Pixel 8a, Android 15

More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
news items, none of which I want. It appears to be the Google app,
not Chrome, though I'm not 100% sure of that.

Is there some way to turn that off? In particular, would Settings »
Apps » Google » Disable do it, and if so are there any bad
consequences, for instance losing Google's automatic backups? (After
my phone was stolen a week ago, Google saved my bacon by downloading
everything to my new phone, even call history and texts.)

More general question: what in fact is the Google app _for_? All the
things I use: Calendar, Messages, Phone, Contacts -- are separate
apps.

Except for this annoyance, I like the Googleverse on the Pixel much
better than the mishmash of Samsung versions of Google apps on my old
Galaxy A54 5G A. For instance, Samsung's app for photos wouldn't show
anything I had taken on my earlier phone, and Google's wouldn't show
anything else.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 07:16:45 -0800, Stan Brown wrote:
>
> Pixel 8a, Android 15
>
> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
> into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
> news items, none of which I want. It appears to be the Google app,
> not Chrome, though I'm not 100% sure of that.
>
> Is there some way to turn that off?

Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
Discover, and it can be turned off in the Google app's own Settings
menu.

https://www.androidpolice.com/disable-google-discover-android/

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Stan Brown wrote:

>> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
>> into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
>> news items
>
> Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
> Discover

It would be more useful if it showed news articles before they get 36
hours out of date and avoided showing new stories behind paywalls.

On 08 Dec 2024, Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote in
comp.mobile.android:

> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 07:16:45 -0800, Stan Brown wrote:
>>
>> Pixel 8a, Android 15
>>
>> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been
>> dumped into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and
>> clickbait news items, none of which I want. It appears to be the
>> Google app, not Chrome, though I'm not 100% sure of that.
>>
>> Is there some way to turn that off?
>
> Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
> Discover, and it can be turned off in the Google app's own
> Settings menu.
>
> https://www.androidpolice.com/disable-google-discover-android/

Thank you! That has been annoying me for some time now. I've learned to
mostly avoid triggering it but it still happens sometimes. I don't need
or want it. Now gone!

Nil wrote:

> That has been annoying me for some time now. I've learned to
> mostly avoid triggering it but it still happens sometimes.

If you don't like/want it, fair enough. But it's difficult to see why
it's a mystery how it gets invoked ... just swipe left from the home screen.

On 2024-12-08 19:09, Andy Burns wrote:
> Stan Brown wrote:
>
>>> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
>>> into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
>>> news items
>>
>> Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
>> Discover
>
> It would be more useful if it showed news articles before they get 36
> hours out of date and avoided showing new stories behind paywalls.

When I hit a pay wall after an item in discover, I hit the three dot
menu, then "report this" as "other".

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 08.12.24 16:35, Stan Brown wrote:
> On Sun, 8 Dec 2024 07:16:45 -0800, Stan Brown wrote:
>>
>> Pixel 8a, Android 15
>>
>> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
>> into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
>> news items, none of which I want. It appears to be the Google app,
>> not Chrome, though I'm not 100% sure of that.
>>
>> Is there some way to turn that off?
>
> Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
> Discover, and it can be turned off in the Google app's own Settings
> menu.
>
> https://www.androidpolice.com/disable-google-discover-android/

Thanks! One PITA less on my Pixel!

--
"Roma locuta, causa finita." (Augustinus)

Carlos E.R. wrote on Sun, 8 Dec 2024 22:27:59 +0100 :

>>>> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
>>>> into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
>>>> news items
>>>
>>> Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
>>> Discover
>>
>> It would be more useful if it showed news articles before they get 36
>> hours out of date and avoided showing new stories behind paywalls.
>
> When I hit a pay wall after an item in discover, I hit the three dot
> menu, then "report this" as "other".

Thank God I've never seen any of this ad stuff but may I ask what app
people are using that brings up these full-page ads on their Android phone?

When the OP says "Google app" in the subject line, is that the Google
Search App (I don't have it so I can't confirm with a package name).

Andy - is that the app the OP is talking about serving him ads?
What does it do (it's not on my phone so I can't test it out for him)?

Searching in Muntashirakon App Manager, I see an uninstalled app named
"Google" com.google.android.googlequicearch... (it's truncated)

Is that the app that the OP is using?

My phone works perfectly fine with that app uninstalled from the user
partition so I'm curious what it does for the OP that he really needs.

