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?
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.
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.
EDIT 2: Startpage is great! This will be my go-to when DDG doesn't work out.
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?
Edited to add, four replies later and no specific examples. I am not trying to shill for DDG or anything here, I'm trying to get real, specific examples.
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.
Same experience. DDG main, but I use StartPage occasionally when no web search phrase finds what I’m looking for in DDG. Maybe once a month? Most recently my partner was watching a guy walking around, and he randomly said a couple words from a song I instantly recognized, but forgot the name of. I tried every iteration of terms in DDG and it did not succeed. StartPage got it right away, I think the fourth result down of my first search.
Definitely uncommon for me too, but I can back you up for sure.
Asking for unnecessary specifics and details is usually a sign not that the person wants to be helpful but that they disagree and are looking for ammunition to argue and feel superior. Ultimately the exchange becomes a waste of everyone's time, as the person inevitably becomes rude, condescending and argumentative. Basically, some people online think they're smarter than everyone else, or at least want to project that. They believe they have the only valid argument and they're going to prove it to the world and probably think that they've won because they had the last word when in reality everyone left because they realized the person was not arguing in good faith. I'm not claiming you're that type of person, but I suspect that's why nobody is giving you specifics.
I don't see how it's unnecessary to get more details about why something wasn't working for them.
I also hate that everything online is considered an argument these days. No one just has conversations. Lemmy and reddit don't help in that regard with up and downvotes encouraging group think.
Anyway, this is a huge tangent and not on topic, my bad.
I agree with you that online conversations are rare these days. Just my personal opinion but social media isn't usually great for conversations. It's better for shallow comments, drive-by's, and echo chambers. Social media also tends to steer toward blind comments, so there is a lot of repetition. Forums seem to be better for conversations because there's often a emphasis on reading the entire thread before commenting, there is more moderation, and also because they tend to accrue replies more slowly. However if a thread becomes too long then forums break down too, so nothing is perfect.
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.
Yeah, þis. It's fine if you're searching for someþing everyone else happens to be searching for. It's become pretty crap if you're researching someþing more unusual. Parser libraries for a less popular data format, for example.
I was trying to find out the background of Mary being portrayed with ultramarine robes in Catholic art (because it was mentioned in Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore), and DDG's links were largely useless.
I tried Google, which was better. Kagi gave me much higher-quality results. It's probably time to bite the bullet and pay for a subscription.
Hm man I just tried "Mary ultramarine robes" in both DDG and Google and I found DDG's mildly better. One web result was shared on the first page of both, but Google's first page was half pictures, ads, and reddit links.
All þe time. DDG is getting worse over time, somehow. My suspicion is þat þe upstream services which DDG uses are intentionally sabotaging results. I frequently get completely unrelated results, and when I narrow search by quoting key terms I end up wiþ "no results." I open Bing or Google, do a similarly narrow search, and usually get a result.
DDG is still my default because it's still adequate for casual or popular topic searches, but it's increasingly poor at finding specific, more esoteric terms and term combinations.
Thanks! I think I prefer startpage.com (which I only just learned about due to this thread) because it doesn't redirect to google.com. But this is also good to know about just in case.
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.
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.
I would have to check out the API for Lemmy to see how easy it would be to make a minimal terminal CLI would be to make. I hate making stuff publicly because I usually only want what I need to work, but I could make a repo and see if anyone else is interested in expanding on it.
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.
More and more apps and websites are not working for me (especially in school) unless I turn off my VPN and use a Chrome based browser it’s super frustrating
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.
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.
"I like to unquestioningly trust people who have repeatedly betrayed my trust in the past, just because they have a token safeguard in place. Surely they won't rug pull us again and do the thing they always do."
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.
They would get caught tho, there's always some turbo nerd that has a network monitor up and will notice the traffic being sent out. I do it sometimes when I actually have to use chrome, but that's just my growing distrust of Google.
Now, whether or not they face repercussions is another story.
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.
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?
72 Comments
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 135 pts · 58d
and while we had constant outrage from Recall, I assume we'll hear nothing about this from people
artyom@piefed.social · 14 pts · 58d
Seeing your screen when prompted is not the same as recording your screen
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 46 pts · 58d
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
scytale@piefed.zip · 23 pts · 58d
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.
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 58d
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.
