A danger with google is how flippantly they will ban google accounts for the dumbest things. Now theres a button to livesteam your browsing tied to your google account. I wonder how many people are going to lose 20 years of gmail Gphotos and GDrive files because they accidentally clicked gemini at the wrong moment on the wrong website.
antipaul · 1m ago
The danger with google is that they suck at user experience
beebmam · 30m ago
Does Apple do this often? I've always wondered if iCloud is worth getting, given that it constantly spams me to use it with my iPhone
dundundundun · 20m ago
If they do close an account they have a support line you can call and talk to a human.
tjohns · 4m ago
[delayed]
TheDong · 1h ago
Yeah, it's such a huge risk.
I once accidentally hit the "screenshot" button on my android phone while I had bing.com open, which uploaded that photo to google photos automatically, and my account was banned the next day.
The next account, I was in a Google Meet call with someone, and I said "Geez, meet is so slow, we should switch to zoom", and my account was instantly banned.
My third account got banned for emailing curse words to ceo@google.com, calling them all sorts of bad words for banning my first two accounts.
......
My point is, there are zero instances I know of where a google account has been banned for sharing content with a service, be that uploading porn to google drive or google photos, emailing competitors, screenshotting on android, etc etc.
The _only_ exception I know to that is uploading CSAM, so as long as you don't like go to CSAM sites and click the gemini button you should be fine.
If you're worried about clicking the gemini button "on the wrong website", and by that you do mean CSAM, then good, I hope such a person does get banned.
The actual way I've lost all my google accounts is that they reject logging in with the correct password after I move and get a new IP, they insist I need to use my backup email to login, and my backup email is with some ISP that has since gone out of business, or is a @yahoo email that got deleted by yahoo.
BrawnyBadger53 · 5m ago
Except people take photos of their kids all the time and there is precedent of parents losing their Google accounts for this.
Google wiped my account for posting a jpeg of a credit card form with "THIS POST ONLY VIEWABLE WITH GOOGLE+ GOLD" to their old social media site. Gmail,Gdrive, everything tied to the account gone forever. They would only tell me it got flagged "phishing". The TOS has a laundry list of words to ban you under. Whichever reason their overseas moderation farm clicks, after looking 0.7 seconds at a screengrab flagged by a hallucinating AI, isn't ever going to be reviewed by anyone further. There's no support or appeal path for a free account.
How is this not stealing clicks from other web pages and advertisers? There is no way that people are forgoing clicking on links at this point if they get the answers right away.
paxys · 1h ago
So you click a button, it pops open a text box in a floating window, you type in a question, and the AI replies. This is the most underwhelming implementation of browser-based AI that they could have come up with. Quite literally just gemini.google.com in an iFrame.
qnleigh · 24m ago
> Quite literally just gemini.google.com in an iFrame.
Hmm, no? It has access to all of the content of all of you're currently open tabs, and is able to parse images on web pages as well.
It would be neat if it could also browse on your behalf, but that would present all kinds of security risks.
paxys · 8m ago
No, it can only access the tab you are currently on. And that too just the content that is already available. It can't scroll up and down to load more. It can't follow links. It can't run any actions. You'll get a ton more functionality by just taking a screenshot of the page yourself and pasting it in ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini.
atdt · 1h ago
It has access to the current page, so you can ask Gemini questions about its content.
The future of web browsing is the tiktok model. Where you don't surf the web, but the web is served to you "algorithmically". Do it long enough, and you'll be serve the pages you want and it will feel like it was your idea all along. Gemini everywhere is the first step.
esperent · 5m ago
[delayed]
aeon_ai · 1h ago
If the forced deprecation of Ublock wasn't enough to get me off Chrome, this sure as hell is.
albert_e · 1h ago
Microsoft baked in Copilot into Edge more than a year ago.
It was forced into Windows task bar as well.
