This means:
- Downloading or updating the Assistant app now gives you Gemini instead.
- You can switch back to Assistant in the Gemini app settings.
- This might be Google’s first step towards replacing Assistant completely with Gemini.
- Some users are unaware of the switch and see two Gemini apps on their phones.
Overall, this may suggest Google is phasing out Assistant and transitioning users to the newer Gemini AI technology.
After being on Graphene for the past 2 years,I decided to reinstall with no google at all,since my bank app now works without any google services dependencies.
hooray for me,I’m finally free and can profit from multiuser installed sandboxed services in another user profile if needed.
Glad to be out of this downward spiral.
What do you mean exactly by “no google at all”? How do you get rid of it of not using Graphene (I know google pay doesn’t work with that, which is a big showstopper for me). Looking for alternatives :)
sorry,I realized now I didn’t mention what I reinstalled and it’s still Graphene,but with no Google services framework installed. Pure stock Graphene with only their apps.
Nice! But can you pay wirelessly with your banking app?
I can. They have their own payment app.
Sorry, does it mean that you can use NFC payments with your card anywhere, as it is with G pay/wallet?
It does. It’s not without flaws,but 80% of the time it works fine (it has a bug where it loses configured card when switching between multi users - so that’s painful,but it’s a tinfoil level choice on my part).
Most banks provide their own payment apps to use with NFC payments,but I agree Google Pay is by far better and works perfectly out of the box. But it’s google. Next ad would be related to some of your purchase history,so your data is shamelessly farmed.
Want a tid bit of irony? I use Google rewards that asks me little surveys based on all the Google tracking of me bullshit and you get little bits of Google play store credit in return.
I use that playstore credit to buy my Windscribe VPN service every year that’s $30. So I use the money Google gives me to buy the service to hide away some of the stuff that Google wants of me.
That’s some profitable irony right there. I don’t disagree with people using stuff the way the want to,but I do prefer choice. Luckily for me I live in EU ,so privacy and choice is more or less still a thing, allegedly.
If that works for you,great. It’s a good tip for others as well. I do spend around 70€/2 years of PIA,but I think that’s reasonable.
Since GrapheneOS added eSIM support withput google I’m tempted to try to remove Play Services from my installation. How do you find out which apps require Play Services?
This might be what you are looking for.