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71 votes
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YouTube is now rolling out disabling videos after detecting adblockers
122 votes -
What should I look at on Google Earth?
I opened up the Google Earth app on my phone wanting to browse random beautiful and interesting places, but it doesn't seem to have a good way to do it. (Maybe this is a limitation on the mobile...
I opened up the Google Earth app on my phone wanting to browse random beautiful and interesting places, but it doesn't seem to have a good way to do it. (Maybe this is a limitation on the mobile app, and the desktop app is better?)
For example, if I try searching for "wetlands", it only shows me a list of maybe 10 places near my current location.
I tried searching the web too, but I mostly get "listicles" like "10 amazing places on Google Earth" but they're practically unreadable with the webpage being covered with ads.
I found Earth View Gallery https://blog.google/products/earth/most-stunning-images-from-google-earth/ and it's nice but it's just a gallery of images with no contextual information (at least when viewing on mobile). It shows me beautiful pictures but no information about where the picture is from... I would have expected it to link to the spot on Google Earth.
Anyway if you happen to have some recommended places for me to check out on Google Earth I'd love to see them! I like:
- wetland-type habitats like marshes, pond systems, mangrove swamps
- beautiful natural scenery in general
- abandoned and/or ancient architecture
But open to any interesting recommendations in general.
Edit: It does seem to be slightly better on desktop. Searching on Google Earth works better, and Earth View Gallery does link to the location on Google Earth. I wish Google Earth had like, a built-in community feature for me to check out other people's public projects.
22 votes -
Should I bother installing another OS on my Pixel 4a?
I have a Pixel 4a which has just reached end of support for Android. However, I love this phone and the only hardware issue is that the battery doesn't last me scrolling social media all day, so I...
I have a Pixel 4a which has just reached end of support for Android. However, I love this phone and the only hardware issue is that the battery doesn't last me scrolling social media all day, so I am not looking to upgrade to a newer handheld just yet.
I've been looking into Graphene OS and Lineage OS as perhaps alternatives I should consider, at least just so I can keep getting security updates. However, looking through GOS, they say that their 4a build is an "extended support" build different from the main OS which is described as a "stopgap" before upgrading phones. LOS says it's supported but through an automatically generated page which doesn't leave me with much confidence about the attention and stability of the build on my particular phone.
I'm asking y'all's opinion on whether I should even bother. Security upgrades are important, but my phone is a secondary device at best, one which I always use with the same apps and websites and honestly not really that much of a security risk. Watch hubris get me.
23 votes -
Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro to get seven years of software updates
43 votes -
Google user data has become a favorite police shortcut
54 votes -
EU warns Elon Musk after Twitter found to have highest rate of disinformation followed by Facebook
34 votes -
Google killing basic HTML version of Gmail in January 2024
44 votes -
You can tell how bad Google Searches are now when you try to search for "Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki" and it pushes you a single outdated wiki and a bunch of posts telling you to use bg3.wiki
54 votes -
Google US antitrust trial - judge ordered trial exhibits removed from the web - the Verge responds by publishing them
24 votes -
Incomplete disclosures by Apple and Google create “huge blindspot” for 0-day hunters
13 votes -
Google sued for negligence after man drove off collapsed bridge while following map directions
67 votes -
Bard can now connect to your Google apps and services
16 votes -
Your Fitbit is useless – unless you consent to unlawful data sharing
74 votes -
Economist, business professor, digital economy expert Shane Greenstein discusses the US Department of Justice vs Google antitrust case
4 votes -
Chromebooks will get updates for ten years
23 votes -
Google goes to trial in biggest US challenge to tech power in decades
32 votes -
EU ‘gatekeeper’ list has five American and no European companies
43 votes -
Google gets its way, bakes a user-tracking ad platform directly into Chrome
138 votes -
Google Gemini eats the world – Gemini smashes GPT-4 by 5X, the GPU-poors
9 votes -
Google wants an invisible digital watermark to bring transparency to AI art
30 votes -
Google removes fake Signal and Telegram apps hosted on Play
27 votes -
After two decades the dominance of Google Search comes into question
85 votes -
The Ugly Mugs Ireland android app has been removed from the app store
16 votes -
Google axes bad reviews of tracker exposing Uyghur forced labor
38 votes -
YouTube's privacy settings now block you from seeing suggested content
I've always been a bit of a privacy enthousiast. Have had everything blocked that Google and by extension YouTube wants to scrape off you. This means I've also blocked my view history. Recently...
I've always been a bit of a privacy enthousiast. Have had everything blocked that Google and by extension YouTube wants to scrape off you. This means I've also blocked my view history.
