this post was submitted on 05 May 2026
990 points (97.8% liked)
Technology
84413 readers
3831 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How do we uninstall or block the download?
Uninstall chrome
Can you even uninstall chrome on an android phone? I only get the option to disable.
You can use adb on a computer to remove chrome.
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/188524/how-can-i-uninstall-google-chrome-on-my-android-and-recommend-a-suitable-replace#231279
this is very helpful info, thank you, didn't realize this was possible.
Use Shizuku and Canta to uninstall any uninstallable app. Or if you don't want to bother, just disabling works fine too as long as you are not worried about the storage.
Thank you for the excellent suggestion. Worked perfectly. Managed to uninstall about 50 pieces of bloatware from my phone, starting with Chrome.
Props to you @zerozaku
Happy to help! Real props to the devs of these amazing apps.
Hear hear. 📢
Learned about this the other day and gave it a whirl, worked great, felt reminiscent of old school iPod jailbreaking shenanigans, but I had no issues. Easier (in a way) than adb!
That depends on the ROM you are using.
The one i am using (https://iode.tech/) is using a firefox based browser that you can actually uninstall.
Probably not stock Android. I'm on GrapheneOS and it doesn't come with Chrome at all. But I don't think the article is claiming it happens on Android.
Vanadium is Chrome derived; but I'm sure Graphene de-enshittifies it to the maximum possible extent.
Technically speaking, it is chromium derived which does make the difference in this instance.
Is this happening on android, too?
I don't think so... yet... So not as disconcerting tbf, but curious to if it will come out of nowhere at some point, just like this.
And install Firefox or one of its many forks.
So it just to the Chrome app?
The article actually gives 3 options:
Even Chromium should be fine. I doubt it has the branded Google AI features.
This is 5: https://pureinfotech.com/stop-chrome-gemini-nano-download-windows-11/
Obviously only windows focused, so how other platforms stop would require more searching.
I don't have Windows 11. Still on 10 until October then switching to Linux.
Don't even bother with 11. At all.
I bought a win11 laptop, didn't create any accounts just installed the os... Then microsoft locked me out of the laptop with thier new bitlocker bs. It won't even let me factory reset the effing thing.
Switched to linux and im happy. It's just a steam deck, but it's still a better pc than the bit brick.
Were you able to get your bitlocker key from your Microsoft account or save it when bitlocker activated? IIRC you can use that key to access the drive from a live Linux USB, get all your files off, then just install said Linux over the encrypted Windows install (which you should be able to do even if you don’t have the key).
There is no key. There's no bitlocker account and theres no Microsoft account.
The key is created when bitlocker activates, if bitlocker is on then there is a key. It’s the same as the password you create when you encrypt your Linux disk, it just creates a stupid long one for you so you will be inclined to make an account to save it rather than just remembering it like a password.
Well theres no MS account, and there's no way past the bitlocker screen, so... Its a bit-brick
That sucks. But like I said before, you should still be able to use the drive/machine. You will just need to reinstall Windows or, preferably, install another OS. I recommend Mint or Fedora if you are new to installing OSes and KDE over Gnome if you are used to Windows.
It won't let me. It even blocks factory resetting. I literally mean it's a brick. I tried for three months to fix it.
I’m confused by what you mean when you say it won’t let you. Windows itself shouldn’t have any say over what’s going on as far as booting like a USB drive goes. Assuming this isn’t an ARM device and even then you should still be able to install Linux, have you turned off Secure Boot or tried resetting the BIOS altogether?
Rebooting, resetting, turning it on, etc, it all goes to the same exact bitlocker screen.
Yes. As ive said ive attempted to reset it for theee months.
What kind of machine is it? Typically you will need to tell it to boot to the USB by hitting F1, or F2, or F12, or Del, etc. immediately after you hit the power button.
That is correct. I know your trying to help. But after multiple months I'm over it.
Fair enough. Best of luck to you!
Thanks man
The average new PC is equipped with a $115 1TB SSD, so 4GB is 0.4% of that storage space, all four put together comprise 1.6% of available SSD space - 1.6% of $115 is $1.84. So, across a billion users, how likely is this to make a dent in anything other than the bandwidth consumed in delivery? And updates...
my entire /usr directory is just a bit above 4 gigabytes. you can put a fully featured modern operating system into that size, or you can have google's slop machine that no one asked for
I agree, it's heinous, but how else are they going to sell MOAR RAM, MOAR SSD, MOAR MOAR?
Used to be. Have you seen SSD prices recently? 1TB is now ~$250 CAD.
https://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-Vi550-Internal-Interface-Technology/dp/B082QXYC7S
It's not like OEMs pay more than they have to...