. in enterprise we mod that area pretty often.
the 2 was to discover a new key are:
- reg watcher that takes a baseline, then you install soemething, and you see the diff.
- in the case of no new key has been added (like for this new setting), most softwares have support articles aimed at Enterprise Admins who need to control deployments granularly. So the regkeys tend to be available.
Sometimes some dev figures it out, sometimes word spreads from the devs themselves on Discord/etc. Sometimes if you contact Support they have that workaround (after escalating to engineer). Not that you can easily get to Google Engineers, but you have a much better track with say a paid Workspace account.
It’s a FT job though to maintain a set of controlled software in an enterprise environment. Constant fiddling/tweaking. SOmetimes it’s a RegKey, sometimes a GPO setting, sometimes you’re modding a config file in AppData, or adding some lines to a Logon Script. And a lot of the info spreads by word of mouth still and to really answer your question - sometimes, no one knows where the hell it came from but after days of searching, you’re happy some random forum post finally worked and you hope to never have to touch it again. Then you close your ticket and move on to the next one.
I don’t miss it lol
- BradleyUffner@lemmy.worldEnglish15 hours
There are tools that let you hook the registry and see what keys programs are trying to read from.
- zalgotext@sh.itjust.worksEnglish15 hours
Ah ok cool, that was the sort of middle ground option I was missing
- 16 hours
Yup. I don’t think it’s hard. I used to have a dual boot setup. I’m just lazy.
And by that I mean, lazy enough that messing with regedits is something I’m already familiar/comfortable with and can do relatively quickly.
Too lazy to (re)learn an entirely new OS and file system (it’s also why I’m still on Win10 because fuck Win11), learn what programs of mine are compatible and not compatible, dealing with grub/kernals anytime I need to diagnose an issue, etc.
That being said, Windows will eventually piss me off to the final breaking point/straw where my anger/spite will outweigh my laziness. And THEN they’ll be sorry!
But until then… Opens up regedit with a sigh
Tell that to my Windows desktop support coworkers, hah.
It’s really all about what you’re familiar with.
- lietuva@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
didnt make the switch, but it feels like theres more and more shit to disable on fresh installs
- KeenFlame@feddit.nuEnglish15 hours
- Uninstall Chrome
- Uninstall Windows
- Uninstall boot loader
- Uninstall cmos
- Uninstall ac unit
- Wait at least 30 sex
- Begin new life with linux
- Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish10 hours
Begin new life with linux
- Find a package you need.
- It’s only distributed as a docker container.
- Install docker.
- Docker installs it’s AI assistant.
- Install podman.
after setting up a windows machine started taking days instead of a few minutes, I quit using it. so many bloated spywares you’d never get them all
- greyscale@lemmy.grey.oooEnglish20 hours
And of course you made sure we know you use zsh because of course you do
no no no; since you are using zsh you will need to use ragedit not regedit.
- Phoenixz@lemmy.caEnglish18 hours
I was about to type something something about just switching to Linux and at least Firefox but you already got there in the end
- ropatrick@lemmy.worldEnglish4 hours
This is very alarming. My eyes have never been opened so widely as they are in the last two months since I started ungoogling and FOSSing. This post has veritably split my eyelids.
Edit: Since reading this thread I have installed Shizuku + Canta and removed Chr9me and about 50 other pieces of bloatware from my phone.
Props to @zerozaku for the suggestion.
- Bio bronk@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
this makes zero sense because it’s on device, it’s no difference than the damage that just owning a phone is costing, are people here special?
I swear people just want a reason to freak out. Atleast make sense if you’re going to post such a stupid article title.
Probably a ridiculous notion but personally I wouldn’t feel 100% sure my device isn’t joining a distributed
bot netai datacenter for other people’s slop generation, burning my energy, my battery, my ssd (higher temps shorten their half life) without my consent- Pycorax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish11 hours
Downloading 4 GB of data without your consent is a pretty big issue. If you’re on a bandwidth starved or data capped network, that becomes a huge problem. Wasting 4GB of space on this nonsense that users aren’t gonna use too is pretty absurd.
- chunes@lemmy.worldEnglish11 hours
Just because the software is running on your device doesn’t mean it can’t phone home. You might not care about your local storage but 4GB is pretty steep for some of us.
Not to mention the performance impact of actually running the thing.
- trackball_fetish@lemmy.wtfEnglish9 hours
Honestly shouldn’t even explain it to him. With a thought process like his he deserves what’s coming to him.
