Well people found a way to do this before smart phones existed so yea…use your fucking brain and figure it out. Other commentors have already listed alternative ways to measure it.

If you spent less time creating smartass replies on Lemmy and more actually thinking, you may learn some things.

Have you ever heard of a pen and paper? You can print out tracking forms. I know…pretty crazy right?

People need to take their heads out of their ass and realize that you don’t need an app for fucking everything.

What exactly was the issue with it?

I’m just confused because I’m not seeing any evidence of Gemini on my phone? Is there a way to check? All of the articles on this are incredibly confusing. I don’t see it as an assistant or anything.

I can’t even open the gemini app on my phone (if i download it) because it says it doesn’t work if the google app is disabled…

Just disable the Google app. Easy. You’re welcome. Pretty sure that disables everything because I don’t see a single Gemini related thing on my phone and I don’t have the Gemini app installed. Also activity is turned off in my account. Almost positive all you need to do is disable the Google app.

People on Lemmy seem to be Pewdiepie bootlickers. Idk why but it’s really weird. Apparently you can do whatever but as long as you promote Linux, Lemmy will love you. Ridiculous.

So most alternative router firmware comes with a feature that can be configured to re-route any hard coded DNS through the pihole. I.e., my Smart TV will switch to Google DNS if it can’t connect through your set DNS. The feature I mentioned will force this to always go through your configured DNS. This is completely solves that issue. I’ve thoroughly tested this and it 100% works. Also routers have a feature that can block a device from accessing the WAN at all, and only allow them to access the LAN. This is just a simple toggle in my router and extremely easy to use. I block certain devices that I don’t want to have intentet at all but that I want to access over the network (i.e. plex)

Just to be clear, my goal with my setup is limiting tracking, telemetry, and ads.

I don’t understand your response. You’re essentially doing the exact same thing I am. Preventing iot devices from accessing wan. The end result in the same, except you’re blocking it from accessing other devices on lan as well. But access to wan is blocked which is the most important. If a device has a security vulnerability then by blocking wan access, you’re blocking an attacker from getting in, unless someone malicious is already on your local network, which in that case you’re fucked anyway. Apologies if i misunderstood your point.

A better solution is to use a pihole to block all domains that the TV pings, and only let through ones that allow you to use streaming apps (i.e. netflix API domain.)

Another good solution is to block WAN access for specific devices and only allow them to communicate over LAN. This would be done on your Router. This method would allow local streaming using Jellyfin but wouldn’t allow streaming apps like Netflix since that requires communication with the outside Internet.

I relate to this. unfortunately there is nothing you can do. Most people simply just do not fucking care. The vast majority actually. Just get used to feeling like a weirdo or just stop mentioning it. The latter is probably better. I don’t even bother anymore. I know exactly what not to say since I know what will just get me weird looks or have people tell me to take off my tin foil hat. It sucks but it is what it is.

God, the tribalism here about browsers is absolutely fucking ridiculous. These communities are such a fucking joke.

Honestly it’s more fucking cringe when these clowns try to walk back their opinion in a clearly bullshit and artificial way. I rather them just own it. If you’re gonna be a cuck, be a cuck. Don’t backtrack.

Gonna need to see a source on that one, please.

Every single example of this happening is anecdotal. The people who tried to properly investigate this have not found it to be true. If you find a video of an actual serious research who proves this is true then I’ll admit that I’m wrong. Otherwise these types of posts are useless