"Condor, your new Samsung Galaxy S8+ doesn't have the latest Google apps"

You know what Google? I don't give a shit about your latest apps. Often times I go out of my way to root the device and remove your mandatory bloatware, that YOU fucking Google enforce OEM's to preinstall. Fortunately BlueStacks doesn't have them preinstalled, which saves me the pain of uninstalling them. Given that, you've got quite the balls to spam me with this shit Google.

By the way, another thing.. this preinstall shit is linked to the EU antitrust rulings, isn't it? And spam is linked to GDPR, and honestly I don't recall ever opting in to this kind of wanketeering mail. In fact, I usually go out of my way to opt out of this kind of corporate wankery. Time for another huge fine perhaps?

They just got fined for it and in europe google let manufacturers pay for google apps.

@Codex404 .. because obviously, manufacturers have to pay for the wrongdoings of Google... Business logic @Google.

@Condor they dont force things and manufacturers have the option to include the play store but not chrome for example. Currently is everything or nothing.

Your actual name is condor???

@al-m Obviously it isn't, my mother didn't think of me as a bird (luckily). I do prefer my nickname Condor over my real name in a lot of places though, including Google. And even my real name I pronounce differently from how my mother originally intended it. So yeah, I don't really value my real name all that much. My family name is one from a man whom I'd kill on the spot if I'd ever meet him again, my first name is from that person and a woman who discarded me as her son. I do not value either of them, nor do I value my "real" name. For all I care, yeah Condor could be my real one, just as much as the digital world could be my real world. But it isn't the name that's on my passport.

Google got fined for preloading app on Android phones. Now the manufacturers have the option of including them or not. @Condor let's see how much you like it when they will push the extra cost to customers.

@petru hopefully they offer the same phone without malware as well

@petru I certainly won't. The fact that Google pretty much punishes manufacturers, whom will most likely indeed just relay it to the customers rather than not preloading GApps.. for something that Google did wrong. That's just atrocious. But if manufacturers end up not preloading the GApps at all, I'm all for it. That's what the antitrust ruling attempts to achieve, and that's something that I'd love to see happening.

@petru I'd also like to remind you that that's exactly what happened before with Microsoft and its defaulting to IE. Microsoft got pinned down on it, and eventually very reluctantly had to comply. I'm sure that Google will be facing a similar fate with the antitrust ruling - whether they want it or not. And I doubt that they'll get away with charging EU manufacturers for their fines either.

Android is open source. That's true. But I'd like to remind you that the majority of users are monkeys. Try explaining that the phone is shipped without Google play or that it doesn't have app depending on Google play services. Good luck with that
It will be a shit storm. I'd like to remind you the episode with Windows when you had to choose what browser do you want before installing. That went well🤣
Google will do whatever it pleases

@petru indeed the MS browser thing went well.

And google will do as it pleases but will get fined for it. At a certain moment in time we might be the first government which runs without any tax, google will pay everything with fines xD

@petru
> Google will do whatever it pleases
The only thing that's still missing is a maniacal laugh at the end. Tell me, do you have any moral values? And what's your relationship with Google?

Regarding users, they do value choice. Whether they're technical or not doesn't matter when it comes to choice. Mind you, we technical people aren't the only ones that use Firefox or Chrome/Chromium over IE or Edge. That being said, having been on a ROM without GApps a while back, it truly is saddening how many apps currently rely on the GSF. Perhaps that's related to antitrust and competition law as well.

But yeah, when it comes to Google, they'll do whatever the fuck they want, and Europe will continue to fine them for it. Perhaps the dents in Google's profits need to be made even larger to make it meaningful though. And I mean, it is good funding for the EU! Less taxes for us to pay. Thank you for that Google! Much appreciated! Keep doing whatever the fuck you want and pay up for it so that we don't have to.

@Condor do you have a stick up your ass or something? Why so serious? And what does my morals have to do with it ?
I am not taking Google's part by any means. I am just stating something rather obvious for me. The majority of people do not care. Onestly how many people do you think have rooted phones use duckduckgo etc?
I am rather confident that Google will continue to do whatever the fuck they want. Like Microsoft did like Oracle did etc. Fine them sure. But the reality is that their products have become indespensable for the majority of people. And many of them do not care. They will hit accept on just about anything. Or should I remind you how the hearing of Zuckerberg went? With illiterate senators and such🤣 that is your common user. Please do. Explain them security concerns 🤣

@petru The reason why I'm so serious about this issue is *because* users generally don't care. If everyone stops caring, that's when dictators win. As for why users generally don't use DDG? The majority of them don't even know about its existence, just like they don't know about the existence of Linux and so on. That's actually yet another problem with the software industry and its lack of competitiveness. It's quite convenient for Google and Microsoft that users don't know that there's alternatives, right? And wouldn't it be quite the inconvenience if those alternatives are neatly laid out upon install, completely with their pros and cons.

@Condor that would be nice. But hard to believe it would happen. And people would still believe the old way was better. People are smart enough to do their job not question authority. That's the whole point isn't it?