Google Pixel 8a phone, Android 15
I've had this phone since the first week of December, and one of the
first things I did was to turn off Discover. I can live quite well
without being served up clickbait in "my" feed, which was created by
Google not me.
Google's retaliation: About one time in three when I tap any icon to
open an app, instead of getting whatever I tapped for, I get a panel brusquely telling me to turn Discover back on. I swipe right and
retap the icon I wanted.
This is annoying. Is there a way to turn off not only Discover but
the nags to turn it on? I couldn't find anything in settings for the
phone or for the Google app.
Since your phone likely connects to your Google account, go to
google.com (and signin), click your account picture, More settings, and
then Other settings. Disable "Show Discover on home page."
adb shell pm list packages com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox(this lists it)
adb shell pm list packages -d com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox(this lists it)
adb shell "dumpsys package com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox | grep stopped="
adb shell am get-current-userThis reported that I'm user 0 when running adb
Since this is getting long, I'll write up separately how to remove it from both the user 0 profile (user profile) and the work profile (user 11).
Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Google Pixel 8a phone, Android 15
I've had this phone since the first week of December, and one of the
first things I did was to turn off Discover. I can live quite well
without being served up clickbait in "my" feed, which was created by
Google not me.
Google's retaliation: About one time in three when I tap any icon to
open an app, instead of getting whatever I tapped for, I get a panel brusquely telling me to turn Discover back on. I swipe right and
retap the icon I wanted.
Google app settings -> General settings -> Discover
Is that still disabled? After disabling, make sure to stop the Google
app, so it isn't sitting in the background still using its old settings.
When you then next load the Google app, are there still Discover stories
in the Google app's window?
If the unidentified apps are merely web-centric interfaces to a web
site, perhaps you need to ensure the Google app is not opening a web
page instead of whatever web browser you chose.
Google app settings -> General settings -> Open web pages in the app
Since your phone likely connects to your Google account, go to
google.com (and signin), click your account picture, More settings, and
then Other settings. Disable "Show Discover on home page."
Google Pixel 8a phone, Android 15
I've had this phone since the first week of December, and one of the
first things I did was to turn off Discover. I can live quite well
without being served up clickbait in "my" feed, which was created by
Google not me.
Google's retaliation: About one time in three when I tap any icon to
open an app, instead of getting whatever I tapped for, I get a panel brusquely telling me to turn Discover back on. I swipe right and
retap the icon I wanted.
This is annoying. Is there a way to turn off not only Discover but
the nags to turn it on? I couldn't find anything in settings for the
phone or for the Google app.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ubt2sFO1A
https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/197532/what-happens-if-i-disable-google-appanswers the question "does anything else stop working if I disable
On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 11:19:16 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:[...]
Google Pixel 8a phone, Android 15
I googled when I first noticed this problem a few weeks ago, but came
up empty. I tried again, after posting my followup to Vanguard's
article, and this time I got some ideas from this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ubt2sFO1A
1. Long-press on the home screen -- not Google's home screen, the
phone's home screen. Tap "Home settings".
2. Disable "Swipe to access Google app". (I tend to slide a little
bit when tapping on my phone screen, so maybe I'd been unknowingly
swiping enough to open the Google app a third of the time.)
To be [f|F]rank, a Samsung phone has a similar, equally annoying
(default) setting: Accidental right swipe opens 'Samsung Free').
As we say in our country, you get bitten, either by the dog or the
cat.
adb shell pm list packages --user 0 com.samsung.android.app.spage
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.app.spage
VanguardLH wrote:
Since your phone likely connects to your Google account, go to
google.com (and signin), click your account picture, More settings, and
then Other settings. Disable "Show Discover on home page."
I don't have such a setting under Other Settings, neither in a web
browser nor in the Google app, and entering it in the settings search
box didn't find it. The web browser version doesn't even have
Discover under Other Settings (or anywhere else that I could readily
see). Under Other Settings in the app, Discover (which, as I said, is
turned off) there is an explanation "You'll see stories related to
your interest on the home tab of the app."
Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
VanguardLH wrote:
Since your phone likely connects to your Google account, go to
google.com (and signin), click your account picture, More settings, and
then Other settings. Disable "Show Discover on home page."
