- cross-posted to:
- Technology@programming.dev
workspaceupdates.googleblog.com
- cross-posted to:
- Technology@programming.dev
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Eat more AI! We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this fucking garbage, so EAT IT! Yeah! It’s in your email! It’s in your car! IT’S IN YOUR TEETH (launch date: Q2 2026)!
You jest, but I’ve already seen “AI-powered” toothbrushes on shelves. Let’s give even more health data to corporate giants!
Why would you use Gmail in the first place?
Do any other email services/clients have a very similar search function? Where I can search for date ranges and email sizes in addition to the more typical operators.
At my workplace I have to deal with Outlook, and it’s a pile of crap in comparison.
Use Thunderbird as a client with any email service. Thunderbird has all the features you want.
Thanks, actually I was already using it for backing up my Gmail inbox, so now I looked at its search features, and found the Expression (Power) Message/Calendar Search - NG addon that provides Gmail-like filtering :)
I have a Google account at work with the domain name of the company. The AI is annoying and I wished they used something else.
I have been moving away from all of the big name companies for big name products.
It’s a shame, because I used to be very supportive of Google.
Ex-Google fan boy here. Been riding the fuck Google wagon for about 7 years now, no regrets, and certain I’m missing out on absolutely nothing. Moving away from all these self-serving BS “tech giants” is the smartest and healthiest move anyone can do.
Most email is short. I don’t see a need to summarize it. Google is run by idiots and assholes.
Ai will write complicated long mails, you’ll need an Ai to summarise it
If an email needs to be summarized, I’m not going to read it anyway.
ive actually used it at work for stuff like “when did Wendy approve the design? did she send it to brian?” when I have 5 different email threads over 3 different organizations, with 10 different respondees. But in personal use I would never.
I’d settle for AI clipping out everyone’s redundant signatures, .gif logos, comic sans bible quotes, and everything else packed into email that people use as direct messaging. Or my coworkers could just use WebEx for chats instead of emails.
If mine could do that “find me the approval email for x last week” I’d use it, but if outlook had a decent search I wouldn’t need it.
Outlook has search?!
So this is why I got an email that was completely wrong.
I told a guy I used to work for that I moved and it’s the perfect place to help him and his company.
He replied that he hopes I found a house where I used to live.
wtf it’s like he never read the email at all, now that this AI trash was added, the email makes sense.
I guess he is fucked and doesn’t get the help he needs for his company.
The only place I’d want AI summaries is rambling YouTube videos
Make it a premium subscription extra
That’s already a thing!
And I believe it’s free.
Unless I opt out of Gmail? Yep, already done.
Meh. I can’t find a good sub for YouTube and Gmail is my “uh oh did I mess up my email server back”.
I’ve been considering hush mail. I don’t like Europe. I’d rather move to Canadian
Canada isn’t going to be a safe bet in the long run. They have a reprieve for now but they always end up doing whatever America does just a few years later.
I’ll take my chances. I don’t have enough of a connection to Europe to put full trust in Europe. Maybe if the Netherlands wins euro 2025
Consider me opted
End users: To access Gemini summary cards, users need to have smart features and personalization smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet and smart features in Google Workspace turned on. Visit the Help Center to learn more about collaborating with Gemini in Gmail.
Sounds like it’s an opt in, what am I missing
Sounds like it’s an opt in, what am I missing
Because it’s a clear step on the enshittification slide. It’s opt in for now.
If you already had smart replies or similar enabled (they were available before Gemini hit the scene) then you have to go opt out.
That makes sense
That’s ok :) All my important mails go to proton
The Proton owner is Trump-y. Tuta is another option
Evidence?
I can’t go changing my email every time a ceo flips a switch and goes crazy. Your all gonna have to find something better than ‘just try this other one’
Get your own domain and use it for mail routing to whichever email service of your choice. Afaik gmail offers this, and so does probably any other decent email provider. That way if a provider turns to shit, you just need to set up with a different one, but don’t have to change any accounts.
Downside: you will have to pay for that domain for the rest of your life (or change all accounts again)
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, maybe I’ll finally do it now.
This is the route I took, and at 10 dollars per year or so to maintain a domain, this is a very cheap way to remove some of the hold big tech has over our lives.
Self hosting then
Totally doable, but also risky and convoluted as hell.
You can have Google forward your emails while you move over your accounts
Btw (sort of just thinking out loud) could paying for an email domain be a solution? I see many webhosts offering email + domain packages for like 1-3 GBP/month, and we could just download the emails into, say, Thunderbird, so if a company turns shit, we still have the domain and all the emails received/sent over the years.
Ive actually been thinking about doing something like this. Im tired of being forced to rely on some company’s computer
Good luck getting people to pay for their own email setups let alone learn what it takes to host themselves and move said hosted setup around as the hosting service ceo’s flip scripts.
Show us the evidence of this claim about “Proton owner”. And yes, Tuta is great, I agree on that.
