"This week I discovered the same pattern, executed by Google. Google Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking."
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise t
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
I test before I add, and also make sure you understand that the original post will not update upon reblog.
💬 0 🔁 1 ❤️ 2 · Tumblr DOES NOT Update the original post after it's reblogged. · I'm trying to explain this for the n00bs that keep posting
The cost to Vivaldi is that it's based on Chrome's base code. While they report that they won't add AI, you still are dependent on Google resources in order for it to work, and it's possible for Google to try to find ways to block it in the future, as they have actively done with Phone GUIs that have tried to skirt around google rules.
In addition, like Chrome, Vivaldi also asks to add something to your computer, to be able to give you pop ups, though it is missing the annoying Chrome watch all of your activity ever, it's still unclear since it's based on Chrome's tech, how much they were able to flush the Chrome's watchdog effect from the code (i.e. everything you do on Chrome is watched by Google.)
While Vivaldi does not have its own search engine, like Brave, which puts me on edge where it bugs you every time you don't use the search engine, which is wholly annoying and just spam to the nth degree, or Ecosia's browser/search engine combo, I'd still caution to not be too reliant on it, because Google has blocked base code before and also fundamentally changed the code on its products to make sure it watched the user and buried it in the user agreements, which you may not be able to see through Vivaldi's user agreements.
(For example, Google docs, etc)
Theoretically, it's better to not ride on Google's base code, and ALSO not have a search engine attached, because that's a recipe for enshittification fast. And also sending all of your data to a third party.
Firefox deciding to add AI wasn't great, but it also doesn't have its own search engine or built-in way to watch your every move.
So it's user's choice at this point. There are ways to build browsers as far as I'm aware to send all search data to the programmers and monetize YOU as the product, i.e. why every time I turn on Chrome, it slowed down my computer to hell. And I run a mac. (Turn off that watchdog program they automatically turn on every time you use Chrome and can't delete.)
Google LLC, below, last item. That slows your computer to hell.
After I turned off the watchdog program, my Firefox browser sped up. Those Google ASSHOLES were stealing my data. That is next level evil, some virus shit of the early 2000's.
I have to do a few more tests to run, but I'd keep backup browsers in case things go south. (for example, I have to test if searching for random thing on Vivaldi produces results on Youtube a few times.)
As my Dad lectured patching programming is tricky and often also opens the door for bugs and programming wars. (This was a lecture on why Microsoft patches were terrible and never worked for defense against cyber attacks versus finding the original bug and fixing the base problem. This applies here too.)
IF Vivaldi built the browser independent of Chrome, AND didn't have a search engine attached, AND was open source, then I would declare it safe. But it's in that grey area because Google are assholes and have most definitely turned evil.
I'm aware this is programming and UX heavy, so I've tried my best to simplify it, but I'll simplify even more here:
tldr; Google is evil. Google has programs to watch you at every turn and even will force you to download things that watch you that you can't delete. Vivaldi is based on Chrome, built by Google/ Google can cancel Vivaldi or build in virus to watch you and your activity at any time.
This is the most considerate advice for doing stretches I've ever seen??? Initially I started to go, "...but I can't do that with my knee-" then he showed a way I could do it. I was like... whoa. A video for stretching that is actually considerate towards my disabilities. Astounding and impressive.
"This week I discovered the same pattern, executed by Google. Google Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking."
Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise t
ok thank god there's so many fucking videos showing you how to do a ladder stitch like it's some kind of magic trick but here's the actual use case for it: closing a seam you can't reach the inside of. in all other cases, if you're fixing a ripped seam on pants, or on a tshirt, the ladder stitch is a messy, glorified running stitch.
We lose the MOST mobility in our hips, knees & ankles as we’re getting older - and this 👆 very simple movement that you can do right in your kitchen (or bathroom!) helps fend off that mobility loss.
👉 Whether you’re 40 or 70, you should do a few of these every day. Build up to doing 10 reps in a row, slow and controlled (don’t just drop!), and gradually use less and less of the assistance from the counter.
🥴 “But Megan - I have bad knees…I can’t squat even close to that deep!” That’s ok!! Start with what you CAN do without pain, even if that’s just squatting down a little bit. Holding on to the counter really helps to offload some of your weight to assist you. Over time, you’ll build your strength and joint mobility. Soon you’ll be squatting just like this! X
From the OP: "If you sit at a desk or stare at your phone all day, this is for you. Here's how to undo the damage:
- Banded Chin Tucks - Strengthen your neck flexors and fight forward head posture
- Banded Pull-Aparts - Target your rotator cuff and improve shoulder stability
- Banded Abduction - Activate the midline of your scapula for better posture
- Lateral Deltoid Raises - Build shoulder stability and control
- Banded Up-and-Overs – Boost scapular mobility and range of motion
These simple banded drills will help you stand taller, move better, and feel stronger - even after hours at a desk."
Some of these are the same or similar to the exercises my physical therapist taught me.
Ah. It's you. @merrypennylane - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag