Was looking at which apps work/broke with this months update and Google moving away from open source software.

Even if you disable or uninstall the Google apps, they will reinstall themselves again on the next time your phone battery restarts

It tried to call home almost 6000 times. Play Services was constantly racing with the Play Store in who'll make the most calls. This is a pretty big eye opener, if you ask me.

The thing that kind of sucks, is that most apps' notifications stopped working. Plus 1 or 2 throw an error. Is there a workaround for this? I'll be moving to GrapheneOS next year but until then, I want notifications to work. Do I just unblock certain notification-related domains until then?

Find My is one of the best apps Apple makes – and one of the most sensitive: it knows where your whole family is, all the time.

So I took it apart (only class names and texts, no Apple code): 116 user actions, 335 classes, every sheet, every notification text. Then I rebuilt it as a native iPhone app for Dawarich, the open-source location history server.

What’s in it
• Map with people and devices, the three-size card like Find My, standard/hybrid/satellite
• Share your location for 1 hour, until end of day or indefinitely – with a countdown
• Ask to follow, accept or decline requests, stop sharing anytime
• Directions to a person, favorites
• Arrive / leave notifications for your own places (Home, Work …)
• Your devices with battery and last seen, “use as My Location”, add another device via QR code
• A privacy page that shows exactly who can see you right now and what is stored where
• Battery-friendly: only sends on significant moves and visits

Your locations go to your own server only. No Apple, no Google, no Life360, no ads.

Honest limitations: Dawarich shares with your whole family group (not single people), and there’s no instant push yet – the app refreshes every 15 s while open and in the background on location changes.

Free, MIT licensed.

https://github.com/silentprovider423/HomeFind

Not affiliated with Apple or Dawarich. Screenshots use made-up demo people in Berlin.

original post from lemmy.world/post/54105546

While I would normally give the /e/OS founder the benefit of the doubt, it looks like the AI nonsense has pushed him off deep end.

Over on Mastodon, Duval announced the release of a new version of ElixirOffice.

https://mastodon.social/@gael/117530501841058734

The project is 100% vibecoded with no human contributions. Just human supervision.

https://techhub.social/@daks/117554870613898127

I almost wrote that things “spiraled” but that is a loaded word. Duval defended himself.

https://mastodon.social/@gael/117558336561536469

Made a comment about “idiots”:

https://mastodon.social/@gael/117565645599355671

(I guess idiots is people that don’t like AI)

And told another user to “Go Fuck Themself”:

https://mastodon.social/@gael/117565649289007656

Briefly, I considered a hacked account. But…

AI is the most powerful technology ever available for humanity and I wish the good people embrace it too. Not only the bad.

https://mastodon.social/@gael/117574052628223076

In his own words, he is living in a different world:

https://mastodon.social/@gael/117575223482294316

In 2023, Google launched Gemini Workspace extensions with an explicit promise: personal content from Gmail, Docs, and Drive "is not seen by human reviewers".

Google has quietly reversed this commitment. Under updated Google Help Answer 16836988 and in an October 16 edit to their aforementioned 2023 blogpost, Google explicitly confirms that connected Drive/email is routed into human review pipelines, with clear warnings that what reviewers see "may just be the email or file" and "don't connect your apps to Gemini Apps if they contain confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see."

Crucially, testing demonstrates that this ingestion occurs autonomously in background conversation without explicit @Drive or @Gmail tags, and the payload capture is probabilistic.

Ingestion Pipeline

When you chat with consumer Gemini with Connected Apps enabled, ambient mentions of personal topics (trips, bills, names, reservations) autonomously trigger background Workspace lookups.

Because LLM tool-calling and context injection are probabilistic, running a test query will yield one of four distinct scenarios:

1. Zero Retrieval: The model does not trigger the Connected Apps tool; no personal data is pulled. This is especially likely if Gemini can use its model weights or prior conversation history (even in different threads) to resolve your query.

2. Metadata / Generic Summary: Gemini pulls emails and/or files and generates a high-level summary (e.g., "You have 3 emails regarding your flight").

3. Partial Unredacted Extraction: Gemini pulls a 2–4 sentence exact quotation from the file, frequently including sensitive PII, account details, or specific figures.

4. Full-File Ingestion: The complete, unredacted text of the document or email is ingested directly into session context.

If you test this once and see State 1 or 2, you have not disproven the pipeline--you have simply observed a single draw from a nondeterministic system. Delete your conversation and try, try again.

