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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Apart from everyone else pointing out this is a search engine problem not a browser problem, in general I wouldn't want my browser to carte-blance remove or filter (or in any way "interpret" my chosen web content. Its different when a plugin does this, because adding the plugin to your browser is an opt-in affair; and ux wise, when a plugin filters or alters content there's a way to notice or find out what it is doing (some kind of "splat").
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In addition, say Vivaldi had a "Filter Gemni Google 'Ai Overview'" feature. a) would Vivaldi be smart enough to filter it on a possibly proxied google search and NOT say in an article about Google Ai Overview somewhere else? b) everytime the Google search page front end changes (which I bet is seven times/day) your browser has to update and Vivaldi already pushes numerous changes/week, just saying (keep doing it tho.)
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@cynical13 I was just making sure you were aware of your options there.
I agree with your sentiment.
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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 for keeping it "simple".
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@EricCarroll @Vivaldi We have no way of objectively knowing.
Vivaldi repackages the free open-source Chromium project with their own proprietary blend of herbs and spices and doesn't let anyone see the exact changes they're making.
Their repackage of Chromium might be opaque, but at least they're upfront about their funding model: https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-business-model/
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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 At least firefox is up-front about and gives you the option to outright disable it all at will.
The only one thing I keep enabled, is the website translation - that's it (doesn't rely on google). -
@lazza @Vivaldi Yes I do. And that does not help. Vivaldi or any respectable party should have absolutely no part in shipping/enabling this stuff.
If you want to install it, it should be a third-party extension provided by the slop provider, and subject to the same access controls all extensions are subject to.
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After hearing endlessly about how ai is going to democratize software development, there should be nothing stopping you. Open up a git hub account and start prompting!
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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 so grateful that you do this for all of us thank you
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@Vivaldi I’d like to be able to hide the AI summary on Google’s search results page. This feature is very inaccurate and often gets things wrong. Plus, there’s no option to turn it off. It forces the summary onto users who don’t want it and wastes electricity.
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sure, some people choose AI
some people choose not to get vaccinated
rather the same phenomenon to me: poor choices
and likewise, you don't have to use Vivaldi. that's your real choice here
Vivaldi has ripped out the AI cruft, which most of us cheer, so go use your Chrome and enjoy yourself elsewhere
you dig?
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@AlexTheStampede @lazza @Vivaldi
oh i see, we're doing the perfectionism routine. mmm
i use a variety of browsers. which has nothing to do with the topic here
wait... what happened to the other account? it got nuked? damn what did they say?
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@pl @cholling @Vivaldi Linux is the only meaningful competitor to Apple and Microsoft OSes, and it's a niche thing that is mostly used for servers rather than by end users. It's also now subsidized by corporations because they use it as infrastructure.
Browsers on the other hand are an end user thing, so the value proposition of trying to break Google's (and to a lesser extent) Apple's hegemony is much different - especially since Google is also propping up Mozilla to suck even more oxygen.
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@AlexTheStampede @lazza @Vivaldi
oh i see, we're doing the perfectionism routine. mmm
i use a variety of browsers. which has nothing to do with the topic here
wait... what happened to the other account? it got nuked? damn what did they say?
@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.
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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/
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