So... What's the modern equivalent of gallery.apk ? Looking for just a simple image viewer that shows the "collections" view by default and preferably is GPL and does not attempt any sort of internet connection.

I have it off. Although not backed up I see the image sorta AI scanned where, for a moment it outlines, segments people for a brief moment. Anyone notice this and what is going on?

In short, uninstall google photos. It has a bunch of other undesirable behaviours, the prompts are just one irritation.

On web I use an adblocker to block annoying google popups, including the Gemini one in gmail.

Immich is an amazing alternative. People should give it a chance. One click install: https://malmo.network/store/immich

I checked on my phone. I don't have Google Photos so maybe I uninstalled it or the phone came without it. It's a Samsung so it has Samsung Gallery but I'm not logged in into a Samsung account. Photos are local. I installed Aves Gallery [1] and that's my main photo app. Backups are through Syncthing which of course is not a mass market app, but I'm a software developer and being able to use niche alternatives is one of our privileges.

[1] https://github.com/deckerst/aves

The answer in the thread (which is quite hard to find) is to use the Google Photos app without an account.

The app has some very nice features that are locked behind account access though.

I have a similar question: how do I stop Google photos asking me to update every time I open it?

"You're missing out

Update your Google photos app for the newest features"

... I have zero interest in updating. I'm not missing out on anything... other than being able to browse my photos without this annoying message getting in the way.

One benefit of having a Samsung, you can uninstall google photos and still be able to use your camera.

This is another argument that we need more phone OS options, not just Android and iPhone. (Graphene isn't really a proper option yet).

I wonder why google locked it..