This seems to be in the same vein.
be_erik · 2h ago
I don’t understand who this is for? I just tried Anthropic’s extension and it feels like writing automated selenium tests.
LLMs interacting with markup is not the best abstraction layer.
skybrian · 1h ago
It sounds like an alternative for passing a URL to a chat session, with the advantage that you could share web pages that require a log in.
But you might want to be careful about which web pages you share this way?
resonious · 1h ago
Right it felt pretty bad. It chugs tons of tokens just to be like "I need to scroll up!". Then 5 seconds later it scrolls up, chugs more tokens. "I need to scroll up more!"
nextworddev · 1h ago
It’s for Google to gain complete control of the context whereever you are on the Internet
jama211 · 1h ago
Google would control everything if they could, but this won’t achieve that and they know that so it’s not the specific intention of this. Even if you’re feeling doomerish about it.
nextworddev · 1h ago
Ok dude
SilverElfin · 1h ago
Google taking advantage of their anti competitive monopolies
nomilk · 1h ago
I tried it on this page and says 'I don't have access' [0].
You need to do it via Gemini in Chrome in an updated Chrome install (roughly 140.0.7339.186 or newer) on Mac/Windows using the English language with the relevant permissions enabled in the sections under chrome://settings/ai
My guess is it's either the first part (doing it via Gemini in Chrome) or the last part (permissions enabled).
nomilk · 1h ago
I typed @gemini in the searchbar and it turned blue and text switched to 'Ask Gemini' to indicate it worked (but it didn't work - Gemini says it doesn't have access to the screen/webpage).
chrome://settings/ai redirects to chrome://settings (general settings). Manually searching 'ai' brings up dozens of other settings - stuff like 'mail' (which contains 'ai' string) - but nothing Gemini-related.
On the most up to date chrome: Version 140.0.7339.186 (Official Build) (arm64)
The instructional video [0] says there should be a 'Gemini' icon on the top of the Chrome browser, but I don't have one (macOS). (do I have to have a paid Gemini account for it to be there?).
In any case, when OpenAI and Grok launch things, I usually just go and try them in about 20 seconds. By comparison Google's AI launches are tedious..
The "Ask Gemini" thing existed before this, between that and the lack of an AI settings page it seems it's not considering the system as one of the initial supported ones (but why specifically I'm not sure).
I can confirm a paid Gemini account is needed.
No problem, it took me a minute to get it enabled myself - not sure why it's so special cased for what it is.
nomilk · 1h ago
> I can confirm a paid Gemini account is needed.
Google should say this up front (or at least prompt that I need to pay) rather than wasting users' time.
The 'How do I use Gemini in Chrome?' section of their launch page doesn't say anything about that requirement either.
Anyway, </rant>. Thanks for your help.
nomilk · 1h ago
I asked Gemini and it may says you need a US based Google account:
Ok Google employees, please quit the vote brigading.
The28thDuck · 1h ago
I hereby declare this to be the future! We made it folks. Time to pack it up. See you in a 2002 LAN party.
cwmoore · 1h ago
What is LAN?
blooalien · 34m ago
> What is LAN?
I think it's like the opposite of WAN? :shrug:
maz1b · 2h ago
I mean, is anyone really surprised that this was going to happen?
Google is about to break even further away in the LLM race with this move, seeing as they will be getting an absolutely, supremely stunning amount of regular and novel data 24/7. Not everyone uses dedicated LLM interfaces, but more people I know use Google search. As Google === Search for so many.
Nevertheless, it is an business savvy move to make, considering the recent ruling by the judge to not force Google to split apart or break up its business w/r/t to Chrome.
deanmoriarty · 1h ago
What do you think this will mean for OpenAI, Anthropic and their current valuations?
ocdtrekkie · 1h ago
I bet the judge already realizes how mistaken he was to let them off. Now they'll use their monopoly product to ensure monopoly control in the new market he was so sure would rein them in.
