I warned most of my family and friends this was going to happen when I de-Googled and set up Immich and they all said I was paranoid.
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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I wish I could do that... I even learned like 70% of the knowledge I would need to do something like that.... Now I just need the hardware market to crash, so I can actually fucking afford the hardware to do it.
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Why search for a doctor’s appointment when Google has access to all your calendar events. Why search for a party invite when it reads all your emails. And why search for a specific photo of you and your loved ones to create an image, when it sees all your photos.
They try very hard to sell this as something positive and not the privacy invasive nightmare it is.
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Does it matter if you don't update? I imagine they already have it on their servers, which is where I imagine the photos are mostly processed.
Since decades, Google Photos is cloud storage. Update or no, they already got your photos for this.
The more offensive part is, Google Photos is not only the default image viewer on (Google's) Android, but (Google's) Camera app will only open pictures in it too. So it's cloud crap that's also literally programmed into a lot of people's cameras.
Check out https://github.com/CaramelFur/GPhotosShim which stops GCam from using Photos. This is why my gOS uses GCam with network denied (because it works way better on Pixels than the OSS equivalent).
Nice thanks. I was getting annoyed with that and have recently degoogled. The camera appnseems good for pixels though. I might switch back now.
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Unless you deny network permission for Photos, which I highly recommend.
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Voiding my privacy, stealing my IP and opening me up to liabilities....and tis all legal... fuck all of you who gargled their balls and betrayed your own interests for what amounts to digital toys.
I appreciate the sentiment. One of the core conflicts I've had with family over the past couple decades has been their unrepentant usage of my data on these platforms. As a result, I never take or share pictures. They've responded over the years by casting suspicion on me, for not capitulating to the status quo, and for wanting to understand the nuts-and-bolts of technology. I've never shared mine nor others' data. I worked in the data economy for about a decade and still, they'd dismiss my well-founded concerns in favor of corporate propaganda and the ego-dopamine loop. "What do you have to hide?" Dumb fucks.
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Does it matter what we do? There's definitely some family member, friend, colleague who has taken a picture of you and your likeness will be processed.
It's like people tagging you in Facebook pictures even if you don't have an account, but worse, because that was an active step. This is fully automated.
Yeah, we are all fucked. I'm still not going to give Google my data willingly.
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Pardon me, starts?
Exactly. It's google. They're scanning EVERYTHING. Even if you don't use google, they probably know about you from OTHERS' devices who are using google.
GrapheneOS works great for me. Not a lot you can do on stock android that you can’t do on GrapheneOS. I would highly recommend anyone looking for privacy to look into it. Very very easy to install. Just make sure you have a Pixel phone that is unlocked. I’ve been using it as my daily driver for two years now.
GrapheneOS isn't a replacement for Google Photos though? What do you use for photo backups? (Immich seems like the obvious answer, but I'd like to know if there's more options out there)
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If you're able to manage a Docker container, you could consider Immich. It works great, has client apps for iOS and Android. Open Source. I've been using it for a few years now.
Same, I set it up a few years ago and both me and my partner have been using it since then with no issues at all, it's completely replaced Google Photos for us.
We've also set up immich-frame and repurposed an old Google Nest hub to use as a digital photo frame.
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That's a terrible article though and seems quite click-baity, it's hard to say what's going on just based on that.
It also says
We’re talking Personal Intelligence, Google’s latest AI upgrade path which lets users opt-in to connecting Google apps to Gemini.
If it's opt-in, it's fine, as long as the user knows what exactly they are opting in for.
Even when they say it's optional, it's never actually optional. They are always enabling it in the background and just preventing you from seeing that.
But even if they actually did use an opt-in system properly, they would still only do that for like 6 months, and then in the next update you'd be forced to use it. And who can stop them? There is no alternative.
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The way they are doing it is kind of sketchy though. They are replacing the old search functionality with Gemini and now if you click the search icon in Google photos it immediately pops up asking you to pick your own face. There's no option to skip this step, though you can still revert to the old search for now.
The creepy part is that when they ask you to select your face, it's pretty clear they've already figured it out, because it's the first face they show you.
Except anyone else that has ever taken my picture can opt-in for me, and I have no way of knowing if they did or not.
Time to finally finish setting up my immich instance properly.
If you install immich in your homelab, you can just transfer all the images off your device very easily with the immich app.
Probably the only way to keep them private from big tech. But the long term solution is to not use the official Android or Apple systems and to root your phone and install cyanogenmod or something similar without Google apps.
But that means some apps wont work at all, so thats the price to pay for that freedom.
Or you can just buy a separate camera and stop using your phone for that.
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Alright, I already transfered the pics to my Immich a month ago anyway, time to delete my shit outright...
Yeah. Because Google would never keep the images anyway.
Yeah, but at least it'll all be outdated and nothing new is added. And hey, maybe in the future we could get laws that force them to delete anything older than a certain date. Would leaving them there be any better?
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Time to invert the colors of some extra weird porn and stuff my Google drive to the brim.
I thought they always did this?
Decision to move to Immich on my own hardware years ago validated
It's also opt in. Although I'd be surprised if anyone commenting here is actually using google photos in the first place.
It's also opt in
For now.
I've been dragging my feet moving to grapheneOS, but shit like this is going to encourage me to make the jump sooner than later
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There'll be quite a few of us. I have no idea of the actual demographics or whatever, but a lot of people are here just because they got shafted by reddit one too many times.
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tell me how to opt-out
from what I understood, you have to opt in. so by default, Gemini will not have access to your gallery. It's just matter of time tho when will Google force this upon it's users imo
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Timing is insane, i took out everything and put it on my NAS 2 weeks ago. Glad i removed everything.
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Pandora's Tech Box opened long ago. It's already way too late.
Thanks, I hate it!
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