Remember how few years ago there was a massive outcry when U2s album was downloaded to devices without permission?
I remember when Sony installed rootkits on our home computers when we played CDs with music we bought.
I have not bought a single Sony device or product since.
Never forget.
- FrChazzz@lemmus.orgEnglish19 hours
My mom never used iTunes on her phone, meaning she never once put any music on her phone, and so she was completely confused/angry when she’d get in her car and suddenly it would pair and start playing this U2 album. She didn’t know how to stop it, so it would play over and over (she’d just drop the volume). It also didn’t help that the cover art is among the gayest things to ever appear on her phone screen. I’d come home to visit and get in her car and she’d just start hollering “this stupid thing, where did this come from?!?”
- Melonpoly@lemmy.worldEnglish22 hours
Remember how pissed off everyone was when Sony added software to people’s computers?
- grue@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
Do you mean that time they installed a rootkit on people’s PCs when they went to play (what was supposed to be) a music CD, or the time they retroactively and remotely sabotaged Linux on people’s Playstations?
Just wondering which massive felony that should’ve landed the entire C-suite in prison you’re referring to, since there was more than one.
I may be a forgetful curmudgeon, but I sure remember those!
*shakes cane at things*
- Asafum@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
Hey come on now, there’s no need to lie. We all know that when the C-suite does it it’s not a crime in America. It’s illegal to hold them accountable!
/wrist :(
- grue@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
The sad thing is that Sony is multinational, and they weren’t prosecuted in Japan or anywhere else, either.
I think the rootkit was only on CD’s sold in North America. I could be wrong though.
Remember when people used to go insane in newsgroups screaming bloat if a program update was 80 KB bigger than the previous version and now people do not notice an extra 4 GB.
Even if it was good - and it’s not - it’s still an incredibly unethical thing to do.
- frongt@lemmy.zipEnglish23 hours
The big deal about that was that it was added to people’s libraries and couldn’t be removed.
This isn’t pushed in your face, and you can easily uninstall Chrome.
- 13 hours
The U2 album could be easily removed. The issue is that the average iTunes user doesn’t remove songs from their libraries, and thus had no idea the option to do so even existed and just assumed they were stuck with the album.
- teyrnon@sh.itjust.worksEnglish22 hours
Idk about that, you can’t uninstall any of the ai bs they put on phones and computers, from microsoft to android. You can’t uninstall edge on a newer computer either, not without being an IT specialist or whatever.
- chunes@lemmy.worldEnglish12 hours
I’ve used Firefox since 2004 and never once thought about using Chrome.
- antonim@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
Well I’ve used Firefox before it was even publicly released. Checkmate.
- Asfalttikyntaja@sopuli.xyzEnglish18 hours
Uninstalled Chrome and Windows a looooooong time ago on my computer
- T156@lemmy.worldEnglish14 hours
Back in my day, computer was a job, and all you had was an abacus. We liked it that way. None of this newfangled al-gebra nonsense.
- Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish23 hours
The AI Mode pill in the Chrome 147 omnibox is a cloud-backed Search Generative Experience surface - every query the user types into it is sent over the network to Google’s servers for processing by Google’s hosted models. The on-device Nano model is not invoked by the AI Mode UI flow at all. They are entirely separate code paths - the most visible AI affordance in the browser does not use the local model the user has been silently given, and the features that do use the local model (Help-Me-Write in <textarea>, tab-group AI suggestions, smart paste, page summary) are buried in textarea-context menus and tab-group right-click menus that the average user will discover, on average, never.
What a double kick to the dick. First, they silently download 4gb to your disk, and they still fucking send your shit to their cloud AI.
It’s probably a typo and supposed to be Nanu. In German, nanu is an expression of surprise. This model’s slogan is “Nanu, wo kommt das denn her?” meaning “Huh, where did this come from?”.
- k0e3@lemmy.caEnglish13 hours
That’s interesting. It’s an “old man” way of saying “nani?!” in Japanese.
- Septimaeus@infosec.pubEnglish11 hours
Was Mork attempting a surprised German, an elderly Japanese man, or some strange third thing?
since edge is chrome based i’d expect another 4g copy there. fuck windows
- Wataba@sh.itjust.worksEnglish7 hours
Thank you for providing an actual solution, instead of parroting Linux like so many others.
- lewe@lemmy.worldEnglish5 hours
OP informs us that this is happening by sharing the link. As a free human being, it’s up to you to decide how to act on this. Some would purge Chrome, others would not care.