I don't have such a setting under Other Settings, neither in a web
browser nor in the Google app, and entering it in the settings search
box didn't find it. The web browser version doesn't even have
Discover under Other Settings (or anywhere else that I could readily
see). Under Other Settings in the app, Discover (which, as I said, is turned off) there is an explanation "You'll see stories related to
your interest on the home tab of the app."
In a web browser:
- Visit google.com.
- Login.
- Click on the user icon (top right corner of web page).
- In the popup dialog, click on "More settings" (lower left corner of
dialog).
- In the left pane, click on "Other settings".
- Under the Desktop section, disable the "Show Discover on home page".
I don't see how you could have a different web page than anyone else
that logs into their Google account to review settings. You did login,
right to then view your Google account settings, right?
After logging in, and clicking on the account icon, I see: https://imgur.com/a/FzoapeI
After clicking on More settings, I see:
https://imgur.com/a/rEJ5PfN
I only mention the server-side account settings since tis possible the
Google app is connecting to your Google account from your phone. Do you
have a Google account defined on your phone? Likely yes. On the phone,
look under Accounts to see which ones you have defined.
While Android apps may connect using only the app, some apps will still fallback to using the default web browser. On your phone, which web
browser is the default one? Regardless of how you think or wish the
bank and library apps to behave, have you contacted your bank and
library to check they NEVER fallback to a web browser. Just because the window doesn't look like a web browser doesn't mean it isn't one. Lots
of web-centric apps want you to believe all their screens are presented
by the apps, not using a web browser as a helper app.
Alas, the normal contacts at the bank and library are ignorants.
Because you took the trouble to post and attempt to help, I'm
following up. But I think this subthread is probably obsolete, for
reasons given in my article dated "Fri, 21 Mar 2025 11:20:45 -0700"
in this thread.
https://brownmath.com/screenshot.jpg
I was already logged in; I had a "sign out" option when I first
clicked the S-in-a circle at upper right, but no login prompt. I then
clicked "More settings" followed by "Other settings", and the above
image was the result.
But all of this is probably beside the point; please see my other
response to you yesterday in this thread, datelined "Fri, 21 Mar
2025 11:20:45 -0700".
Since making the changes described in that article, I haven't seen
the Discover nag screen again, and previously it was several times a
day.
Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
Because you took the trouble to post and attempt to help, I'm
following up. But I think this subthread is probably obsolete, for
reasons given in my article dated "Fri, 21 Mar 2025 11:20:45 -0700"
in this thread.
I wasn't to spend time trying to unbias the timestamps you mention to
align with UTC, and unbias my timezone, and check which areas don't use >Daylight Saving Time, to figure out which articles to which you refer.
What you see for timestamps will be biased by your client to show your
local time.
Giving the MID (Message-ID) value points to the exact article instead of >having to guess. Users only have to do a find on the MID to find the
precise article. Presumably you refer to where you replied to yourself
in this same discussion at:
Message-ID: <MPG.42474dd3b3b3b66d9903c6@news.individual.net>
https://brownmath.com/screenshot.jpg
I was already logged in; I had a "sign out" option when I first
clicked the S-in-a circle at upper right, but no login prompt. I then
clicked "More settings" followed by "Other settings", and the above
image was the result.
No idea why you don't see the "Show Discover on home page" option in
your online Google account settings. You didn't mention which web
browser you used on your Android phone to visit google.com. Chrome is >designed to automatically log into Google sites using the Google account >already defined on your phone under Accounts. If you used the Google
app or Chrome to visit google.com, auto-login explains why you didn't
have to login.
Not sure why the Discover option would be missing from your Google
account unless Google decided visitors using Chrome don't need that
option, like maybe it's buried in Chrome's own settings. I don't use
Chrome despite it is bundled in Android. I use Firefox, and have it >configured to purge all its locally cached data on its exist, like
cookies, DOM Storage, history, etc. Every visit to a web site will be
like a new visit. No tracking.
But all of this is probably beside the point; please see my other
response to you yesterday in this thread, datelined "Fri, 21 Mar
2025 11:20:45 -0700".
If the above MID is the article to which you refer, you responded to >yourself, not to me, but I guess that's the one you mention now.
Since making the changes described in that article, I haven't seen
the Discover nag screen again, and previously it was several times a
day.
From that other article:
The "Slide to access Google app", that must be an option in a later
version of Android than mine (8.0.0).
