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HTC 10 keyboard suddenly starts showing ads, fix is on the way
- basicplus2 9y agoMy Google keyboard on android showed me a red dot within the keyboard. When i touched it, up came an add effectively from within the keyboard
- robocat 9y agoSame here - standard gboard. Red dot on the emoticon -> advert for new make your own emoticon functionality app (not Google owned). Extremely disappointed in Android today.
- petepete 9y agoUgh yeah I saw this too. I'm heavily invested in Android (apps, etc) but the experience is really starting to sour.
- pjmlp 9y agoI am starting to think that in spite of being more expensive than a desktop gaming computer, going iPhone is starting to be the only viable alternative. Either that or back into feature phones, because I don't see any other mobile OS alternative winning over Android, regarding general public.
- boyter 9y agoAs do I. I bought my first ever iPhone just recently. The ads inside the keyboard were the last straw.
- Yetanfou 9y agoThere is no need of nor no sense in going to Apple to be rid of corporate control, Android can be tamed to serve the device owner instead of its manufacturer and distributor. Make sure to get a device which is supported by one of the AOSP-derived distributions, install said distribution and use one of the alternative repositories (FDroid being a good choice). Don't install any Google-specific apps, don't install - or remove - Google Play Services, in short don't play along with Google's game plan. This way you can have a device which serves you and your needs instead of those of Google or Apple. You might need to forego on the latest app craze because those are not available on FDroid but that just gives you so much more time to do other things instead of search for virtual fame and fortune by herding virtual sheep or finding virtual friends.
- pjmlp 9y agoWhich part of the "regarding general public" did you not understand? Of course as I geek I can do all of that, but I rather sponsor someone that cares about the joe and jane on the street can do with their devices.
- Yetanfou 9y agoThe general public part of the problem can be solved by offering an alternative Android-based distribution which can be installed by 'the general public' in a way similar to that which they install updates to the stock OS. For some devices this process is already available, for others there is more work to be done.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- majewsky 9y agoI have a certain amount of hope in that direction because of Project Treble.
- pjmlp 9y agoLeave all hope ye who enter. Project Treble[0] only enforces a certain level of hardware requirements. There are zero requirements for OEMs or carriers to actually push updates to their devices, and they are still allowed to customize their forks. [1] Also it requires consumers to buy a new device running Android O, hoping that the OEM will actually push updates, because even those getting an update from Android N to O won't have any guarantees of further updates. [0] - https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/treble [1] - http://androidbackstage.blogspot.de/2017/08/episode-75-project-treble-for-hal-of-it.html http://androidbackstage.blogspot.de/2017/08/episode-75-proje...
- majewsky 9y ago
- mdekkers 9y agoback into feature phones A few years back I got fed up with everything, and tossed my smartphone in the sea - spent 3 years with a feature phone, and frankly, it was awesome. I had to get a smartphone again due to changes with my business, and it doesn't make me happy.
- esrauch 9y agoWhich non-Google service was it?
- fowl2 9y agoBitmoji, part of Snap Inc (Snapchat).
- scrollaway 9y agoIs there a way to uninstall gboard in favour of a better open source alternative? (And any recommendations?)
- gadders 9y agoNot open source, but I really like the Swype keyboard. First thing I install on any new phone.
- emmelaich 9y agoGboard gives you some very nice word completion features. I doubt whether you'd get the same level of features without worse attacks on your privacy.
- mdekkers 9y agoSwiftkey is not open source, but I'm happy with it. All android keyboards, bar none, are keyloggers...
- emmelaich 9y agoSo that's what that was. It happened to me on a Google Pixel phone. (I was hoping it was a custom keyboard in the app but apparently not!)
- lern_too_spel 9y agoFor those who don't have Android Gboard (coming to iPhone Gboard soon): https://www.blog.google/products/search/say-it-stickers/ https://www.blog.google/products/search/say-it-stickers/ We can only hope that they remove this and fire all the product managers involved. There is no way you can justify adding Bitmoji to a default keyboard used by people who want to get work done.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- johnpowell 9y agoWas it on the emoji icon and did this? http://imgur.com/a/Lwua1 http://imgur.com/a/Lwua1 This is somewhat frustrating since I have a Moto-E from Republic Wireless running Android 4.4.4. I only use this phone for texting and calls since it is like 12 bucks a month. For browsing and watching movies I use a iPhone 6 my sister gave me that doesn't have cell or data service. No other software besides what came with the phone has been installed on the Mote-E. I use the default phone and texting applications. I actually never learned how to screenshot with Android so I just snapped a pic with my iPhones camera.
- gideonparanoid 9y agoUsually it's pressing the down-volume & the power button at the same time.
- majewsky 9y agoI recently learned that, on Samsung, you need to swipe from right to left with the entire hand. (Since Samsung is world champion in needlessly changing Android UI.)
- basicplus2 9y agoYes that was it
- Al-Khwarizmi 9y agoIt's long been fixed (it was fixed a few days after it happened).
- huhtenberg 9y ago"Resolved", not "fixed". You can't "fix" an obviously intentional decision of having an ad panel in a keyboard widget.
- Al-Khwarizmi 9y agoThe explanation they gave is that TouchPal ads are disabled in HTC phones since the app comes bundled by default, but erroneously, an update installed the generic version with ads instead. Since they reversed it very quickly, I find it believable.
- Kuraj 9y agoI agree. For all the backlash this has received, it does sound like a reasonable explaination. I can think of much worse fuck ups than this.
- ge0rg 9y agoOriginal source (with screenshot): https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6nhyur/the_standard_keyboard_on_the_htc_10_has_begun/ https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6nhyur/t... That absolutely reminded me of the "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?" Futurama scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g
- fiblye 9y agoI highly doubt this is unintentional like they claim. They were testing the waters for backlash. I can count all the times I accidentally put ads in my software on one hand, using zero fingers.
- yladiz 9y agoHighly doubt should be changed to don't believe. There's no way you add an advertisement "unintentionally" into something as integral to a phone as the keyboard and not realize it when doing basic sanity testing. I can believe that it was unintentional that the ad was shown by default (it may have been an option to display ads which was enabled by default) but the fact it is present is absolutely intentional.
- erk__ 9y agoI have the same keyboard (Installed as part of their own android FlyMe) on another phone (Meizu pro 5) and I have never had ads on mine.
- frou_dh 9y ago> I can count all the times I accidentally put ads in my software on one hand, using zero fingers. It's kind of interesting that below binary numbers, there are unary numbers, where there is no way to represent zero apart from complete lack of any symbols. You could almost say that unary is the native number system of the eyeball.
- mdekkers 9y agoyeah, agreed - "cynical A/B testing" came to mind...
- richdougherty 9y agoA while ago my HTC phone started showing full screen ads whenever I unlocked the phone. It was a bundled app called Peel Remote which changed its behaviour during an update. I took some detective work to figure out which app was causing the issue since there's no visible clue on the ad itself, and since I have never used Peel Remote. I eventually figured it out somehow and disabled the app. I imagine that lots of other HTC users are still dealing with this. HTC should really protect their users from this abusive behaviour by their partners. EDIT: Mention that I've never even used Peel Remote, which makes the ads even more annoying!
- gideonparanoid 9y agoFor some context: Peel Remote is an app for using the IR blaster to control your TV/DVR. HTC used to have their own app for it, but it got discontinued so they put up Peel Remote as the replacement. I was about to consider this a shame, as HTC's own app was pretty good, but not sure if I would trust them not to put ads in it anyway now.
- JohnTHaller 9y agoSamsung pulled the same thing years ago with the S4. They bundled "Beaming Service" to handle the IR blaster made by a third party company called MoBeam. MoBeam decided to start doing push ad notifications for their crappy coupon clipping app. After I was woken up after midnight by one, I decided I'd never buy a Samsung phone again. It couldn't be uninstalled or disabled. And this was before you could turn off notifications from a single app in Android.
- Al-Khwarizmi 9y agoThe keyboard mentioned in the OP is also a third-party app (TouchPal). HTC's own keyboard included in older models never had ads as far as I know.
- vesinisa 9y agoInteresting.. Isn't Google Pixel also made by HTC? Will this "feature" be landing on Pixel as well?
- moviuro 9y agoPixel only holds Google Code + maybe some HTC firmware, but that's it. I sure hope the "pure" Android experience doesn't include ads.
- majewsky 9y agoSounds like you never used the "pure" Android experience. Why do you think that custom launchers etc. are so popular?
- synicalx 9y agoPixel owner here, since the Oreo upgrade I've had a red dot on my Google keyboard (on the emoji button) and when you tap on it you get what is basically an add for some thing that lets you make your own emojis or something. Haven't looked at it in much detail but it doesn't seem to be a Google owned app. Lets face it though, Google is an ad company which tells you two things about them; 1. To them, you're a wallet with opposable thumbs. 2. Everything they do is done with the goal of propagating their advertising network into more places.
- amq 9y agoHTC 10 comes with a TouchPal keyboard. I think it was a mistake on the TouchPal side, rather than HTC testing the waters.
- JohnTHaller 9y agoThis is the keyboard that has a T-Shirt button on it that users accidentally hit that takes them to TouchPal's T-Shirt store. Seriously.
- pilif 9y agoReminds me of the feature phones in the early 2000s that all had an 'online' button that would bring up the mobile operator's WAP portals. The only reason why you'd ever press that button is by accident (these WAP pages had no useful content at all) and each accidental button press would cost the equivalent to $2 due to outrageous mobile charges. The placement of these buttons was always such that you'd likely hit them accidentally.
- majewsky 9y agoAh, I remember these. You could not disable them, but on my phone, I could adjust the hostname it would connect to. I chose the much cheaper 127.0.0.1. :)
- cm2187 9y agoAm I the only one to suspect that the ad is related to what you type, i.e. That this is a key logger?
- basicplus2 9y agoWho flagged this submission?