• In your Gmail app, go to Settings.
  • Select your Gmail address.
  • Clear the Smart features checkbox.
  • Go to Google Workspace smart features.
  • Clear the checkboxes for: Smart features in Google Workspace, Smart features in other Google products
  • If you have more Gmail accounts, repeat these steps for each one.
  • Turning off Gemini in Gmail also disables basic, long-standing features like spellchecking, which predate AI assistants. This design choice discourages opting out and shows how valuable your AI-processed data is for Google.

This has finally gotten me to take steps to deGoogle my email, Fastmail trial underway.

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    15 hours ago

    but i guess thats why I don’t work in marketing

    Yeah, I guess it is, because this article works in Proton’s favor on multiple levels:

    • Plenty of Proton users have switched over from Gmail and still have their old account and still, even with forwarding, occasionally need to use those old addresses.
    • People who search for a guide who’ve never or rarely heard of Proton might end up on their site and read a guide that lambasts Google’s usage of AI.
    • Meanwhile, Proton’s alternative product is being advertised everywhere on the page outside the guide and even is advertised within it.
    • These guides are going to exist anyway (many, in fact). You’re acting like this is some extremely niche thing users might want to do. Having your own guide but poisoned with your marketing when you’re the underdog is a sound idea.
    • This gives a benevolent image of “Good Guy Proton” who just wants to keep people’s data private regardless of business – and a “Bad Guy Google” image because it’s apparently so dire that their competition has to do this.

    You’re so smarmy about this but just come off as a complete dipshit who gave this two seconds of thought.

    • The post is just an ad disguised as a guide and absolutely pointless. You know what else will show people how to disable gemini, googles own ai based search.

      Sorry if my aversion to advertising comes off as smarmy, im tired of seeing companies go from focusing on providing one good service like email and trying to become the next one service fits all replacement for google. Instead of doing one thing extremely well it becomes a race to do as many things as they can and get people to replace one monolith with their own.

      Proton is the most recent to make this shift and its obvious they want to be like google but with “privacy” as a gimmic because its only private until they get a government order telling them to do something to unmask a user or monitor an email.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 hours ago

        The post is just an ad disguised as a guide

        Jack Nicholson nodding GIF

        That said:

        its obvious they want to be like google but with “privacy” as a gimmic because its only private until they get a government order telling them to do something to unmask a user or monitor an email.

        Besides the fact that Proton is based in Switzerland where government warrants aren’t issued willy-nilly, please learn how the mathematics behind encryption works – or, if not, at least trust that it does. For emails that are sent E2EE, Proton can only have garbled data that requires a key they don’t have.

        You’re just constantly talking out your ass, and I have no idea why; it’s so unearned. Like I’m not going to debate you on whether ads or corporations are good because a) I broadly agree and b) that’s just, like, our opinions, man, but then you just say shit that’s so demonstrably untrue that all I can think is: “I fucking hate what this decade has done to people.”

    • Victor@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      14 hours ago

      You had such excellent points all up until the unnecessary ad hominem at the end there. No need for name calling when you’ve already won.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        13 hours ago

        Before I address the substance: that’s not what an ad hominem is in the context of an argument. I’d already 100% finished attacking the substance of their argument. An ad hominem would be if I fallaciously appealed to a personal characteristic (real or otherwise) to attack an argument of theirs. “You’re wrong because you’re a dipshit”.

        Anyway: man, I dunno. It’s 2026, and I’ve gotten really fucking sick of being asymmetrically bound by etiquette when Brandolini’s law and the Dunning–Kruger effect are being stretched to their limits by insufferable, insolent shitheads who’ve unburdened thenselves of critical thinking and assume having a platform to the entire world makes them qualified to say anything about everything (I can fall into this trap too, but holy shit sometimes).

        I was still more polite than they were, still exercised more critical thought than they did, and still addressed the substance, and that’s fine enough by me not to tone police myself.

        • Victor@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          11 hours ago

          Alright, my bad, good ackshually. 👍 Let’s refer to it as name-calling.

          So like, calling someone a dipshit just because you’ve run into so many people that annoy you… I dunno. If it was the same person that annoyed you over and over again, I’d get it, but, this is your first interaction with this person, right? You feel me?

          🤷‍♂️ You have the right to call anyone you want a dipshit, of course, I just would like us to have civil discourse here. Everyone benefits from that, I believe. Plus, I think we’re all mostly on the same side regarding this matter. I don’t feel like this is a every polarizing issue here. 😁 Google is the enemy here, let’s not infight.

          A person is also much more susceptible and inclined to listen without being called names. 😉

          Have a good day today, buddy!

        • Victor@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          11 hours ago

          I mean, it’s just one person’s idea of how they think things will plan out vs another’s. No need for name-calling. 👍