Workaccount2 · 38m ago
The thing about chrome is that people use it because they like it. It's not forced or bundled with windows or iOS.
A monopoly is when you do anti-competitive things, not when your product is far and away the most popular.
If anything blame Firefox for dropping the ball so damn hard
ocdtrekkie · 16m ago
This is... a woefully uninformed statement. You realize they just lost several monopoly cases, including around Chrome? They just got off on the meaningful penalty.
Google is an anticompetitive monopoly, and Chrome is an anticompetitive monopoly. This has been established by multiple courts of law. Your armchair claims to the contrary hold no water.
mmastrac · 1h ago
Given the current err climate of thought purity, doesn't this seem a little too risky of a product to enable?
Poomba · 1h ago
I feel like we are past that point now. The fact that AI will get things wrong has been normalized already
atonse · 1h ago
Blah. On the one hand, this is where the monopoly power of putting Gemini in Chrome should be looked into by the DOJ. On the other hand, this might make me switch back to chrome.
These are all things Apple could build into safari, but they're nowhere to be seen. They'll be stuck solving yesterday's problems (like building an infinitesimally better camera for the latest iPhone), but not at all integrating any AI into them.
muppetman · 1h ago
How do you turn it off?
weikju · 1h ago
Firefox/brave/orion/vivaldi/safari/librewolf/etc
Admittedly some of them have their own AI offerings but not as invasive and can actually be turned off.
zamadatix · 1h ago
chrome://settings/ai
vachina · 1h ago
Google had to do this. They cannot die standing watching ChatGPT et. al. eating their ad-free lunch.
EZ-E · 1h ago
We need a [US Only] tag on the thread title, I almost got excited
Maybe someone can post the change log tomorrow and we can do it again.
I'm thinking over the weekend we could post the GitHub merge of these AI features so we can give Google even more exposure.
By Tuesday I hope someone will write a review of these features rehashing the same thing. I'd love to have that be upvoted to the top of HN again.
65 · 1h ago
Who wants to bet that Chrome makes this feature impossible to disable?
elpakal · 1h ago
I’ll take that bet. You will be able to disable it but that won’t mean they won’t still run it.
Razengan · 1h ago
Isn't Google putting AI results at the top some sort of conflict of interest?
Like if users can just get the info they want right at Google.com why would they click through to any of the search results? Isn't that stealing clicks from websites?
eclipxe · 14m ago
Stealing clicks? What obligation does Google have to send traffic to a site?
Razengan · 11m ago
What if that site paid for ads or to appear at the top of search results? Google's AI crap appears above even sponsored sites.
bertili · 1h ago
EU: Open goal and no keeper in sight. Just a small tab. Please.
rvz · 1h ago
Time for more security researchers to collect more money on data exfiltration reports when attackers instruct and trick LLMs to steal private user information and fall for fake websites generated by AI to accidentally send private information to attackers.
Welcome to the Vibe Browsing security nightmare.
keyle · 1h ago
You didn't want it in your computer, bang, it's there!
You didn't want it in your phone, bang, it's there!
You didn't want it in your browser, bang, it's there!
Next, coming to a fridge near you! /s
blooalien · 27m ago
> Next, coming to a fridge near you! /s
Well, with Samsung forcing ads on their "smart" fridges [0], Google + AI can't be far behind.
I once accidentally hit the "screenshot" button on my android phone while I had bing.com open, which uploaded that photo to google photos automatically, and my account was banned the next day.
The next account, I was in a Google Meet call with someone, and I said "Geez, meet is so slow, we should switch to zoom", and my account was instantly banned.
My third account got banned for emailing curse words to ceo@google.com, calling them all sorts of bad words for banning my first two accounts.
......
My point is, there are zero instances I know of where a google account has been banned for sharing content with a service, be that uploading porn to google drive or google photos, emailing competitors, screenshotting on android, etc etc.
