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  • Is it just me or did Firefox gemini Windows 10 shortcuts stop working w

    From Wolf Greenblatt@21:1/5 to All on Sun May 25 12:06:11 2025
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    I thought it was great when Gemini.Google.Com worked without a login as you don't want all that stuff saved to your account if there's no need to.

    I thought it was even better that you could use Firefox (or any web
    browser) to create a "url desktop shortcut" (or whatever it's called).

    Then you could pin that Firefox URL desktop shortcut to the Win10 task bar. This is convenient because you can click on it to bring up a session.

    But today, suddenly, that Windows 10 Firefox shortcut stopped working.
    It now requires a login.

    Is it just me?
    Did I overuse Gemini?

    The taskbar shortcut to Copilot & ChatGPT still work without a login.
    Just not the taskbar Gemini shortcut as of just today.

    Did something change just today?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Adam H. Kerman@21:1/5 to Wolf Greenblatt on Sun May 25 16:22:47 2025
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    Wolf Greenblatt <wolf@greenblatt.net> wrote:

    I thought it was great when Gemini.Google.Com worked without a login as you >don't want all that stuff saved to your account if there's no need to.

    I thought it was even better that you could use Firefox (or any web
    browser) to create a "url desktop shortcut" (or whatever it's called).

    Then you could pin that Firefox URL desktop shortcut to the Win10 task bar. >This is convenient because you can click on it to bring up a session.

    But today, suddenly, that Windows 10 Firefox shortcut stopped working.
    It now requires a login.

    Is it just me?
    Did I overuse Gemini?

    Yes, it's just you. Google changed the interface, but it affects you and
    you alone.

    The taskbar shortcut to Copilot & ChatGPT still work without a login.
    Just not the taskbar Gemini shortcut as of just today.

    Did something change just today?

    https://policies.google.com/terms

    Note that it was effective 5/22/2025. I'm sure if you hunt around you
    can find a document stating that access without signing in to the Google account is restricted.

    Each and every time we get one of these threads crossposted between the
    Firefox newsgroup and one of the Windows newsgroups, it's off topic in
    both groups. I'm not setting followup, just pointing out there are
    Usenet groups in which discussion of Google is on topic.

    alt.comp.google Discussion about Google search, Gmail, services etc. alt.google-sucks Discussion of Google and how it makes the comp.internet.services.google Search, Gmail, Groups, Maps, Picasa, etc.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From VanguardLH@21:1/5 to Wolf Greenblatt on Sun May 25 20:10:36 2025
    XPost: alt.comp.software.firefox

    Wolf Greenblatt <wolf@greenblatt.net> wrote:

    I thought it was great when Gemini.Google.Com worked without a login as you don't want all that stuff saved to your account if there's no need to.

    I thought it was even better that you could use Firefox (or any web
    browser) to create a "url desktop shortcut" (or whatever it's called).

    Then you could pin that Firefox URL desktop shortcut to the Win10 task bar. This is convenient because you can click on it to bring up a session.

    But today, suddenly, that Windows 10 Firefox shortcut stopped working.
    It now requires a login.

    Is it just me?
    Did I overuse Gemini?

    The taskbar shortcut to Copilot & ChatGPT still work without a login.
    Just not the taskbar Gemini shortcut as of just today.

    Did something change just today?

    Instead of creating a URL shortcut, try defining a program shortcut that specifies the URL in the command line. For example, instead of a URL
    shortcut pointing to:

    https://gemini.google.com/app

    instead create a program shortcut pointing to:

    firefox.exe https://gemini.google.com/app

    You may have to supply the path to the firefox.exe executable file. If
    the path has spaces, you need to enclose the <path>\<file> string within doubled quotes.

    Instead of using the default icon for the default web browser, you can
    go into a program shortcut to customize what icon is shown for that
    shortcut. For example, maybe you don't want a Firefox icon for every
    shortcut, and instead what a weather icon for the shortcut that opens
    the web browser to a weather site, and a checkerboard icon for a
    shortcut pointing to a crossword puzzle site, and an e-mail icon for a
    shortcut pointing to your webmail access site. You cannot customize the
    icon shown for a URL shortcut, but you can for a program shortcut.

    In the past, the URL RFC was ambiguous in that it appeared to say you
    could include login credentials (user=<username> pass=<password>) as
    arguments in the URL, but that was not what the RFC meant, and those
    were removed from the URL spec except for where it was meant to apply
    (FTP URLs). Adding login credentials to the URL got deprecated long
    ago. You would have to look at the URL for your URL shortcuts to see if
    login credentials were included.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)