Recently YouTube started giving out a warning on the homepage that you have blocked your view history, that you can change it in your privacy settings and that it helps them serve you better content. What it also means is that your homepage is just one big popup to guilt trip you into sharing your data. The homepage won't show any suggested content anymore.
While it is in their interest to do so and since they are a company wanting to make money it is understandable. Nevertheless it seems harsh from going to see content that you might like to only seeing a big warning sign right now.
What are you experiences with this?
34 votes -
darken (developer of SD Maid for Android) has had his developer account terminated after twelve years for "stalkerware policy" on Google Play despite having no actual stalking tools in the app
14 votes -
CNET is deleting old articles to try to improve its Google Search ranking
29 votes -
$5 billion Google lawsuit over ‘Incognito mode’ tracking moves a step closer to trial
58 votes -
Google Messages signs onto cross-platform encrypted group chat standard
53 votes -
Sync for Lemmy now available on Play Store
80 votes -
Google-owned YouTube makes millions from channels pushing climate disinformation: Analysis
80 votes -
On attestation on the web and why this could threaten the open web
13 votes -
Can AI chatbots be used for geolocation?
4 votes -
Google begins their push for WEI in Chromium
94 votes -
Unpacking Google’s new “dangerous” Web-Environment-Integrity specification
45 votes -
Looking back at the original Chromecast, which just turned ten years old
9 votes -
Firefox outperforms Chrome in speed for the first time according to a Speedometer assessment
75 votes -
Google raising price of YouTube Premium to $13.99 per month
115 votes -
Apple tests ‘Apple GPT,’ develops generative AI tools to catch OpenAI
17 votes -
Google is directing searchers straight to troves of nonconsensual deep fake porn, raising legal and ethical concerns
18 votes -
YouTube is testing a three-strikes policy for ad blocking
173 votes -
Google seems to be running OCR on photos in my Gmail. Is this happening to you too?
This morning I was asked to find an archived email with photos of some scientific equipment. I searched "Powerlab," the name of one of the instruments, in gmail, and the email came right up....
This morning I was asked to find an archived email with photos of some scientific equipment. I searched "Powerlab," the name of one of the instruments, in gmail, and the email came right up. Great! But then I noticed that the word "powerlab" never appeared in the text of the email. I tried searching "ML206", an arbitrary character string from one of the photos in the email, and again, the email appeared in the search, without the search phrase highlighted in the search result, as it normally would be. I tried different phrases from jpgs in emails; not all yielded search results but some did.
I'm not happy about this. I accept some compromises to privacy when using Gmail, but sending text as an image can be a way of specifically avoiding information being harvested. All I ask for is a way to turn it off.
Can anyone replicate this? Did anyone already know about this?
51 votes -
How do I migrate almost twenty years of email off of Gmail?
I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating...
I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating numerous Google-bound things over to my own self-hosted alternatives. I've moved my storage, contacts, documents, and some (but sadly not all) of my calendars to home solutions, fairly easily too.
But the biggest hurdle I've been facing this whole time, the one I've been putting off the longest, is the act of figuring out how to get almost twenty years of mail archive and history on my primary account away from Google and into a space where I can access it separately. I have been steadily changing the main email on my more active external accounts to a self-hosted one, and now only seeing a shrinking handful of lesser-used services still attached to the old gmail. But that history is too precious to me, and I still find multiple occasions where I need/want to reference some communications from long ago.
I've tried searching the web for options, but so far all combinations of my queries are either really elementary "here's how to set up a new email" crap, or else aimed at moving from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. I've been thinking that the simplest approach might be just to set it up as a POP3 account in my mail client (eM Client, for the record), download it all, and then when I finally pull the plug just drag it into the local client archive, and then remove the account from the app. But I figure there have to be others who have done this, right?
74 votes -
Stop using Google Analytics, warns Sweden’s privacy watchdog, as it issues over $1M in fines
28 votes -
Google updates its privacy policy to clarify it can use public data for training AI models
44 votes -
Who killed Google Reader - a ten year anniversary retrospective discussion
76 votes -
How you use YouTube in desktop and mobile devices. YouTube to limit usage of ad blockers soon.
YouTube limits ad blocker usage in new test YouTube could be testing a three-strikes policy for ad blocking (Update) So its clear now that YouTube is going to limit the usage of Ad blockers in the...
YouTube limits ad blocker usage in new test
YouTube could be testing a three-strikes policy for ad blocking (Update)
So its clear now that YouTube is going to limit the usage of Ad blockers in the coming future
I use Ublock Orgin with Firefox which basically used to block all ads and on mobile device I use NewPipe110 votes -
Boost for Lemmy has been listed in Play Store
80 votes -
Google's epic multi-billion dollar ad scam makes sense to us
38 votes