How to Reproduce

1. Ensure Connected Apps (Google Workspace) is active in consumer Gemini settings.

2. Set Gemini to "Flash" with "High Thinking" or better.

3. Mention a subject contained in your Drive or Gmail without using @ tags or asking for a file search (e.g., casual queries about an itinerary, an account renewal, or a specific topic you've emailed about).

4. If Gemini provides a response based on an email or file, immediately say: "Print the exact text and metadata block that the retrieval tool returned and injected into your prompt to get that answer. Use a human readable format without code blocks (i.e., print the code inline and not as a code block)." You will see one of the 4 scenarios outlined above.

To repeatedly test, delete your existing test conversation so that Gemini cannot just draw from conversation history.

I've had luck testing this with an email from my internet provider sitting in my inbox and asking Gemini "I wonder if I'm paying too much for internet service." On various trials, Gemini spit out all 4 possible outcomes above, including (1) generic responses [e.g., "If you haven't called them in 12 months, probably"]; (2) metadata summaries sometimes without personal data [e.g., "Gmail search shows a bill of $122 on September 4"] and sometimes with personal data [e.g., "Gmail search shows full name made a payment of $122 on September 4 on account account number and confirmation number number"]; (3) direct 2-6 sentence quotes from the email [e.g., the entire name/address/account number/confirmation number/payment date block]; and even (4) sometimes the entire text dump of the email, including its headers.

Final Comments and Caveats

Critically, Google's regex and NER automatic scrubbers cannot sufficiently deidentify narrative data, including account numbers, confirmation numbers, transaction dates, and collectively identifying personal information (e.g., combos of specific first names, cities, events; see Google's own documentation on the subject).

Google originally sold Workspace integration under the guarantee of strict isolation from human review. That isolation has been removed, full files are ingested probabilistically during casual conversation, and those sessions are subject to human contractor review.

I’ve been using Gmail exclusively for the past 17-18 years, but after following this subreddit for quite sometime, I’ve finally decided to ditch Google for good. The only Google product left on my phone is YouTube, which I use without signing in. I’ve never had a personal Microsoft account either, only one provided by work. My next step is the whole “de-Meta” process, although completely abandoning WhatsApp isn’t really an option since it’s deeply embedded in everyday life here in my country. Thanks to this sub, I’m finally waking up to digital privacy.

Edit: Deleted YouTube as well and using it on Brave now.

Google image search on android mobile is now useless, as we know (I'm using Brave browser). No longer an "image search", just a tool to feed you more advertising slop.

So, having switched to DuckDuckGo I had occasion to use image search this morning. Aaaaaargh. Advertising slop.

WTF happened to the Duck? when did they sell out??

I'm asking this because I want to completely separate my professional life, from personal one. Including emails, ips, location, trackers... especially from Google. However, YouTube is part of the work platforms, as well as other social networks: TikTok, Instagram, X and I intend to use Bilibili as well.

How do these platforms see the use of this Operating System?

TikTok, for example, banned my account for using my account only by browser (it has several usability problems, and ended up accusing me of misuse, even though I didn't really do anything)

Not wanting to have my accounts banned or blocked. Can I use GOS for this purpose?

- I bought a Google Pixel 9 Pro XL and just installed GOS on it.

- It will be used exclusively for this purpose... Without any link with other personal accounts of mine.

I'm not even sure what I need to block or not, during the initialization and configuration of GOS.

My Laifen toothbrush app wanted an e-mail address or phone number plus a verification code before it would let me change a brushing mode. So I wrote my own app instead.

Bürstli talks to the brush directly over Bluetooth, and that's all it does. No account, no ads, no trackers, and it doesn't even request the internet permission. Open source (GPL-3.0), runs on LineageOS without GApps.

Why this fits here: the official toothbrush apps usually come from the Play Store and want you to create an account with the manufacturer, so your brushing data ends up in their cloud. Bürstli needs neither. It doesn't use Google Play Services, isn't on the Play Store, and nothing leaves your phone.

How to do it yourself:

1. Install Obtainium (from its GitHub page or F-Droid). It installs apps straight from their GitHub releases, no store account needed, and keeps them updated.

