Re: Google nag to turn Discover on

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.