The _only_ exception I know to that is uploading CSAM, so as long as you don't like go to CSAM sites and click the gemini button you should be fine.
If you're worried about clicking the gemini button "on the wrong website", and by that you do mean CSAM, then good, I hope such a person does get banned.
The actual way I've lost all my google accounts is that they reject logging in with the correct password after I move and get a new IP, they insist I need to use my backup email to login, and my backup email is with some ISP that has since gone out of business, or is a @yahoo email that got deleted by yahoo.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/22/google-cs...
Hmm, no? It has access to all of the content of all of you're currently open tabs, and is able to parse images on web pages as well.
It would be neat if it could also browse on your behalf, but that would present all kinds of security risks.
https://research.google/blog/mechanism-design-for-large-lang...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292260
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292163
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292637
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45296416
It was forced into Windows task bar as well.
This seems to be in the same vein.
LLMs interacting with markup is not the best abstraction layer.
But you might want to be careful about which web pages you share this way?
[0] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nx4gJA-qWodYWm-SK87Aa63i_jF...
My guess is it's either the first part (doing it via Gemini in Chrome) or the last part (permissions enabled).
chrome://settings/ai redirects to chrome://settings (general settings). Manually searching 'ai' brings up dozens of other settings - stuff like 'mail' (which contains 'ai' string) - but nothing Gemini-related.
On the most up to date chrome: Version 140.0.7339.186 (Official Build) (arm64)
The instructional video [0] says there should be a 'Gemini' icon on the top of the Chrome browser, but I don't have one (macOS). (do I have to have a paid Gemini account for it to be there?).
In any case, when OpenAI and Grok launch things, I usually just go and try them in about 20 seconds. By comparison Google's AI launches are tedious..
(thanks for the help btw)
[0] https://gemini.google/overview/gemini-in-chrome/
I can confirm a paid Gemini account is needed.
No problem, it took me a minute to get it enabled myself - not sure why it's so special cased for what it is.
Google should say this up front (or at least prompt that I need to pay) rather than wasting users' time.
The 'How do I use Gemini in Chrome?' section of their launch page doesn't say anything about that requirement either.
Anyway, </rant>. Thanks for your help.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZifoxoUSy1vEgh2Qx8GaCsb5ywE...
I think it's like the opposite of WAN? :shrug:
Google is about to break even further away in the LLM race with this move, seeing as they will be getting an absolutely, supremely stunning amount of regular and novel data 24/7. Not everyone uses dedicated LLM interfaces, but more people I know use Google search. As Google === Search for so many.
Nevertheless, it is an business savvy move to make, considering the recent ruling by the judge to not force Google to split apart or break up its business w/r/t to Chrome.
A monopoly is when you do anti-competitive things, not when your product is far and away the most popular.
If anything blame Firefox for dropping the ball so damn hard
Google is an anticompetitive monopoly, and Chrome is an anticompetitive monopoly. This has been established by multiple courts of law. Your armchair claims to the contrary hold no water.
These are all things Apple could build into safari, but they're nowhere to be seen. They'll be stuck solving yesterday's problems (like building an infinitesimally better camera for the latest iPhone), but not at all integrating any AI into them.
Admittedly some of them have their own AI offerings but not as invasive and can actually be turned off.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292260
Maybe someone can post the change log tomorrow and we can do it again.
I'm thinking over the weekend we could post the GitHub merge of these AI features so we can give Google even more exposure.
By Tuesday I hope someone will write a review of these features rehashing the same thing. I'd love to have that be upvoted to the top of HN again.
Like if users can just get the info they want right at Google.com why would they click through to any of the search results? Isn't that stealing clicks from websites?
Welcome to the Vibe Browsing security nightmare.
You didn't want it in your phone, bang, it's there!
You didn't want it in your browser, bang, it's there!
Next, coming to a fridge near you! /s
Well, with Samsung forcing ads on their "smart" fridges [0], Google + AI can't be far behind.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292666