Post by @deviantollam@defcon.social

2026-04-16 03:37 UTC

Groan. Clicking on URLs in my signal chats now launches some sort of weird google-based quick browser instead of my default installed Firefox app on my Android device. Time to play everyone&#39;s favorite fun game: Who Fucking Changed What Fucking Thing (I believe I updated Signal pretty recently and also I just pushed to Android 16 today. This version of Android apparently has something called &quot;instant apps&quot; relating to default links I think? Seems like yet another feature that no one asked for. Time to learn about whatever that is and try to figure out if that&#39;s what&#39;s breaking this.) UPDATE 1: maybe this isn&#39;t the problem I think I&#39;m having. It turns out that the person in my signal chat sent me a link using this service... https://share.google/xxxxxxx ... which I&#39;ve never really seen before but it appears to be some sort of oddball link handler which, at least on Android, routes around your default preferred web browser and instead launches a Google lite type quick view. UPDATE 2: Amazingly helpful people have jumped into the discussion and there is a solution! See here... https://mastodon.online/@pseudonym/116412533128332113 ...as well as the screenshot I&#39;m attaching here, hopefully. In short: there are a couple of new settings in the &quot;Google app&quot; on all Android phones now. The green heart is over top of the toggle you want to turn off to prevent yourself from being annoying to others when you send links from Android now. The magenta heart is over top of the toggle you want to turn off in order to immunize your own phone against other people&#39;s annoying links that they might send you.

Replies (7)

@roo@mstdn.ca 2026-04-16 03:49

@deviantollam@defcon.social the share Google thing is a new built in default for Android. You can disable it, but it defaults to on. Link tracking thanks

Open ##2578609
@wdormann@infosec.exchange 2026-04-16 03:56

@deviantollam@defcon.social Can't any android app register itself to be the handler of any web link, based on what the domain is? https://developer.android.com/codelabs/android-app-links-introduction

Open ##2578613
@admin@mastodon.slightlycyberpunk.com 2026-04-16 03:57

@deviantollam@defcon.social My Android 15 LineageOS device just opens this in Firefox like any other link, while my inherited stock Motorola Android 11 device opens it in Firefox but then immediately asks if I want to "open in Google" before the page even loads. If I click yes it then pops open the usual app picker asking if I want to use Google or Firefox, and if I say Firefox it immediately prompts again to open in Google :) At first I was thinking maybe Play services intercepting something but might just be pre-installed Chrome associating itself with particular URLs like any other app could...seems pretty obnoxious though lol

Open ##2578616
@Victorsigmoid@hachyderm.io 2026-04-16 04:36

@deviantollam@defcon.social the share.google linkage also started happening within chats in the google messages app and it's driving me bonkers. I'm not sure what to tell people to do differently to stop it.

Open ##2578620
@skolima@hachyderm.io 2026-04-16 07:17

@deviantollam@defcon.social kudos for also having the "Discover" option disabled - it's a cancer, especially for less web savvy folks 🖤

Open ##2578621
@CauseOfBSOD@wetdry.world 2026-04-16 09:54

@deviantollam@defcon.social im pretty sure theres also an option in the general android app settings to disable opening supported links in an app, which would probably also work here for preventing the share.google links from opening within google to begin with (although google would still be able to track you with them)

Open ##2578623
@phl@mastodon.social 2026-04-16 12:51

@deviantollam@defcon.social I'm so glad Google once again changes something without any notice, for no good reason, for the worse. Edit: I'm on Android 13 and google search settings had both Discover and Shorten on (turned them off now), Open in the app is greyed out as I disabled Chrome on my phone — I've still seen multiple apps switch to embedded browser view recently for no good reason.

Open ##2578626