Talk:Google: Difference between revisions

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Other potential Google topics

(These are from memory of past experience and events, I'm not searching for sources now but I'm sure there are past online discussions or news articles that cover these)

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reCaptcha- the automatic checkbox ("I am human") has been claimed to use advanced algorithms to identify users against bots (see: generative AI detectors, which would be a topic I think valid for this wiki, considering their use in school and the expectedly high false positive rates they can produce hurting students' reputation without cause). However it has been tested that the captcha instead prefers to accept users running Chromium web browsers more frequently than alternatives, providing a bias in what should otherwise be an unbiased test. Impacts user experience and priorities users based on their web browser as a possible way to influence users into choosing Chromium.

==Android System Safety Core==

On or around February 10th, 2025, Louis uploaded a video that has since been deleted regarding the application silently installed on Google Play Services-enabled devices, "Consider uninstalling client side scanning utility from your android phone; androidsystemsafetycore".

While I find it very unusual that the deletion happened and no follow-up video was made, this is irrelevant to the wiki article, but I definitely feel like it at least deserves a spot as there's no mention of it anywhere on the wiki yet.

From a limited amount of research and no archive of that video, it appears to be a proprietary daemon that scans incoming and outgoing media to/from applications that implement it and add a blur filter according to the user's preferences, or family controls. It sounds a lot like the highly controversially designed CSAM filtering technologies Apple and the EU intended to roll out a few years ago.

Allegedly it all happens locally, but it is hard to trust a silently added proprietary blob that is designed to be used invisibly in many applications. I feel like it is a severe enough risk to be addressed on this page or as a separate wiki page.

:Created page as a jumping off point: https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Android [[User:NDN|NDN]] ([[User talk:NDN|talk]]) 16:45, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

==Stadia shutdown==

In the interests of fairness, might be worth stating more explicitly what the refund included when Stadia was shut down, as it was a pretty decent attempt to make their customers whole (iirc it was a full and automatically applied refund of hardware, software and most subscriptions for anything paid over the lifetime of the device) [[User:Keith|Keith]] ([[User talk:Keith|talk]]) 10:15, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

==Google Play Integrity screwing over custom ROMs==

Google has tightened its Play Integrity, previously named SafetyNet. Now, it requires all devices to be hardware backed to be certified by it's new standards. Custom ROMs like Lineage OS, Pixel OS and Graphene OS all have been affected by this issue. These custom ROMs now cannot access:

- banking apps

- chatgpt

- google wallet with its NFC tap to pay

- various mobile games like Pokemon GO

Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-integrity-hardware-attestation-3561592/

You could argue that it's for "security" but it doesn't actually make it more secure at all. Those who want to go past security checks like these already go past them through creating patches with rooted phones. And those who just want a phone without google, should have the right to have it their way. This change only serves to reduce user freedom and may signal a future where Google exerts complete, iron-fisted control over the Android ecosystem. [[User:Trunestor|Trunestor]] ([[User talk:Trunestor|talk]]) 13:08, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

==Play "Protect"==

I feel we should do a write-up on Google's hail mary to "protect" users, which in reality restricts consumer choice by ultimately disabling sideloading of apps and making Google a monopoly in app distrubution through their Google Play Store, which I recommend people to not use due having the living day lights of that crap having been enshittified. [[User:SinexTitan|SinexTitan]] ([[User talk:SinexTitan|talk]]) 18:51, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

:Turns out it was already done. So I copied the summary from that page and pasted it with reference to the page. [[User:SinexTitan|SinexTitan]] ([[User talk:SinexTitan|talk]]) 20:58, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+Other potential Google topics
 (These are from memory of past experience and events, I'm not searching for sources now but I'm sure there are past online discussions or news articles that cover these)
@@ Line 14: / Line 16: @@
 reCaptcha- the automatic checkbox ("I am human") has been claimed to use advanced algorithms to identify users against bots (see: generative AI detectors, which would be a topic I think valid for this wiki, considering their use in school and the expectedly high false positive rates they can produce hurting students' reputation without cause). However it has been tested that the captcha instead prefers to accept users running Chromium web browsers more frequently than alternatives, providing a bias in what should otherwise be an unbiased test. Impacts user experience and priorities users based on their web browser as a possible way to influence users into choosing Chromium.
+==Android System Safety Core==
+On or around February 10th, 2025, Louis uploaded a video that has since been deleted regarding the application silently installed on Google Play Services-enabled devices, "Consider uninstalling client side scanning utility from your android phone; androidsystemsafetycore".
+While I find it very unusual that the deletion happened and no follow-up video was made, this is irrelevant to the wiki article, but I definitely feel like it at least deserves a spot as there's no mention of it anywhere on the wiki yet.
+From a limited amount of research and no archive of that video, it appears to be a proprietary daemon that scans incoming and outgoing media to/from applications that implement it and add a blur filter according to the user's preferences, or family controls. It sounds a lot like the highly controversially designed CSAM filtering technologies Apple and the EU intended to roll out a few years ago.
+Allegedly it all happens locally, but it is hard to trust a silently added proprietary blob that is designed to be used invisibly in many applications. I feel like it is a severe enough risk to be addressed on this page or as a separate wiki page.
+:Created page as a jumping off point: https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Android [[User:NDN|NDN]] ([[User talk:NDN|talk]]) 16:45, 14 February 2025 (UTC)
+==Stadia shutdown==
+In the interests of fairness, might be worth stating more explicitly what the refund included when Stadia was shut down, as it was a pretty decent attempt to make their customers whole (iirc it was a full and automatically applied refund of hardware, software and most subscriptions for anything paid over the lifetime of the device) [[User:Keith|Keith]] ([[User talk:Keith|talk]]) 10:15, 11 June 2025 (UTC)
+==Google Play Integrity screwing over custom ROMs==
+Google has tightened its Play Integrity, previously named SafetyNet. Now, it requires all devices to be hardware backed to be certified by it's new standards. Custom ROMs like Lineage OS, Pixel OS and Graphene OS all have been affected by this issue. These custom ROMs now cannot access:
+- banking apps
+- chatgpt
+- google wallet with its NFC tap to pay
+- various mobile games like Pokemon GO
+Source: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-play-integrity-hardware-attestation-3561592/
+You could argue that it's for "security" but it doesn't actually make it more secure at all. Those who want to go past security checks like these already go past them through creating patches with rooted phones. And those who just want a phone without google, should have the right to have it their way. This change only serves to reduce user freedom and may signal a future where Google exerts complete, iron-fisted control over the Android ecosystem. [[User:Trunestor|Trunestor]] ([[User talk:Trunestor|talk]]) 13:08, 12 August 2025 (UTC)
+==Play "Protect"==
+I feel we should do a write-up on Google's hail mary to "protect" users, which in reality restricts consumer choice by ultimately disabling sideloading of apps and making Google a monopoly in app distrubution through their Google Play Store, which I recommend people to not use due having the living day lights of that crap having been enshittified. [[User:SinexTitan|SinexTitan]] ([[User talk:SinexTitan|talk]]) 18:51, 27 August 2025 (UTC)
+:Turns out it was already done. So I copied the summary from that page and pasted it with reference to the page. [[User:SinexTitan|SinexTitan]] ([[User talk:SinexTitan|talk]]) 20:58, 27 August 2025 (UTC)