Here is this week's #Linux and #OpenSource News show !

In this one, Microsoft discusses the future of Windows, and it sounds so bad that it could yet another chance for #Linux to grow very quickly, we have the release of #LinuxMint 22.2 beta, #Google removing Steam from Chrome OS, and a lot more !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2h2Ly1PcUM

Google has added "eSignatures" to Google Workspace, competing with PDF as a solution.

It seems both parties need a Google account for it to work, while PDFs don't force you have an Adobe account to sign the document.

Imagine you are ready to purchase your dream home, only to find that you are required to have a Google account to sign the paperwork.

#privacy #google

@ross Oh no, $platform should never have become a single point of failure, but despite alternatives, we let peer pressure dictate the architecture of the FLOSS ecosystem.

$platform =~ #GitHub|#AWS|#Google|#Cloudflare and many more

Will we learn from this?

Oh, before I forget, Happy International Take A Friend Or Family Members Phone And Install An Adblocker And Change Their Default Web Browser and Search Engine Away From Google Day 🎉

(you can also do this any day of the year)

#Google #DeGoogle #Privacy #SearchEngines #WebBrowsers

"we found very meaningful differences between measures of bias in different models,” he said. “Google’s model, in particular, downplays women’s physical and mental health needs in comparison to men’s"

Good Lord! Who could possibly have guessed that #Google was systematically sexist?

#GenAI

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/11/ai-tools-used-by-english-councils-downplay-womens-health-issues-study-finds

#YouTube begins their AI-based "guess your age" verification system on August 13. Please DM me here if you are mis-aged by #Google's super brain as underage. Thanks.

I got so disappointed by Action Retro’s video on Google Search Applicance.

Thank God this person made a fantastic video on the whole thing in action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjrmH7hVBOo

#google #retro #retrotech

Amid rising #electric #bills, states are under pressure to insulate regular household & business ratepayers from the costs of feeding #BigTech’s #energy hungry #DataCenters.

It’s not clear that any state has a solution & the actual effect of data centers on #electricity bills is difficult to pin down. Some critics question whether states have the spine to take a hard line against #tech behemoths like #Microsoft, #Google, #Amazon & #Meta.

https://apnews.com/article/electricity-prices-data-centers-artificial-intelligence-fbf213a915fb574a4f3e5baaa7041c3a?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-08-09-Tech%27s+price+tag

Those who advocate for google as a platform, fail to mention how the dependence on google-auth effectively breaks integrations, plugins, etc for most common developer tools and platforms.

Ex: If you set up a container/artifact registry anywhere else, you can connect to it normally using URL+credentials, but with Google? Nah. Here's a JSON file buddy. Whaaaat that's not supported? Better use another google product instead then Oh wait, that's not supported by your IDE? or your docker tools? weeeeelll, uh, guess that sucks then!

#gcp #google

> We found that 74% of Europe’s publicly listed companies rely on US-based tech like #Google and #Microsoft."

I know this is meant to show how concentrated EU companies are on the big cloud providers, but 74% is lower than I expected.

This is what complicity in genocide looks like.

The only valid reason for working at Microsoft right now is if you’re actively engaged in sabotage.

Same goes for Google, and any other corporation working with Israel to help commit genocide in Palestine.

History is watching (and taking notes).

#israel #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #BigTech #Microsoft #Google #EU #europe #complicity #Palestine #Gaza #WestBank #StopIsrael #StopArmingIsrael #StopTheGenocide #BDS https://mastodon.online/@clarinette/114986749708174246

Hackers Hijacked #Google’s Gemini #AI With a Poisoned Calendar Invite to Take Over a #SmartHome - https://www.wired.com/story/google-gemini-calendar-invite-hijack-smart-home/ and so it begins. also, this shows why you should never thank a #chatbot... #promptinjection

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @_9CL7T9k8cjnD_ @Lightfighter @pluralistic

#MoGawat is one of the most erudite and humane #AI antagonists.

I have no time for the ignorant luddites, but he smelt the hopium from the inside, he was #Google head of special projects.

Both Antagonists and Protagonists of AI need to listen when No speaks.

Dear Fedi,

May I please have your recommendation for an alternative to Gmail? Thank you.

