• 43 minutes

    Now do

    Chrome can now suggest you files from your and your friends hard drives

    • I used to use WebKit based browsers like w3m and terminal based browsers like lynx. Also used a lot of terminal based apps for things, not really for security but because my netbooks single core atom chip sucked. I noticed though that I essentially avoided cookies, ads, and trackers by accident. I’ve been thinking of going back to a thermal based life. Now I’m wondering if there are terminal based apps for Lemmy and mastadon.

  • The headline seems a little inflammatory. It requires the user to explicitly select a region to share.

    Google is making Gemini a lot more aware of what’s happening inside Chrome. The company has started rolling out a new “Select from screen” feature that lets users highlight specific text or images from a webpage and send them directly to Gemini, making conversations with the AI assistant far more contextual.

    • 28 minutes

      It’s baffling that over and over and over, every fucking time a corporation does this shit, there’s someone willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

    • 2 hours

      The fact that it can do it in the first place means it can do it at all. Just because they require the selection now, doesn’t mean they aren’t harvesting telemetry 24/7, and won’t “accidentally” enable this feature later.

      • Or just lie to you it’s not on, they have zero reason to not run this 24/7 they will not be caught

    • No, it can definitely read the entire browser window, fill out and click through forms etc etc. i know, I’ve used it.

      • That might be true, but it sounds like like a completely different feature than what the article is discussing. This is talking about a new feature that requires the user to select a specific section of the page in order to make it visible to the I’m LLM.

        I am a little confused though, as to why this new feature would be needed if it could already read the entire screen.

    • 6 hours

      Maybe innocent people who aren’t as technically literate as you that also happen to be using Chrome don’t deserve for their rights to be infringed upon? If that’s an unpopular thought then so be it I suppose.

      • 5 hours

        That’s true.

        Anyone in this community that is still using Chrome definitely deserves it, though.

  • 13 hours

    Every day, I grow happier for having ditched Google’s version of Android for GrapheneOS.

    • I keep hoping for the 10 Fold to go on sale again, but with component prices being the way they are, I don’t think it’s going to happen for me. Will wait and see how it shakes out for the 11, and if it’s still too bonkers, settle for a used 10.

    • 15 hours

      Seeing your screen when prompted is not the same as recording your screen

  • I get increasingly jaded with every bit of news that basically says “yet another reason to not use Google, integrated/agentic AI etc.” When will it be enough to make even IT-illiterates consider?

    • I mean people still use MicroSlop everyday, so I don’t think there will ‘ever’ be a time.

    • I stopped worrying about IT illiterates long ago… Same reason I don’t want the masses flocking to Linux. They’ll find a way to ruin it.

  • Gemini is already creeping me out with all the personal information Google is injecting into the AI context. So far I’ve seen my name, location and if I remember right, which vehicle I drive. Who knows what else is in there. I use DDG whenever I can, but sometimes a Google search is the only way to actually find something, so I see the Gemini junk as I’m scrolling down.

    Is there any way to have that info deleted and no longer collected or used by Google? Or is that kind of thing only for the lucky people in Europe?

    EDIT: Found it here: https://myactivity.google.com/product/gemini?hl=en-US

    • 16 hours

      You can use startpage. It just proxies your searches to google, so you get the same results as a direct google search. I think you can also use !g on DDG.

      • I’ll have to try out !g, thanks a lot!

        EDIT: Tried it and it just redirected to google.com. I was hoping it would have kept me on DDG for privacy and just presented a first page of results or something like that.

    • 15 hours

      I use DDG whenever I can, but sometimes a Google search is the only way to actually find something

      Do you have an example of something you had to use Google for because you couldn’t find it with DDG?

      • I tried switching to ddg several times over the last decade or so and always gave up because of issues like this, especially with technical or obscure topics. Recently started paying for Kagi and do not have the same issues at all there. The results are good and nicely presented without ads. Of course, on the flip side it’s pretty expensive.

      • 12 hours

        Not OP, but its true. There have been times I’ve searched and tweaked like 7 times. Go to google with my original text and its the first link. This is not common though.

      • For me, I !g sometimes when I’m searching for specific gifs, and DDG isn’t getting me the results I need. For the most part, that’s it.

  • How can it do that if I never installed it? Is it looking over my shoulder or something?

  • 16 hours

    Not that big of a deal. I’m pretty sure Gemini has strabismus.