I been trying my darndest to survive google changes to android a 158 days from now (https://keepandroidopen.org/) I run eOs (https://e.foundation/e-os/) on my phone now. Hope it will help, but I dunno if its gonna be enough.
Free, does not take your data, you can turn the ai thing on and off
And even https://noai.duckduckgo.com/
Doesn’t have it off by default, and not all browsers let you set a custom search engine to direct to the “No AI” version
I still use DDG since it’s the least bad, but it’s still hypocritical for a “private” search engine to default to an AI
If you don’t clear your cookies on these other browsers, tap the settings icon of search assist placed on the top right corner, and select Never.
We all need to stop giving them money, that means data. We gotta get everyone we know to stop too.
Just deleted youtube after a weekend of internet outage cured my addiction. (It will come back probably)
u block optional list under “annoyances”
You can add a custom filter too:
www.google.*##[data-mcp]:not(:has([data-mcp] [id*="folsrch"])):has([id*="folsrch"])Or you can open google with &udm=14 — it automatically switch to “web” version, which doesn’t have ads, recommended, ai overview and other features. It just searches what you typed (weird concept for search engine)
whoa i didn’t know that one
Would recommend trying SearXNG
Paraphrased from Wikipedia:
SearxNG is a free and open-source metasearch engine that provides agggregated search results, available under AGPL-3.0, with the aim of protecting its users privacy.
https://metager.org/ does the trick
Behold, an ancient relic from an earlier age of the interwebs: http://blackle.com/
Originally intended to cut power usage in the days of CRT monitors, it continues to deliver old-style google results for reasons unknown
Though Google is probably still tracking you through it.

I disabled the Google app to get rid of the annoying android ai powered “circle to search”. Now when I accidentally hold the home button, it says “To use Circle to Search, first enable the Google app”.
Why can’t I rebind that in stock android?
Switch to LineageOS

Because you don’t have stock android, you have googles modified android
Samsung, but sure.
Was that last thing not in settings>apps>default apps>digital assistant apps ?
That’s for holding down the side button
Has stock android really pivoted to the ‘bixby button’ behaviour? That sucks 😭










