By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi and this is why I use Vivaldi instead of Chrome
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@beeoproblem @pl @cholling @Vivaldi right, it's infrastructure from Android's perspective, while browsers are much more inherently user facing.
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@EricCarroll @Vivaldi Ungoogled Chromium is completely FOSS, while Vivaldi has some proprietary, closed source components.
@Luna @EricCarroll @Vivaldi In my experience Ungoogled Chromium feels incomplete, since it's removed features from Chromium that rely on Google services without replacing them. (I had similar frustrations with IceCat.)
Vivaldi reimplements things like ad blocking and sync (and yeah, some of those parts are closed source), and optionally connects to some google services like phishing/malware checks and extensions. I'm not 100% certain, but I think all of those can be turned off.
https://kvibber.com/reviews/software/ungoogled-chromium/
https://kvibber.com/reviews/software/vivaldi/ -
By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi
Do you strip out any of the "AI" code, to make sure it's nonfunctional and can't be re-enabled by some malicious hacker, or to you just make it "off by default", pat yourselves on the back, and consider your job done?I am interested in a browser that *removes* "AI", as opposed to merely "disabling" it.
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@benroyce I still see it, probably the normal “block and move on”. But my point is that they’re not against useful tech, but slapping a LLM in everything because it’s cool isn’t the definition of useful. Worse, if you see it as a way to make potentially half assed and misunderstood summaries, or answering questions in a similar fashion. That way it’s less than a useful feature, and more of a hazard to users, with the cherry on top of making it a new entry point for data harvesting.
are you sure?
refresh
because this is what i see, on mastodon.social, logged out:
what the heck did the guy say? do you know?
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are you sure?
refresh
because this is what i see, on mastodon.social, logged out:
what the heck did the guy say? do you know?
@benroyce yep, even on a different client I can still see the account. Last post is, if you’ve seen it, a single “
” to your hard stance message. And I see nothing that could justify a suspension or anything but, past this, I’m not comfortable sharing let’s say a screenshot of the profile, if a block is in place. But don’t worry about that, I too do it from time to time: enough negativity in the world without having to deal with things that annoy us personally! -
@Vivaldi
How close is Vivaldi to Ungoogled Chromium?@EricCarroll @Vivaldi idk
why not use helium https://helium.computer/ -
@benroyce yep, even on a different client I can still see the account. Last post is, if you’ve seen it, a single “
” to your hard stance message. And I see nothing that could justify a suspension or anything but, past this, I’m not comfortable sharing let’s say a screenshot of the profile, if a block is in place. But don’t worry about that, I too do it from time to time: enough negativity in the world without having to deal with things that annoy us personally!it's not a block, the account has been nuked on its home server
i think you see a cache on your server that will update eventually
if you open the account on its home server, https://mastodon.social/@lazza , you should see the same
they had a four year old account and it got suspended on their home server soon after our rather pedestrian low stakes disagreement
!?
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi When I mentioned the news someone said "are you sure Opera isn't doing that too?” I said (unprovoked) well I know that Vivaldi isn't
I didn't know how right I was! Thanks! -
it's not a block, the account has been nuked on its home server
i think you see a cache on your server that will update eventually
if you open the account on its home server, https://mastodon.social/@lazza , you should see the same
they had a four year old account and it got suspended on their home server soon after our rather pedestrian low stakes disagreement
!?
@benroyce ohhh, you’re right, it’s gone now! Must’ve been my instance caching things like you said. On the bright side, I might know what happened: one of the latest posts was about being increasingly annoyed with the amounts of… ah, I don’t remember the exact wording! Anyway the strong negativity about AI, regardless of usefulness. So maybe that was the last straw that tipped the scale in favor of leaving the platform?
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@benroyce ohhh, you’re right, it’s gone now! Must’ve been my instance caching things like you said. On the bright side, I might know what happened: one of the latest posts was about being increasingly annoyed with the amounts of… ah, I don’t remember the exact wording! Anyway the strong negativity about AI, regardless of usefulness. So maybe that was the last straw that tipped the scale in favor of leaving the platform?
That's crazy
I understand like bigotry but I didn't think the mods had such a line on AI
But I don't know. Maybe sealioning directly at Vivaldi crossed a line. The mods may react to big account complaints or just trolling such accounts on their own
Really bizarre
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@gbsills @kyu3a @Vivaldi DuckDuckGo, by default, is all-in on AI. You want https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
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@KeithAmmann @gbsills @kyu3a @Vivaldi
Unfortunately DDG can't do anything about the content of the internet.
There's a browser extension you can get that hides a lot of the slop though
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi
Thank you again, for the steady development Vivaldi for the user and definitely not for some shady invasive corporate greed.
(I added some hashtags for better visibility in the Fediverse you may had forgotten, feel free to use them.)
#Ai #Browser #Chrome #Chromium #Code #Dislike #Features #Google #Gemini #Shenanigans #Trend #Vivaldi
@wraith -
@KeithAmmann @Cal @kyu3a @Vivaldi True, the best we can ask for now is a browser that doesn't actively try to "help" you find slop, or create it locally.
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@thibaultmol @Vivaldi I agree. That’s why I use Startpage.com as my default search engine, but sometimes I just have to use Google. Whenever that happens, this AI summary pops up, and it always gets on my nerves.
@thibaultmol @Vivaldi There are one of two extensions who filter AI stuff by default, check the web store.
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@EricCarroll @Vivaldi idk
why not use helium https://helium.computer/Didnt know about it, ty.
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By now you've all probably heard about the latest shenanigans from Google and their love for in-browser AI features (if you don't, this is the story: https://www.theverge.com/tech/924933/google-chrome-4gb-gemini-nano-ai-features).
Our team has been inspecting the Chromium code and disabling stuff from the very first version of Vivaldi (we have some posts about this in our blog, such as https://vivaldi.com/blog/news/alert-no-google-topics-in-vivaldi/ or https://vivaldi.com/blog/no-google-vivaldi-users-will-not-get-floced/).
We've also been very outspoken about our dislike of the built-in AI trend in the browser industry, but in case there's still any doubts: yes, we disable all Gemini-related features, and we've been doing it for a while.
@Vivaldi pls, Vivaldi as an instalable .deb on Linux, or at least a flatpak!
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You DO have choice. You can choose not to install Vivaldi. Software inherits its philosophy from the people who develop it. If they don't want AI, it's logical that they won't put it in their browser.
What's not very logical is asking a browser that's all about privacy to add pieces of software that are totally anti-privacy.
