This is extremely unacceptable!
I came to Murena thinking this is a company fighting big tech corpos yet they are in bed with the devil?
I don’t care how much you “anonymise” our data, IT’S OUR DATA; NOT YOURS TO GIVE!
We don’t care about tech performace, we knew what we signed up for when we got e/OS.
What we didn’t know is that you were this willing to betray customer trust.
I just got my phone and for this stunt alone i have half a mind to ask for a refund.
Remove this feature!
The feature is hidden in the settings.
The permissions for this feature are not highlighted in the page of app permissions as it should be.
By default it is turned on, which is very Samsung of them.
If you don’t understand “the excitement” with why customers are so upset about this then you could at least respect it and not be part of the problem.
That is just untrue. Just because you don’t use does not mean nobody uses it. If you are trying to discuss this issue seriously and not just trolling, maybe try reading your post before pressing ‘Reply’.
I definitely need some documentation on this feature. I don’t use VTT and don’t plan to. As long as I can disable it and rest assured there will be no data exchange with big tech, I’ll be happy.
I can understand the decision to include this feature. /e/os is simply trying to stay relevant in offering features people expect. Though I can understand people’s dismay with this appearing out of the blue, it’s a bit of a departure from tradition. However with the compromises I’ve had to endure running stock Android, I’m just happy if I have a choice.
I’d just like to chip in that VTT is also an accessability feature, making /e/OS accessible for people with certain disabilities. I haven’t seen that side of the coin being adressed in the discussion.
We can’t even delete this app.
Choosing Not to use it, is out of question too since it also seems to turn on its access to the microphone on its own even after you denied it.
Can you back that statement up? “seems to” is a bit vague to say the least.
Unless you want me to leave my phone with the screen recorder on for a whole day, all i’ll have for you would be screenshots. Unless you can think of another solition, i am all ears/eyes.
This issue is a big deal to me, having given my money to company that is supposed to value privacy; I am not looking forward to be gaslit about this.
I have immediately turned it off upon learning about it 2 nights ago.
It was back on this morning.
If it happens again, i will share it.
well, if you are right this is serious and you should file a gitlab issue so the devs can take care of it, I truly doubt it is designed/meant to overrule the choices made by the user.
I understand that probably users of this forum are not a representative of overall /e/OS users, but it is forum users and similar “strong believers” that create a lot of buzz and do a lot of whisper advertising.
This feature should have been
Personally this prompted me to experiment with helipad and whisper and it works well enough for me. I expected a de-Googled system to be also de-Metad, de-Microsfted, de-Amazoned and de-openAIed.
I wonder how this happens ? My earlier response was based on my experience of Murena-VTT being stable and no question of “is it off” for me.
If I want to use it, there are two stages.
One I must change keyboard
Two start VTT
Of course if I found VTT on without any action by me … I would need to take those steps to switch off.
Edit … but thanks to @smu44 below, the above options can be changed from
Settings > System > Keyboard > On-screen keyboard.
Is it different on your device, perhaps?
If /e/os is going to insist on bundling this implementation, then absolutely people that want it can turn it on. The default should be off. I have no idea what most people would choose. Is this a commonly used feature, no idea.
I don’t use VTT and never will. I don’t talk to my phone, makes me feel like some kind of crazy person talking to myself. Same with these personal assistants like Siri and Alexus, I’ll never use one of those either. I’m old and don’t subscribe to what feels like strange behavior in this modern culture. I’m probably just digging my hooves into the turf. Haha, get with the times old man.
Seconded as a nice idea! 
How do I turn this feature off?
c´mon … just look at @smu44 ´s screenshot two posts above … that´s how OFF looks like: slider greyed /to the left …
device settings → system → input + language → on-screen-keyboard → manage on-screen-keyboards
@obacht it happened again, i will try to go in details. (last screenshot in the post).
@aibd It’s a tad different. If i want to access it via my keyboard(s), it isn’t possible to trigger VTT. They do not have permission to access my mic so that works as expected.
Yes, like how @smu44 pointed out, when i checked it out that way, (last time), it was off.
I am sorry but if Murena VTT was activated on this screen the first time i checked, i can not confirm since: i no longer remember, did not take a screenshot and i was too busy obsessing over turning it off asap. it’s when i noticed on the MVTT’s App Permissions screen that the app had permission to my mic, that i flipped.
^TL;DR The app is off, but still gets permission to use the mic somehow.
I tried to monitor this since last night but all i have are screenshots and i will not upload all of them here (unless one wants to).
Expression of discomfort: I am with @CraigHB on this. If people want to use it, good for them. But i personally do not intend to nor do i want to use it. I would appreciate the option to remove it (for those of us who don’t want it.) I don’t want to do this type of unpaid testing and if Murena decides that they want to make this feature mandatory at some point or change any ToS about it or some update might turn it back on…
I don’t want to worry about this, i don’t want to have to worry about this. I want my phone to be as private as possible. That’s why i chose it. i don’t want to regret having done so.
Pardon the lengthy post. I will continue keeping an eye on this and try to take more screenshots along the way. I will try to report it like @obacht suggested.
Yes, I thought that was where I looked and didn’t find the switch - it just showed the feature without a choice to turn it off. Then after your comment I made sure to look in the actual right place and sure enough, there it was. I am not feeling very intelligent right now.