Also are they using a "private DNS" such as the one that I'm using:
Samsung A32-5G Android 13
Settings > Connections > More connection settings > Private DNS
(o)Private DNS provider hostname = adblock.dns.mullvad.net

Also, there's no advertising ID on my phone. Is there one on yours?
Developer options = on
Settings > Google > Ads (the advertising ID does not exist)

Otherwise, why have I never seen an ad on my phone even as I have almost
900 apps on my phone and my bootloader version isn't rootable.

On 08 Dec 2024, Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> wrote in
comp.mobile.android:

> Nil wrote:
>
>> That has been annoying me for some time now. I've learned to
>> mostly avoid triggering it but it still happens sometimes.
>
> If you don't like/want it, fair enough. But it's difficult to
> see why it's a mystery how it gets invoked ... just swipe left
> from the home screen.

On my Pixel 6a you swipe from the bottom. It would often get triggered
just by handling the phone or while doing something else in that area.

Andy Burns wrote on Sun, 8 Dec 2024 18:54:25 +0000 :

> If you don't like/want it, fair enough. But it's difficult to see why
> it's a mystery how it gets invoked ... just swipe left from the home screen.

I just tried swiping left from "my" home screen, and it just goes to
another home screen (in a circular fashion) so I think the launcher matters
(as likely does your settings for how you want the basic UI to work).

BTW, swiping right does the same thing - only in the other direction. :)

Swiping down brings up the tile menu and notifications.
Swiping up brings up an App Drawer app of some sort.

Andrew wrote:

> Thank God I've never seen any of this ad stuff but may I ask what app
> people are using that brings up these full-page ads on their Android phone?

It never shows me adverts, let alone full-page ones, some of the news
stories are thinly veiled promo stuff scraped from news websites or
paywalled articles from the same. It acts as an extra "page" to the
left of the home screen.

> When the OP says "Google app" in the subject line, is that the Google
> Search App (I don't have it so I can't confirm with a package name).

I can reach a similar app by launching "Google" from the app drawer,
it's not identical, it also has a search bar and some buttons to do lens
image search, lens translate, song ident and lens homework question search.

> Andy - is that the app the OP is talking about serving him ads?
> What does it do (it's not on my phone so I can't test it out for him)?
>
> Searching in Muntashirakon App Manager, I see an uninstalled app named
> "Google" com.google.android.googlequicearch... (it's truncated)

Yes, that is the name of the non-home screen version mentioned above,
the full name is com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox

It looks like a mega-launcher for every Google activity going, if you've
got the APK look at the massive list of activities/services/providers etc

My android launcher is the standard "Pixel Launcher", but it shows some
history in the app name com.google.android.apps.nexuslauncher

Here's a "long" screenshot from the app version (not the launcher version)

<http://andyburns.uk/misc/googlequicksearchbox.png>

It does have an option to "use without an account"

Nil wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> it's difficult to see why it's a mystery how it gets invoked ...
>> just swipe left from the home screen.
>
> On my Pixel 6a you swipe from the bottom. It would often get triggered
> just by handling the phone or while doing something else in that area.

Swiping up from the bottom gives me the home screen

Swiping up from the bottom, but stopping short, gives me the app
switcher/killer

Swiping up from slightly above the bottom gives me the app drawer

It's been like that on pixel3, pixel5a and pixel8a, maybe it varies
depending whether you have gesture navigation enabled or the 3-button
bar? I have gestures ... I don't think I used gestures on the nexus5x

On 2024-12-09 01:12, Andrew wrote:
> Carlos E.R. wrote on Sun, 8 Dec 2024 22:27:59 +0100 :
>
>>>>> More than once, I've swiped left or right on a screen and been dumped
>>>>> into a page with the Google header and a bunch of ads and clickbait
>>>>> news items
>>>>
>>>> Sorry, I should have Googled (!) before posting. It's called
>>>> Discover
>>>
>>> It would be more useful if it showed news articles before they get 36
>>> hours out of date and avoided showing new stories behind paywalls.
>>
>> When I hit a pay wall after an item in discover, I hit the three dot
>> menu, then "report this" as "other".
>
> Thank God I've never seen any of this ad stuff but may I ask what app
> people are using that brings up these full-page ads on their Android phone?
>
> When the OP says "Google app" in the subject line, is that the Google
> Search App (I don't have it so I can't confirm with a package name).

I am talking of "Discover".

--
Cheers, Carlos.