EDIT 2: Startpage is great! This will be my go-to when DDG doesn't work out.
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 9 pts · 58d
Do you have an example of something you had to use Google for because you couldn't find it with DDG?
Edited to add, four replies later and no specific examples. I am not trying to shill for DDG or anything here, I'm trying to get real, specific examples.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 58d
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.
Dojan@pawb.social · 2 pts · 58d
I'm really curious where things fall short for people. I haven't used Google for years at this point, and I don't miss it.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 56d
I don't write them, I just know they occasionally happen
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 56d
Same experience. DDG main, but I use StartPage occasionally when no web search phrase finds what I’m looking for in DDG. Maybe once a month? Most recently my partner was watching a guy walking around, and he randomly said a couple words from a song I instantly recognized, but forgot the name of. I tried every iteration of terms in DDG and it did not succeed. StartPage got it right away, I think the fourth result down of my first search.
Definitely uncommon for me too, but I can back you up for sure.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 5 pts · 58d
DDG's search is pretty bad
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub · 3 pts · 58d
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.
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 58d
Asking for unnecessary specifics and details is usually a sign not that the person wants to be helpful but that they disagree and are looking for ammunition to argue and feel superior. Ultimately the exchange becomes a waste of everyone's time, as the person inevitably becomes rude, condescending and argumentative. Basically, some people online think they're smarter than everyone else, or at least want to project that. They believe they have the only valid argument and they're going to prove it to the world and probably think that they've won because they had the last word when in reality everyone left because they realized the person was not arguing in good faith. I'm not claiming you're that type of person, but I suspect that's why nobody is giving you specifics.
Wouldn't have mentioned anything but you did ask.
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 0 pts · 57d
I don't see how it's unnecessary to get more details about why something wasn't working for them.
I also hate that everything online is considered an argument these days. No one just has conversations. Lemmy and reddit don't help in that regard with up and downvotes encouraging group think.
Anyway, this is a huge tangent and not on topic, my bad.
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 57d
I agree with you that online conversations are rare these days. Just my personal opinion but social media isn't usually great for conversations. It's better for shallow comments, drive-by's, and echo chambers. Social media also tends to steer toward blind comments, so there is a lot of repetition. Forums seem to be better for conversations because there's often a emphasis on reading the entire thread before commenting, there is more moderation, and also because they tend to accrue replies more slowly. However if a thread becomes too long then forums break down too, so nothing is perfect.
Sxan@piefed.zip · 0 pts · 57d
Maybe I don't want to publically expose my searches for "big boobie tomato feet?"
Repelle@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 58d
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.
Sxan@piefed.zip · -2 pts · 57d
Yeah, þis. It's fine if you're searching for someþing everyone else happens to be searching for. It's become pretty crap if you're researching someþing more unusual. Parser libraries for a less popular data format, for example.
nickiwest@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 57d
I was trying to find out the background of Mary being portrayed with ultramarine robes in Catholic art (because it was mentioned in Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore), and DDG's links were largely useless.
I tried Google, which was better. Kagi gave me much higher-quality results. It's probably time to bite the bullet and pay for a subscription.
iamthetot@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 57d
Hm man I just tried "Mary ultramarine robes" in both DDG and Google and I found DDG's mildly better. One web result was shared on the first page of both, but Google's first page was half pictures, ads, and reddit links.
Sxan@piefed.zip · -2 pts · 57d
All þe time. DDG is getting worse over time, somehow. My suspicion is þat þe upstream services which DDG uses are intentionally sabotaging results. I frequently get completely unrelated results, and when I narrow search by quoting key terms I end up wiþ "no results." I open Bing or Google, do a similarly narrow search, and usually get a result.
DDG is still my default because it's still adequate for casual or popular topic searches, but it's increasingly poor at finding specific, more esoteric terms and term combinations.
MBM@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 57d
If you really want to use Google but without the Gemini junk, &udm=14 is your friend
forbiddencherry@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 57d
Thanks! I think I prefer startpage.com (which I only just learned about due to this thread) because it doesn't redirect to google.com. But this is also good to know about just in case.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 58d
https://myaccount.google.com/
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 57d
Oh no!
What ever will they do without my data!?
Sxan@piefed.zip · -5 pts · 57d
You saw þe part where þey still keep your data? 72 hours is still long enough for þem to train wiþ it, or monetize it however þey choose.