Love,
Athena

#Google

What the fuck is wrong with #GoogleChrome / #Blink developers and their obsession with making the #web worse for *everybody*?

https://github.com/whatwg/html/issues/11523

We need to break #Google's dominance on the #web yesterday, and make it painful for them.

Chrome's Ozone backend will auto-detect Wayland on Linux from v140 to run natively. This should fix issues with blurry text and UI elements when fractional scaling is active.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/08/chrome-140-wayland-auto-detection-linux?v1

#chrome #google #linux

Google tells Ontario Superior Court that the Human Rights Code doesn’t protect against pregnancy discrimination. The Code begs to differ!

https://mobilesyrup.com/2025/08/01/google-canada-claims-pregnancy-under-ontario-human-rights-code/
- - -
Google dit à la Cour supérieure de l'Ontario que le Code des droits de la personne ne protège pas contre la discrimination liée à la grossesse. Le Code a une autre position!

// Article en anglais //

#Ontario #HumanRights #DroitsDeLaPersonne #Google

#ipv6

#google #statistics

49.76 % 🫣

So…who hates those Google log-in pop-ups that are seemingly everywhere now? Wanna make them go away?

1. Get uBlock Origin (which you should have already been using):
https://ublockorigin.com/

2. Open the plugin and click the settings button.

3. Click on the “my filters” tab and paste this into the input:
||accounts.google.com/gsi/*$xhr,script,3p

That’s it! Worked flawlessly for me.

#Google #Privacy #Security #PopUps #InfoSec #BadGoogle

Alt...

Screenshot of a pop-up window with the title “sign in with google” followed by other information and a button with the label “continue.”

Alt...

Two screenshots of the ublock origin interface. The first one shows where the settings button is. The second shows where the filters input is on the view behind the tab with the label “my filters.”

They didn’t not tell us to break encryption 🤐

First Apple, now the UK government has seemingly ordered a backdoor into Google’s encrypted services.

To access anyone’s data, files and photos, they’re happy to break everyone’s security 😵‍💫

Read more ⬇️

https://www.openrightsgroup.org/press-releases/google-refuses-to-deny-uk-encryption-demands/

#e2ee #encryption #privacy #security #google #apple #ukpolitics #ukpol #surveillance #cybersecurity #android

There is 1 pic on #Google #Maps that has #Washy in it twice 😆

He's everywhere! George however is sleeping behind the window

Alt...

Washy getting behind a car - Google Maps

Alt...

George sleeping behind window - Google Maps

Alt...

Washy photo bombing maps twice in 1 pic! - Google Maps

Alt...

Washy crossing the road behind the maps car - Google Maps

@rl_dane

From my perspective it is also a kind of enshittification

The streaming services waited a couple of years before they started to kick you off

They have hoped you would capitulate and pay them your hard earned currency.

An example of that is a YouTube official client I was setting it up for a schatje {NL} of mine and what I saw literally made me LOL

If my schatje would be so stupid to pay Alphabet for YouTube premium, which doesn't even run, in our part of the planet, the client would do something it was already doing before; playing video in background

WTF

I have open source tools which do that

#Enshittification #Alphabet #Google #YouTube

Google Spoofed Via DKIM Replay Attack: A Technical Breakdown

https://easydmarc.com/blog/google-spoofed-via-dkim-replay-attack-a-technical-breakdown/

#security #infosec #email #google

@neil @fdroidorg I have #Google AdvancedProtection enabled on my account, and that prevents side loading on any device where I am logged in with that account

I can disable it temporarily, but it takes several days for the state on my phone to change

Also, most of the FOSS apps I'm interested in are available on Google Play anyway

I would definitely use F-Droid on a Google-free device

“Google agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the #internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately in its Chrome browser’s #incognito mode.

Users alleged that #Google’s analytics, cookies and apps let the #Alphabet unit improperly #track people who set Google’s Chrome browser to “incognito” mode and other browsers to “#private” #browsing mode.”

Dirtbags

<https://theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/01/google-destroying-browsing-data-privacy-lawsuit>

When Google’s slop meets webslop, search stops: https://pluralistic.net/2025/07/15/inhuman-gigapede/#coprophagic-ai

A very good article on awful Google AI search results and how Google have ruined their own reputation by wrecking their workforce, by @pluralistic. A quote:

'Publishers and advertisers have more concentrated money than readers, but the dominant theory of antitrust since the Reagan administration is something called "consumer welfare," which holds that monopolistic conduct is only to be condemned if it makes consumers worse off. If a company screws its workers or suppliers in order to deliver better products and/or better prices, then "consumer welfare" holds that the government should celebrate and protect the monopolist for improving "efficiency."

