this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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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.
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.
Re-read the article. All this feature does is give you the ability to say 'set a timer for 10 minutes' or 'start a phone call to John'.
If you have 'Gemini apps activity' off then they won't use anything you say to train their models.
There is a clarification from Google in he article that I don't believe was there when I first posted. It still by default allows Gemini to have access to things I don't want it to access, which is anything. It can be blocked through the Gemini apps activity, but I don't think that was clear in the OG text.
None the less, they claim that it will be completely offline and that no information will be used to train their models. I believe that's probably true in the short term, but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and I've got fucked up shoulders. I've little doubt that they will change policy in 6 months to a year so that some data is sent anonymously.
I just want it so if I say don't allow this thing at all, ever, that stays true and they don't make me later opt out of that thing.