Carlos E.R. wrote:

> I am talking of "Discover".

I don't have anything by that name ...

On 12/9/24 7:37 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>Carlos E.R. wrote:
>
>> I am talking of "Discover".
>
>I don't have anything by that name ...

I have "Discover" on the search page of many of my Chrome browser apps on my
various Android tablets. Some of my past toys had Discover built in.
Swiping right on the home screen would access it. I have found many
interesting articles there. Since they're scraped, the original ads come
with them...

On 2024-12-09 15:37, Andy Burns wrote:
> Carlos E.R. wrote:
>
>> I am talking of "Discover".
>
> I don't have anything by that name ...

Try searching for it in the system setup.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

AJL wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>>> Carlos E.R. wrote:
>>
>>> I am talking of "Discover".
>>
>> I don't have anything by that name ...
>
> I have "Discover" on the search page of many of my Chrome browser

OK yes, normally I use firefox/fenix, but if I use Chrome I get a set of
similar scraped results under a Discover heading ...

On 12/9/24 8:53 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
>AJL wrote:
>
>> Andy Burns wrote:
>>>> Carlos E.R. wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am talking of "Discover".
>>>
>>> I don't have anything by that name ...
>>
>> I have "Discover" on the search page of many of my Chrome browser
>
>OK yes, normally I use firefox/fenix, but if I use Chrome I get a set of
>similar scraped results under a Discover heading ...

Out of curiosity I installed the Google app on my Fire 8+ tablet (Android
fork OS) and the Discovery search page looks pretty much the same as the
Chrome browser. Google claims to make the articles interesting to me by
monitoring my usage. Scary for the paranoid, huh.

Interestingly I haven't yet figured out how to get Discovery on this Chrome
tablet I'm posting with. It has a desktop Chrome browser with no Discovery
on the search page and when I try to download the Google app it says it
won't work on this device. C'mon Google. Ah well I'll try again after
lunch...

Andy Burns wrote on Mon, 9 Dec 2024 09:02:46 +0000 :

> the full name is com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
>
> It looks like a mega-launcher for every Google activity going

Thanks for all that confirmation as I was faithfully trying to understand
the OP's original problem and the answers provided thereafter.

You helped me understand the issue better, where with respect to the
specific package <com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox>, I can see how
it could be useful for those who wish to make one-tap homescreen shortcuts
to (some of the many) Google Activities that it seems to call up.

For those who don't know what we're talking about, with Muntashirakon App
Manager you can make a shortcut to any public Activity in an app.

Since the <com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox> lists those (presumably
public) Activities, you can use Muntashirakon with that app to call them up
with a one-tap homescreen shortcut.

Thanks Andy for helping clarify the OP's situation. Much appreciated.

AJL wrote on Mon, 9 Dec 2024 17:24:42 -0000 (UTC) :

> Google claims to make the articles interesting to me by
> monitoring my usage. Scary for the paranoid, huh.

On that topic alone of Google monitoring your reading to figure out what it
is that you like to read and then presenting you with similar offerings....

I have a free Amazon Vine account which allows me to order from Amazon
three items a day of up to $100 each without cost, shipping or taxes.

For *that* account, Amazon also monitors my purchases, and then it offers
me free stuff (up to $100 per item, 3 a day) that fits my buying patterns.

Surprisingly, that's a kind of monitoring & offering that I actually like!

Andrew wrote:

> AJL wrote:
>
>> Google claims to make the articles interesting to me by
>>  monitoring my usage. Scary for the paranoid, huh.
>
> On that topic alone of Google monitoring your reading to figure out what
> it is that you like to read and then presenting you with similar
> offerings....
I told my launcher pane to not use my google account, and refused all
cookies, that way it game me more news stories, from more sources (not
just .uk) including cat vids and stuff ...

Andy Burns wrote on Mon, 9 Dec 2024 22:42:25 +0000 :

>> On that topic alone of Google monitoring your reading to figure out what
>> it is that you like to read and then presenting you with similar
>> offerings....
> I told my launcher pane to not use my google account, and refused all
> cookies, that way it game me more news stories, from more sources (not
> just .uk) including cat vids and stuff ...

I do the same (conceptually) when, on a PC, I use a privacy-based web
browser to read the Google News web page which collates articles for me.
<https://news.google.com/home?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en>

Since it asks me every time to accept or reject cookies, I reject them.
Then it gives me whatever it thinks is a generic page for people in the US.