But all that is true only if Google AI Overviews are good. And they are very, very bad.'

Don't use Google for search.

#google #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AISlop #CoryDoctorow #search #slop

@pluralistic This part of the article is very enlightening from a worker perspective, especially when Google upper management have relatively recently fired around 10,000 workers:

'Once Google stops growing, it becomes a "mature" company and its PE ratio will fall from 20:1 to something more like 4:1, meaning an 80% collapse in the company's share price. This would be very bad news for Googlers (whose personal wealth is disproportionately tied up in Google stock) and for Google itself (because many of its key personnel will depart when the shares they've banked for retirement collapse, and new hires will expect to be paid in scarce dollars, not abundant stock). For a company like Google, "maturity" is unlikely to be a steady state – rather, it's likely to be a prelude to collapse.

Which is why Google is so desperately sweaty to maintain the narrative about its growth.'

#google #layoffs

ICMYI: Google has said it is 'combining ChromeOS and Android into a single platform'.

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/07/is-chrome-os-merging-with-android?v1

#ChromeOS #google #tech

Interesting read…

𝙂𝙤𝙤𝙜𝙡𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙮𝙤𝙪 (𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝘿𝙪𝙘𝙠𝘿𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙂𝙤)

https://www.simpleanalytics.com/blog/google-is-tracking-you-even-when-you-use-duck-duck-go

#google #tracking #privacy #InfoSec #security #tech #technology #BigTech #BigBrother

Google is tracking you even when you use DuckDuckGo https://www.simpleanalytics.com/blog/google-is-tracking-you-even-when-you-use-duck-duck-go

'Think DuckDuckGo keeps you safe from Google? Well think again. A new study shows that even with a privacy-focused search engine, Google's trackers follow you around the web (mostly through analytics, ads, and video embeds). The research by SafetyDetectives compares four countries and reveals just how hard it is to avoid Google online.'

#DuckDuckGo #google #SurveillanceCapitalism #privacy #search

@nextcloud @petrisch @unifiedpush @Matomo

"We do not use Google trackers on our website"

I checked with uBlock origin the day I posted that, and it was blocking 2 items from Google. Checking now I see Matomo instead, so thank you.

"we have our eye on publishing our videos on PeerTube in the future"

Why "in the future"? Tilvids confirmed they'd be happy to host you. I've offered to set up YouTube mirroring free of charge. There is no cost to you beyond giving permission, and yet I've been calling with no response for years.

"please do share an issue on GitHub"
2020: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/5510
2021: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/8834
https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/11094
https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/8684
2022: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/11094
2023: https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/11898

There are more.

#Nextcloud #Privacy #Google

@petrisch @nextcloud

Here's the thing. I don't even begrudge Nextcloud posting videos to YouTube. The part I have a problem with is that they say they're promoting decentralization, yet after all these years they refuse to post to any alternative.

Similarly, they provide no option to use @unifiedpush , but *only* allow Googles Firebase for notifications.

Using Google trackers on the website is pretty ridiculous though when such high quality alternatives exist, such as @Matomo .

They also never bother to explain WHY they continue to ignore all of these things that so obviously go against the values they supposedly stand for, Just crickets to any questions and more promotional videos / blog posts.

#Nextcloud #Google #Privacy #Peertube #UnifiedPush #YouTube

@aral wow. Another reason to avoid #Google (and related sites like #YouTube that I learnt recently some people don't realise is affiliated to the genocidal advertising-centric wannabe monopoly)

@nixCraft

Oh yeah? As independently verified by whom? 😐
“ According to Google: AI now writes 50% of the code at #Google 😱 ”

According to Google: AI now writes 50% of the code at #Google 😱 https://research.google/blog/ai-in-software-engineering-at-google-progress-and-the-path-ahead/ I wonder how Chromium/Chrome/Android and other software will look in 5 years ?

Alt...

A screenshot showing AI usage in software engineering at Google which is almost 50% now.