I mentioned disabling the Google app in my 2nd reply to you, but that
was 5 hours after you posted your reply to yourself. I didn't bother >watching the Youtube video. However, it wasn't clear that you actually >disabled the Google app, only that it was suggested.
Hopefully you no longer get nuisanced with Google's handholding to lure
you to their "interesting" articles.
That feature is for folks that
have nothing to do but to get led around by someone else, or have news
feeds shoved at them to keep them busy.
I wasn't to spend time trying to unbias the timestamps you mention to
align with UTC, and unbias my timezone, and check which areas don't use Daylight Saving Time, to figure out which articles to which you refer.
What you see for timestamps will be biased by your client to show your
local time.
Giving the MID (Message-ID) value points to the exact article instead of having to guess.
I mentioned disabling the Google app in my 2nd reply to you, but that
was 5 hours after you posted your reply to yourself. I didn't bother watching the Youtube video. However, it wasn't clear that you actually disabled the Google app, only that it was suggested.
On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 11:19:16 -0700, Stan Brown wrote:
Google Pixel 8a phone, Android 15
This is annoying. Is there a way to turn off not only Discover but
the nags to turn it on? I couldn't find anything in settings for the
phone or for the Google app.
I googled when I first noticed this problem a few weeks ago, but came
up empty. I tried again, after posting my followup to Vanguard's
article, and this time I got some ideas from this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ubt2sFO1A
1. Long-press on the home screen -- not Google's home screen, the
phone's home screen. Tap "Home settings".
On Sun, 23 Mar 2025 19:08:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
I mentioned disabling the Google app in my 2nd reply to you, but that
was 5 hours after you posted your reply to yourself. I didn't bother
watching the Youtube video. However, it wasn't clear that you actually
disabled the Google app, only that it was suggested.
I did disable the Google app, and I'm pretty sure I haven't received
a nag to turn on Discover since then. (By "pretty sure" I mean that I
can't recall any instance of it popping up. But it's really hard to
be certain of _not_ seeing something that I'm not actively looking
for.)
Interestingly, when I opened Chrome, which is my only browser on my
Android phone, the lower half of the screen was the beginning of a
Discover feed! However, at the upper right of that feed was the
three-dot menu icon, and when I tapped it one of the options was
"Turn off", which of course I selected. Out of curiosity, I closed
the Chrome app and restarted my phone, then started Chrome again.
Discover remains off, for now at least.
Since Discover is in the settings of the Google app, not the Chrome
app, maybe disabling the Google app meant that Chrome no longer had
to that setting?
In any case, Chrome seems to be remembering that I
turned off Discover in Chrome. At least for now, it's not nagging me
to turn it back on.
On Sun, 23 Mar 2025 19:08:38 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:
I wasn't to spend time trying to unbias the timestamps you mention to
align with UTC, and unbias my timezone, and check which areas don't use
Daylight Saving Time, to figure out which articles to which you refer.
What you see for timestamps will be biased by your client to show your
local time.
Giving the MID (Message-ID) value points to the exact article instead of
having to guess.
That's a good point, Vanguard. If a similar occasion arises in
future, I'll try to remember to give a Message-ID instead.
An additional benefit is that http://al.howardknight.net/ provides
direct lookup by Message-ID.
An additional benefit is that http://al.howardknight.net/ provides
direct lookup by Message-ID.
Alas, HK doesn't show threading (based on the References headers), just
the article you specify by its MID value. Using HK, you have to look at
the References headers to walk backward in a [sub]thread.
On 3/25/25 10:39 AM, Stan Brown wrote:
I did disable the Google app, and I'm pretty sure I haven't received
a nag to turn on Discover since then. ...
Interestingly, when I opened Chrome, which is my only browser on my
Android phone, the lower half of the screen was the beginning of a
Discover feed! However, at the upper right of that feed was the
three-dot menu icon, and when I tapped it one of the options was
"Turn off", which of course I selected. ...
Since Discover is in the settings of the Google app, not the Chrome
app, maybe disabling the Google app meant that Chrome no longer had
to that setting?
When I put the Google ecosystem onto this Amazon Fire OS HD10 tablet awhile
back, Discover was on both the Chrome browser and the Google app. I later
removed the Google app and Discover still remained on the Chrome browser so
at least on this setup there appears to be no connection as to Discover
control.
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