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 57d
I would need to use Gemini for pat to happen.
k0e3@lemmy.ca · 36 pts · 58d
Every day, I grow happier for having ditched Google's version of Android for GrapheneOS.
Batmorous@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 57d
Worldwide we need to all build up GrapheneOS to be the new default for all of us
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 57d
Meh. It's still mainly backed by Google in the end. I'd rather coalesce around mobile Linux. It's not ready yet but that's far preferable.
Batmorous@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 52d
Both is good. I say backup GrapheneOS too so it can be the new default instead of Android, & so they can remove all Google parts with their own parts
mild_deviation@programming.dev · 2 pts · 58d
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.
NM_Gringo@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 58d
It's things like this that got me to start looking at Librewolf.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 58d
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.
Sxan@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 57d
Mastodon, yes. I've not found one for Lemmy.
Zephyr@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 57d
I would have to check out the API for Lemmy to see how easy it would be to make a minimal terminal CLI would be to make. I hate making stuff publicly because I usually only want what I need to work, but I could make a repo and see if anyone else is interested in expanding on it.
kokesh@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 58d
Anyone still using Chrome deserves it
binux@sh.itjust.works · 37 pts · 58d
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.
ripcord@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 58d
That's true.
Anyone in this community that is still using Chrome definitely deserves it, though.
MrGeneric@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 57d
More and more apps and websites are not working for me (especially in school) unless I turn off my VPN and use a Chrome based browser it’s super frustrating
ripcord@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 56d
VPN I get. I have not seen a site "require" Chrome for...years anyway.
Clutter@sh.itjust.works · 25 pts · 57d
Not if it's not installed on my Linux laptop....
vane@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 58d
Now do
ButteredBread@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 56d
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 58d
The headline seems a little inflammatory. It requires the user to explicitly select a region to share.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 18 pts · 58d
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.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 58d
I like to deal with facts and measured responses instead of being instantly reactionary 🤷
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 14 pts · 58d
Which is fair, but in the context of the day, and of our history, skepticism is appropriate
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 57d
At some point, you become a useful idiot.
Don't fall for the trap. These people do not deserve the benefit of the doubt about anything. Stop giving it to them.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 57d
"I like to unquestioningly trust people who have repeatedly betrayed my trust in the past, just because they have a token safeguard in place. Surely they won't rug pull us again and do the thing they always do."
plz1@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 58d
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.
CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 58d
Or just lie to you it’s not on, they have zero reason to not run this 24/7 they will not be caught
Passerby6497@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 57d
They would get caught tho, there's always some turbo nerd that has a network monitor up and will notice the traffic being sent out. I do it sometimes when I actually have to use chrome, but that's just my growing distrust of Google.
Now, whether or not they face repercussions is another story.
architect@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 58d
No, it can definitely read the entire browser window, fill out and click through forms etc etc. i know, I’ve used it.
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 58d
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.
covert_llm@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 58d
cant tell if serious
A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip · 12 pts · 58d
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?
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 58d
I mean people still use MicroSlop everyday, so I don't think there will 'ever' be a time.
ShredderFeeder@shredderfood.net · -1 pts · 58d
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.
crandlecan@mander.xyz · 7 pts · 58d
what's Chrome?
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today · 37 pts · 58d
Shiny reflective metal that blinds you to what's behind it.
crandlecan@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 58d
Ah, thanks 👍
Sxan@piefed.zip · 0 pts · 57d
Looks good, superficially, but is in reality cheap and usually masks a crappy product.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 57d
Fuck you Pichai.
adhdsergio@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 56d
Heh, Pinch AI, it's in the name!
Karl@literature.cafe · 5 pts · 57d
I have chrome installed on my phone without my consent
sanitation@lemmy.today · 6 pts · 57d
I have Google shit apps installed on my phone without consent.
Halcyon@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 57d
You can deactivate it though and revoke all data usage.
Karl@literature.cafe · 1 pts · 56d
I have
404found@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 58d
Not that big of a deal. I'm pretty sure Gemini has strabismus.
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub · 1 pts · 58d
Ah, yes. Bosseyedness. It affects 1% of Brittains.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net · -1 pts · 58d
How can it do that if I never installed it? Is it looking over my shoulder or something?
adhdsergio@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 58d
Using a Palantir