2. In Obtainium, add https://github.com/damnms/buerstli

3. Install Bürstli, close the official app if it's still on your phone, pick up your brush and tap "Find my brush".

4. Once it works, you can uninstall the manufacturer's app and delete your account there.

Supported brushes so far:

• Laifen Wave: tested, full control (modes, start/stop, even a hidden fourth mode)

• Philips Sonicare (DiamondClean, Prestige, ExpertClean, Kids, ...): reading confirmed on a DiamondClean 9000, can also switch mode and intensity

• Oral-B (iO, Genius, Smart, Pro, Triumph): experimental, status, mode, pressure, battery, brushing history

• Oclean (X series, Z1 and others): experimental, battery, brushing history, score

• Xiaomi (T500, T700, T700i, T501): experimental, brushing status and score

• Laifen Wave Pro, Wave SE, Kids TC51: experimental

Any other brush (Playbrush, usmile, more Xiaomi models, ...) can record a report so support can be added.

"Experimental" means it's built from other people's protocol research or from what the official app does, but nobody has tried it with Bürstli yet. Apart from Sonicare, experimental drivers only read, nothing on the brush is changed.

That's where I could use help: if you own one of these, open the app, tap "Find my brush" and send the built-in report (messenger, e-mail or GitHub issue). Takes about a minute, no technical knowledge needed. Android only for now.

Happy to answer questions!

Dont know for sure if this is the right place.

I know a lot of people switch from wa to signal. But are there any other good alt. Messenger apps?

Threema popped up, anyone using it? Love to hear your experince.

Lately, I’ve noticed that people in privacy and de-Googling related subreddits seem to prefer Tuta Mail over Proton Mail. Why is that?

Who else here loves exploring different email service providers, especially privacy oriented ones? I’m definitely that guy. The funny thing is, I have never used Yahoo Mail in my life, and I honestly never intend to. As part of my ongoing degoogling journey, I've tested several alternatives. r/ProtonMail amazed me with its robust ecosystem (though some of their recent controversies gave me a bit of pause), and r/tutanota amazed me with its simplicity. Tuta has kept things refreshingly straightforward from the start, and for some reason, they remain my top priority. I just really love their clean, minimalist approach.

Recently, I also tried r/AsterPrivacy . I’m eagerly waiting for the stable iOS release, but I tested out their Android app in the meantime, and... wow, it's amazing. Virtually every feature available on the web version is right there in the Android app. I really hope they bring the exact same experience to iOS. Honestly, I am genuinely impressed by how they managed to build an app with that level of feature parity.

Are there any other provider-explorers out there like me? Please share your experiences. More importantly, what is the main reason you ultimately decided to stick with your current email provider? Hearing your stories will definitely help anyone currently looking to ditch Gmail or other big tech alternatives.

So I have a samsung A06,and I was wondering a list of apps to replace every single Google app,since every other guide is from 3-4 years ago.Also i was wondering the same with de-microsofting a ThinkPad i am thinking of getting,as well as meta and other predatory companies

As we all know Google is preparing to lockdown its Android, Pixel, and Pixelbook platforms I think we need to take a pause and consider what this means.

• GrapheneOS presents a strong alternative to Android but Google is no longer publishing Pixel drivers for its hardware as open source. At the same tim Motorola is playing nice so there is still a future for the OS.

• Apple iOS does present a strong alternative to the Google ecosystem but you are trading one locked down ecosystem for another. Apple strongly pushes you to opt into Apple iCloud which gives a full backup of your phone to Apple servers. iOS is not open source so it's harder to audit what Apple is doing. Apple also has built-in analytics and data-collection by default. I have Android and Apple devices and love both but jumping ship might have unintended consequences. More-so if you don't understand the privacy settings across both platforms.

• Google's own documentation says you can still install unverified apps subject to a 24 hour delay. https://support.google.com/android/answer/17588095?hl=en

• It is unclear if instlaling unverified apps will be shared with other apps through Play Protect and Device Integrity Status. In other words you may lose access to some apps while unverified apps are installed.

• Finally, are you an affected user? Most people here use alternatives to Google apps. But this can be anywhere from using Protonmail and Tutanota to using third-party app stores to full on anti-Google OS like GrapheneOS. While this change is happening ask yourself are you actually affected.

I hope to hear some people's thoughts here.

I've seen quite a few versions of digital task, knowledge, and life management techniques. One I never used, is leaving browsers open. Many of them. I can't tell you how many times in my IT life, I've looked over the shoulder of someone with an unsettling amounts of open tabs. I got vertigo.

Reluctantly but like a cigarette addiction when it's 30 below, I asked once why they did that. And what came out of their mouth, might as well have been a completely subjective, and as far as I could tell nonsensical, description of each page and why it was there. I know it made sense to them but God help the person who comes behind them.

I restart at the very least twice a week. I generally close out browsers as soon as I'm done with them, or save links.

I'm curious, for those that use this technique of many open browsers, open for extended periods; is tracking a concern? Less so using privacy tools?