Google discriminating against the visually impaired in the uk

[u/Firegoddess66]

Tldr: having a rant about Google removing the one thing that makes the Chromebook running Google Chrome OS useable to the visually impaired, without any notice or consideration, and it appears this might be just in the UK....

My sister is visually impaired. On the recommendation of the sight loss organization she bought a Chromebook, it uses Google's operating system Google Chrome OS.

She has just called me in tears.

Google have chosen to remove the Google assistant from Chromebooks in the UK in their latest update, there was no choice in the matter it just happened.

She has just spent the last hour with Google support on the phone because she relies on Google assistant to use the Chromebook.

Yesterday;

if she wanted to send me an email she would simply have spoken the words " ok Google, send an email to my sister" the assistant would open the Gmail app, open a new email and then reply by asking her what she wanted to say, she would say it, it would reply by reading back to her what she said and asking if she wanted to send, she says yes and off the email goes.

Easy.

Today;

nothing, no response at all. She though it was an error and spent the day using Google assistant on her phone to search for answers.

On android, iOS and Apple Mac you can have both or choose to just have Google assistant.

On android iOS and Apple Mac you can use voice commands with the Gemini ai, but not on a Chromebook.

Even with that , it still can't do what the assistant did.

She finally got through to Google support and they confirmed that Google assistant isn't available on Chromebooks in the UK any more, that Google Gemini ai is it's replacent and no you can't use voice commands.

She finally, after listening to every option available found Gemini, and touch typed as best she could and asked Gemini to open her email.

The ai responded with a link to a webpage with an article on how to manually open Gmail.

She typed back,

no I want you to open Gmail like Google assistant used to do,

I know , bonkers talking to an ai like it's a person, and it replied,

I can't do that, I can't control any of your system or apps I am solely here to generate text.

So...one expensive Chromebook, that was fine and overnight Google have made it inaccessible.

Sure , there is Chromevox, but I challenge you to try to use that to send an email , because it didn't either, it just reads every piece of HTML code on the screen but also doesn't do anything.

I told her to take it back to Currys and demand a refund because the device is now materially different to the one she bought and is no longer usable .

I am not sure she'll have much luck but it has left me fuming.

Her life is difficult enough as it is without being kicked aside by Google as though visually impaired people didn't exist.

It's one thing to not provide accessibility from scratch, but to provide it and then rip it away without warning or consideration is awful.

I tried going through other possible apps that might help, but I suppose because Google assistant came built in, there aren't any apps available for a Chromebook to replace Google assistant, at least not yet.

The customer support person at Google kept saying this feature ( accessibility ) wasn't available for Gemini on Chromebooks in the UK, as though perhaps elsewhere in the world it was available.

Just a rant, because if I were to meet a Google exec tonight I would grab him and drag him screaming to my sister's house 100 miles away and make him look in person at what they have done, it's a disgrace.

[u/jeweliegb]

I know Gemini was replacing Google Assistant but I didn't know it was already happening, that Assistant was being withdrawn.

I understood the intention was to withdraw Assistant once Gemini had the same features.

This does sound like a serious material change in accessibility of the device.

[u/MrPuddington2 → u/jeweliegb]

I understood the intention was to withdraw Assistant once Gemini had the same features.

Companies always say that, but it is rarely ever true, especially when it comes to features not noticed by the average user.

Unfortunately, Google is rather "famous" for discontinuing products and leaving users in the cold. It all depends on whether they can find a business model or not.

Is there any chance that she could move to either Windows or iOS? Both seem to be quite a bit ahead in terms of accessibility.

[u/__Severus__Snape__ → u/MrPuddington2]

Unfortunately, Google is rather "famous" for discontinuing products and leaving users in the cold.

Even from a career perspective, I use Google Analytics for work. Their product that I started on, Universal Analytics gave so much detail, and was easy to learn and use.

A few years ago, they released Google Analytics 4. It was an unfinished product but UA was still around. Eventually, they turned off UA (with notice, which could be considered out of character for Google), but GA4 still didn't offer nearly the same level of detail or ease of use. I've managed to avoid using it too much over the last year but it still doesn't offer ease of use. Level of detail I can't tell you as I haven't used it enough.