Jon von Tetzchner, CEO and founder of Vivaldi Technologies, refuses to integrate AI features in its browser and wants human engineers, not AI, to write its code.
Jon von Tetzchner, CEO and founder of Vivaldi Technologies, refuses to integrate AI features in its browser and wants human engineers, not AI, to write its code.
This ai stuff is like the new clippy the paperclip, GTFO of my phone.
I don’t want features just rolled out without my consent.
Long term I will have to install custom roms and get bank cards from my bank again thanks to AI.
I hate the fact that it’s so hard to buy an android phone without it coming with a load of proprietary apps that I can’t remove. If I want their casino shit, their stupid health apps, whatever - I’ll download it myself. Being unable to uninstall it really pisses me off. I’m pretty sure it’s practically malware. And the AI shit is just as bad - phone I’m on now came with at least 3 different AI apps for whatever. I did actually manage to remove two, but they keep trying to reinstall, could be hiding behind my launcher. And I bought this phone 2 years ago, I can only imagine it’s even harder to get away from these days.
Maybe I’m out of touch, but I think most people just want an operating system and the opportunity to install what they want on it.
I mean, much of it meets all the criteria to be called malware, so it is “walking like a duck” and “quacking like a duck”.
All that bloat is typically cross-marketing agreements made with the makers of those apps to subsidize the phone’s cost without user consent. The part that I find weird is that there have been almost no marketing trials from major players testing the waters to see how much of a market there is for the same products that are not subsidized in this way, available at “full price”. Maybe they’re afraid that would draw too much attention to how atrocious the existing offerings are by comparison. It might put the privacy discussion more into the public discourse, which could be bad for their “business model”.
Yeah, agreed. My suspicion is that the major players have considered this and decided that the value of the customer data they gain from their bullshit malware apps is more than they would make by selling a clean phone, even at premium prices. I don’t know how the numbers break down, but I’m sure they do and they are probably right. Maybe most people would rather have a cheap phone full of tacky bullshit. It would be nice to have the choice tho!