It was a really stupidly worded comment on his part. If he meant Big Tech and Little Tech spwcifically rather than Big Business in general and individual people, his choice of words and the claim that the tables had “completely turned” are really unfortunate. Tagging the annoying orange directly also doesn’t help make this look like it’s about the pick, rather than the picker.
As an aside, forgive me if I withhold my enthusiasm until I see her actually pull something through and not just end up another way to cripple ElMo’s competition.
Hey, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’m sick of one clueless idiot posting something and then a whole crowd of brainless followers jumping on the bandwagon just to smear someone’s name (like what’s happening with Proton and Andy Chen, for example).
Honestly, I couldn’t care less if Andy was Trump’s biggest fan. Proton’s track record on privacy is rock solid. I spent two years digging into Tuta, Proton, disroot, and a bunch of others until I finally settled on Proton for my family—and I’ve never looked back. My wife, who used to throw money at Google like it was cash to burn, finally got an email service she could actually trust. That’s what matters here.
Now, I get it—Proton’s not perfect, and yeah, they’re a business with their own quirks and maybe some shady stuff waiting to surface. But we need to stop blindly following one crappy post without doing our own homework.
And sure, I hate a lot about Trump (not to mention Musk, who I honestly think is even worse), but let’s be real: the alternative of having Kamala Harris at the helm could’ve been a total nightmare. When I imagine her running the world’s most powerful economy and military, I’m picturing a hot mess that would plunge everyone into chaos. You think you’re safe from one disastrous trainwreck, only to replace it with an even bigger one!
Trump is pure asshole material, and you could probably say that about 90% of his cabinet and most Republicans too. So yeah, if you just skim the last bit, you might think I’m a Trump supporter. But if you read the whole thing, you’ll see I’m simply saying that, given the choices, staying on this crazy rollercoaster was the lesser of two evils. We need to weigh the bigger picture rather than jump on every outrage train without doing any actual research.
We should also be boycotting businesses that support establishment democrats.
The only thing I use my Google Account for is my TV. I haven’t logged into my gmail in years. And even that is a stretch. I use Jellyfin, and a sideloaded youtube client that doesn’t send anything back to Googs.
Where are you? From your comment, I’m sure you live in my house 🤣
in the Gmail app on Android and iOS devices
At least it isn’t my turn yet
Why is it never the other way around? I’m sick of EULA updates silently enrolling me into things i never asked for
Maybe the even more important question: Why can you even opt out? Why is this not done on-device, without anything going anywhere to begin with?
I mean, I know the answer, you know the answer, everyone knows the answer. If this was truly privacy preserving, there would be no need to opt out.
As Louis Rossmann likes to say, this is a rapist mentality.
Ask for forgiveness instead of permission.
Plus the options are frequently hidden and unclear.
I thought disabling One Drive on my Windows machine would keep it from syncing to the cloud. Nope, it just changed where the files were stored but Windows copies it to One Drive even when One Drive isn’t running.
In the case of google, I assume that turning off the Gemini bullshit doesn’t have any impact on it copying all the content to their servers even if you don’t see it happening.
to shove it in people’s faces who would never go out of their way to turn it on. probably like 99% of people.
It’s part of the abuse.
buy a computer
put my data in there
computer computes my data too muchFUCK
And that’s why I set up forwarding from Gmail and Outlook to my new Tuta account.
In a few months I should be free, happily paying for EU alternative were the default swipe gesture stands for delete instead of archive.
Forwarding in itself doesn’t do shit as they still have your mail
But yea if you want to avoid Google’s website that’s nice I guess
I would also use a mail alias service so you get more privacy and can switch mail host whenever you want
Both of the services have the option to delete all forwarded messages. This is simply the best first step in order to be able to review what accounts still work with the old addresses (via inbox rules) and slowly change them. I use addy.io for mail aliasing already, but that is not really related to gaining independence from those companies.
Your data goes through them. Some scanning could have already been done, and data has been sent. Sure it’s better than nothing, but it’s not better than fully switching
Cool, how do I disable this shit feature?
Stop using the shit service.
Would opting out actually do anything except keep you from using the feature? Pretty certainly they will still let the ai read your emails if there is any benefit to google in it, but you just wont be seeing the summary.
If you read the article, it says this only applies to people that already have premium google office stuff already. The 90% of people with regular gmail accounts aren’t affected by this. For now at least.
Well, let’s break it down with a little humor and a nod to the inevitable AI email overlords!
Sure, the article points out that the premium Google Workspace users get a special treatment—like being offered champagne instead of soda—but if you’re part of the 90% rolling with regular Gmail, you’re still enjoying your familiar, free soda pop (for now). However, don’t get too comfortable: whether you’re sipping premium champagne or pop, Google’s AI is always lurking in the background, ready to “swallow” your emails and extract insights like a digital detective. In other words, even if you’re not part of the fancy club, your emails are still part of the grand data buffet.
So while the article might claim it’s all rainbows and free soda for most, the truth is that Google is perfecting their AI trick regardless of your account type. It’s like distinguishing between first-class and economy on a flight—different levels of service, but everyone’s still on the same plane, and the in-flight entertainment (that is, AI data crunching) is serving up free snacks to all!