For World News, I have a similar bookmark which serves news alphabetically.
<https://www.google.com/search?q=world+news+today>

Interestingly, the good stuff (such as BBC & CNN) show up early (due to the
accident of alphabetics); but then the utterly fantastically atrocious
garbage is soon listed thereafter (e.g., Al Jazeera & Hindustan Times).

Obviously I pick some (e.g., the BBC) yet I ignore others (Al Jazeera).

With those two pages alone, I pick through today's news WITHOUT anyone
correlating my reading choices so as to "Discover" what it is I like.

Everything you do, every second of the day, is one of planned privacy.

On 12/9/2024 3:22 PM, Andrew wrote:
> AJL wrote on Mon, 9 Dec 2024 17:24:42 -0000 (UTC) :
>
>> Google claims to make the articles interesting to me by monitoring
>> my usage. Scary for the paranoid, huh.
>
> On that topic alone of Google monitoring your reading to figure out
> what it is that you like to read and then presenting you with
> similar offerings.... I have a free Amazon Vine account which allows
> me to order from Amazon three items a day of up to $100 each without
> cost, shipping or taxes. For *that* account, Amazon also monitors my
> purchases, and then it offers me free stuff (up to $100 per item, 3 a
> day) that fits my buying patterns. Surprisingly, that's a kind of
> monitoring & offering that I actually like!

How many reviews do you do a month?

My Amazon story is kinda funny (and sad). I ordered a Google Pixel
tablet ($400US) about 2 months ago. I received a toy football. Yep, you
heard me right...a toy football...in a box with a 'battery inside'
warning. I returned the football the next day (almost 2 months ago now)
and have been trying for a refund ever since. The lady on the phone
today promised the charge back would now occur in 5 to 10 days. We'll see...

Why don't I just dispute the charge with my credit card you ask? Cause
Amazon would then probably cancel me and unfortunately I can't live
without Amazon. Sad, huh. For example I needed a new part for my shower
last week. Do I drive down to the store, hunt for a parking spot, fight
the crowds, and look for the part, only to find that it may not be
there? Nope. I just whipped out an (on topic Android) tablet toy,
brought up the Amazon app, ordered the part and it was on my porch the
next morning. I just can't go back to my prior life...

On 12/9/2024 3:42 PM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Andrew wrote:
>
>> AJL wrote:
>>
>>> Google claims to make the articles interesting to me by
>>> monitoring my usage. Scary for the paranoid, huh.
>>
>> On that topic alone of Google monitoring your reading to figure
>> out what it is that you like to read and then presenting you with
>> similar offerings....

> I told my launcher pane to not use my google account, and refused
> all cookies, that way it game me more news stories, from more sources
> (not just .uk) including cat vids and stuff ...

I've always enjoyed the Discover selection so Google does a good job
picking stuff for me. I also read other aggregators like Flipboard,
Yahoo News, Slashdot, The Register, and Smartnews. With my Chrome stuff
I use a read only extension to get rid of the ads, popups and moving
stuff. Likewise the Reading mode app on my Android stuff...

On Mon, 9 Dec 2024 23:06:56 -0000 (UTC), Andrew <andys@nospam.com>
wrote:

>Andy Burns wrote on Mon, 9 Dec 2024 22:42:25 +0000 :
>
>>> On that topic alone of Google monitoring your reading to figure out what
>>> it is that you like to read and then presenting you with similar
>>> offerings....
>> I told my launcher pane to not use my google account, and refused all
>> cookies, that way it game me more news stories, from more sources (not
>> just .uk) including cat vids and stuff ...
>
>I do the same (conceptually) when, on a PC, I use a privacy-based web
>browser to read the Google News web page which collates articles for me.
> <https://news.google.com/home?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en>
>
>Since it asks me every time to accept or reject cookies, I reject them.
>Then it gives me whatever it thinks is a generic page for people in the US.
>
>For World News, I have a similar bookmark which serves news alphabetically.
> <https://www.google.com/search?q=world+news+today>
>
>Interestingly, the good stuff (such as BBC & CNN) show up early (due to the
>accident of alphabetics); but then the utterly fantastically atrocious
>garbage is soon listed thereafter (e.g., Al Jazeera & Hindustan Times).
>
>Obviously I pick some (e.g., the BBC) yet I ignore others (Al Jazeera).

Well, if you choose to pick the garbage, that's up to you.

--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://khanya.wordpress.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk