How to remove AI from your devices

Nowadays, nearly every single site has an AI chatbot or AI automated feature, similarly to how there are tens of thousands of AI startups that everyone tells you to use. That all really stinks. But why should we be forced to oblige to these tech bros and disconnected trillionaires?

For that nonexistent reason, I’ve made a guide that’ll make you to go cold turkey on AI (and also just enhances your privacy), no matter if you’ve already quit or are trying your hardest to. Anyways, lets quit the blabber and get straight into what we’ll need as

Prerequisites

This guide assumes a few things, so if you don’t have them or can’t set them up, you’re cold outta luck. Oh well. To follow this guide, you’ll need:

• An internet-connected device, preferably a Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, or Android device
• A configurable DNS instance, such as a pi-hole (this of course means you need to have a pi) or a NextDNS profile

If you don’t at least have the first one, what the hell have you been doing for the past 31 years? Unless you use typewriters and only read books and stuff.

Setup

Obviously, we need to configure all of this stuff, since it isn’t going to anti-AI itself on its own.

Pi-hole

Since I am a big idiot dunce and have never used a pi-hole, I highly recommend natalie.dev’s pi-hole guide, with hagezi's blocklists, either multi ultimate mini or multi ultimate, if your device can handle it, and then also obviously my AI blocklist. Otherwise, just stick to the guide normally.

NextDNS

This is something I have much better expertise in, as I’ve been using it for about 2 years at this point.

Anyways, pop on over to https://my.nextdns.io, and log in or sign up (if you’re already logged in, ignore this part). Then, go to the Security tab and enable Threat Intelligence Feeds, Google Safe Browsing, Cryptojacking Protection, DNS Rebinding Protection, IDN Homograph Attacks Protection, Typosquatting Protection, Domain Generation Algorithms (DGAs) Protection, Block Dynamic DNS Hostnames, Block Parked Domains, and Block CSAM. For the paranoid, you can add .ai under Block Top-Level Domains, to completely avoid any AI startups, although it may block some regional websites. I highly recommend avoiding the AI-Driven Threat Detection option, as in my experience it has only blocked innocent domains, and also for the obvious reason of avoiding AI.

After that, head to the Privacy tab, and enable whatever blocklists you need, I personally have all of them enabled except for No Google and Anti Facebook, for familial reasons. Scroll down to Native Tracking Protection and enable all of them. Doesn’t matter if you use the products listed or not, it’s good practice. Once again, scroll down and toggle Block Disguised Third Party Trackers.

Then, go to Parental Control, and add ChatGPT under the list of Blocked Websites, Apps & Games. It doesn’t actually work for me, but whatever, a block is a block.

Now, we get to have our fun. We’re done with the basic configurations, so guess what? Blocking spree! Remember when I mentioned my AI blocklist earlier? I do. Now, we can use that blocklist. Unfortunately, because NextDNS is a big fat stinky and doesn’t allow you to import lists, we will have to do this manually.

If you blocked the entire .ai TLD like me, you can get to be just a tad bit more lazy with this list. Not too lazy though, you still have to manually block all of the other domains. Once you add the entire huge ~800 domain blocklist (because NextDNS automatically does wildcards for the blocklist, you don’t have to do the WWW part!), there are still some more domains to ensure complete death for those sites with , which can be found here or here (mirror).

Actual Stuff

There’s still more to do, that was just configuring the DNS. Thankfully, none of it is as painstaking as manually adding 800 domains to a blocklist.

Android

This part assumes Android 4.4.2+, but if you aren’t on that, it’s not like Google released the Gemini update to Android 2.2.3, so you should be fine, and thus, can skip this step. 

If you’re on Android 9, you have the leisure of having secure DNS as an OS feature. Go to the Settings app, then to Connections ==> More connection Settings. From there, you’ll find the Private DNS setting. Reopen the NextDNS Setup page, and find the DoT (DNS over TLS) string. You can add an identifier if you want. For me, it looks like “Phone-******.dns.nextdns.io” (profile id obscured). Add the string your page gives you into the input, under “Private DNS provider hostname”. Lucky you, you now have almost all of that AI gunk blocked.

If you’re on anything older than Android 9, however, the process is a bit more difficult. To bypass the lack of the Private DNS setting, you can get Intra from the play store or apkmirror. For Intra, though, you actually need a DoH (DNS over HTTPS) string. It’s virtually the same process though, pop on over to the NextDNS setup page, and grab the DoH string. It’ll look something like this: https://dns.nextdns.io/******/Intra%20DNS (profile string obscured). Open the sidebar in Intra, then go to the Settings, and add your DoH string. Grant Intra its priviledges, and enable it. Should work fine.

Still not done! Make sure you have a mobile browser capable of uBlock Origin, such as Firefox, or a browser with uBlock Origin-style functionality that takes the Adblock blocklist format, such as Brave. If you’re on Firefox for Android, open https://addons.mozilla.org and search up uBlock Origin. Install it, and enable it on private windows if prompted. Then, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. Done there. If you’re on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Brave Shields & privacy. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time.

Now, we get a bit greasy. Get Shizuku if not already installed from https://shizuku.rikka.app/, and install it. Go through the standard pairing process, but do not start it. Then, get Canta from https://github.com/samolego/Canta/releases/latest, and grant its permissions in the Shizuku app. Get my blocklist from https://files.catbox.moe/xhqo8p, and add it to Canta. Now, start Shizuku. Return to Canta, and apply the preset. This removes some bloatware, most (Samsung and some Google) AI gunk, and some carrier garbage (specifically AT&T’s). Unfortunately, I don’t have the devices to test this preset on anything that isn’t my AT&T S25, so I can’t guarantee that it’ll work elsewhere. Through Canta, you can also uninstall Google (only do this if your Google version is newer than 2023, since that’s when all the AI Overview and AI Mode slop started being added).

Once you do that, return to your browser. To test and make sure that the AI blocklists are working correctly, go to google, bing, or duckduckgo and see if AI Mode, AI Overview, or AI results appear. If they do not show up, that means that the blocklists are properly working. Now, return to the homepage of one of those search engines, go to the browser menu, and click “Add to home page”, or a similar option. You can now access that search engine freely, without AI.

As far as Android goes, that’s it. From me. Regarding Canta, if you find more AI-related system packages, go for it. I’m not forcing you to only use what is within my preset list. Same deal for the DNS section prior, if you find any other AI related domains or servers, be my guest and block em. Do whatever it takes to NOT use AI.

Windows

This guide may be less thorough or detailed because I use Windows 7 which by default has no AI preinstalled, and I don’t regularly use 10 or 11 in any substantial form to warrant something truly detailed like my Android guide from a paragraph ago. Anyways, I’ll do my best, but at least this will be better than my Linux guide. If you’re on Windows 7 or older, you can skip the following paragraph.

Anyways, there’s a very useful project on GitHub, which is https://github.com/zoicware/RemoveWindowsAI. It will remove most of the AI features, given that you toggle on every single removal, don’t even spare it one bit. Just for some extra reassurance, though, I’d also recommend installing a portable version of https://winaerotweaker.com/, since it’ll allow you to completely disable telemetry (aka spyware), give you more granular control over windows, and most importantly for this guide, help you scrape off the remainders of the parasitic AI garbage from Windows.

Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, Supermium, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox or Supermium (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, the steps are identical to Android: open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. (direct copy paste). If on Brave, the instructions are yet again nearly identical: beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. That one was kind of a copy paste, but not really. Anyways, it’s done.

Oh, wait, didn’t I set up a whole DNS thing for you to use earlier? Right, I forgot about that. Fuck. But not to worry, because I remembered it! Great! Anyways, download https://nextdns.io/download/windows/stable (NextDNS for Windows). Works on 7 and newer, as far as I’m aware. It even logs your device name to prevent confusion! Now, install NextDNS for Windows, and once the icon appears in your tray, right click it and go to Settings. Return to your NextDNS profile’s setup page, grab your profile ID (reminder: 6 character hexadecimal code), and shove it into the input asking for it, and click Save. To ensure it is working, go to your logs on the website (if enabled) and ensure that your device shows up. If it does, amazing. If it doesn’t, retrace your steps and make sure you didn’t fuck anything up.

Linux

I don’t know too much about Linux outside of Android, which is very abstracted to true Linux. I’ll try my hardest, but outside of DNS, there isn’t much I can do.

As far as I’m aware, most Linux distros do not include AI, but for the ones that do, they document it and have options to disable it. Similarly, make sure all tracking and telemetry features are completely disabled, and if you can’t figure out how to disable them, consult documentation. If there are obviously AI features and anti-privacy practices used in the distro, and you cannot disable either, consider a new distro if possible.

However, I can help out with DNS and browsers. To add your NextDNS profile to Linux, open /etc/systemd/resolved.conf and paste the following (insert your configuration id where the stars are):

[Resolve]
DNS=45.90.28.0#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNS=2a07:a8c0::#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNS=45.90.30.0#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNS=2a07:a8c1::#******.dns.nextdns.io
DNSOverTLS=yes

So that handles the DNS, but we still need to deal with the AI in browsers.

Literally gonna directly copy paste the Windows version, asides from Supermium. Anyways, here. Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. If on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. That one was kind of a copy paste, but not really. Anyways, that’s done.

macOS

Same deal as Linux, and the iOS section after this: never used it. I will, however, combine what I’ve found online into a simple guide.

Head on over to the macOS App Store page for NextDNS (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nextdns/id1464122853). Install it, and then open it. Ensure it is toggled to start at login. Then, head to the Configuration page, and add your profile id in the input asking for it. Save and enable. Some reviews online are saying that it does not automatically start on login, so ensure that you remember to enable it if not already on every login.

To make sure that this is working, go to your NextDNS logs (if enabled) and check for your device, or go to dnsleaktest.com on a browser and run an Extended test to make sure only NextDNS is your used DNS provider.

Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. If on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. If on Safari (I am unknowledged here), install AdGuard from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-ad-blocker-for-safari/id1440147259, and add the blocklists, as well as making sure all of the privacy and blocking settings are on.

iOS

Forgive me

Open your NextDNS profile, and scroll down to the setup guides. Click on the iOS option, and if available, scan the blue circle-ish code, and follow the steps on your iPhone from there. If that is not an option (for reasons such as you viewing the configuration page on your phone), go to https://apple.nextdns.io and create the necessary .mobileconfig file. Steps are provided on page.

Make sure you have a browser capable of uBlock Origin, or uBlock Origin’s form of blocklists. For example, you can use Brave, any form of Chromium which still supports MV2, or any form of Firefox, which should work fine. If on Firefox (or an MV2 supporting browser), grab uBlock Origin from the respective extension store. Once obtained, open up the extensions menu, tap on uBlock Origin, and go to the dashboard (thru settings icon). Go to the Filter lists tab, and scroll all the way down until you find a hidden menu called Import. Reopen it, and paste this URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/list.txt, then on a new line, paste https://raw.githubusercontent.com/CallenDV/uBlockOrigin-HUGE-AI-Blocklist/refs/heads/main/additional_list_nuclear.txt. Once you’re done, apply the changes and wait for the two lists to appear under “Custom”. If on Brave, beforehand, make sure that Shields is set to be Aggressive for trackers and fingerprinting. Now, open the settings, then go to Shields. From there, open “Content Filtering” and click on the “Add custom list” setting near the top of the screen. Pasting in the same links should be straightforward from there, with the only difference being that you need to do it one at a time. If on Safari (I am unknowledged here), install AdGuard from https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adguard-ad-blocker-for-safari/id1440147259, click on , then tap Manage Extensions, and open up the AdGuard options. From there, add the blocklists, as well as making sure all of the privacy and blocking settings are on.

Conclusion

I am sick of this shit, both in regards to how low quality AI slop and features is constantly shoved in our faces and the mindless, autonomous typing of this post. Anyways, save yourself from the slop, put your privacy on top, but more importantly, for more buzzing bananas and bubbly tech trivia, don’t forget to tune in to the CheeseBlog for more posts. Cya!

My new stance on AI, after over a year

Yuck. Disgusting.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about AI, and a lot has changed on my perspective of it. There are definitely important distinctions to be made when talking about it, though.

Generative AI

This is the part that I’m grossed out about. Generative AI, by definition, is an artificial intelligence trained off of a ton of a specific form of content that attempts to recreate content based off of its training data. There are many, many reasons why it is bad.

For example, how do you think the groups that create and operate these models collect the data they use to train the models, with billions if not trillions of unique works collected all in usually less than a year or two? Well, I’ll tell you. It has nothing to do with legality. If it is on the internet, their bots will scrape it (unless you put a robots.txt file at the root of your server that explicitly bans bots, but not all groups honor this). It then gets used, and you don’t get anything from it. This also means that some chatting apps like Whatsapp will just go and collect all of your private chats and use them to train their AI. Bye bye, privacy!

Another great example is resource usage. Generative AI generally requires tons of computation power to work properly, so the companies and organizations running the AIs will build datacenters everywhere possible. End result? You end up with a massive datacenter in what is usually a small town that strains local power grids, leading to cost increases for normal citizens that aren’t participating in the whole AI business. It also needs water to cool down the servers inside said datacenter, which pollutes the local water supply and if released back into nature can end up killing tons of animals, aquatic life, and plants. Also, people drink that water, so it is a net loss. And I may hear you say: “But datacenters all over the world use water to cool down their servers, what’s the difference?” Well, here, I’ll tell you with an analogy. If there was a water reservoir, and a person took a glass of water from it daily, would you see it as problematic? No. But if 5,000 people were lined up to get a glass of water from the reservoir daily, then would it be problematic? Yes, especially once you take into account that there are other people that genuinely do need that water to survive. AI datacenters are springing up like wildfire, and so far, nobody has done anything about it, leading to major consequences like the ones I just described.

Also, what happens to creatives? They lose their jobs. People realize that instead of contracting professionals that spent so long mastering their own unique artstyle, or writing style, or music style, or whatever it may be, they can just go to an AI and have it pump out slop after about a minute or so of generating files. Soulless slop that misses the whole point of the arts itself, which is to bring connection with others, joy, and also just act as a creative outlet for those who wish to make something. Much of the economy depends on artists, musicians, writers, programmers, and similar titles in some sort of fashion, and we will see the consequences of abandoning them just to save the extra buck.

Non-Generative AI

I don’t mind AI that isn’t generative, and it has been around for years at this point.

Non-generative AI does have plenty of uses, and there are tons of them that we use all the time, and don’t even notice. For example, translation. Many modern language translation engines do use AI, or more technically, neural networks. They are trained upon tons of different proper translations, which then allow it to properly translate practically any language if it is given enough examples of proper translation from said language to any other.

Another great, positive example of non-generative AI can be seen in the medical field. Often, a properly trained neural network will be given an x-ray, or medical research results, or something similar and it will be able to classify what the issue is: such as, (and these are really basic and oversimplified) “No issue”, “Respiratory”, “Cardiovascular”, “Muscular”, etc. They have existed for decades at this point, constantly helping doctors, nurses, and other sorts of trained medical professionals.

This one is a little more obvious, but AI is in a ton of games. For example, in Mario Kart, there is a neural network (or a similar variant, at least) constantly running that decides when your opponents are going to throw an item, turn, drift, or attempt to slipstream off of you (get a boost by being behind you). Or, in a FPS, like Counter Strike, the bots that are fighting against you or with you are being powered by an AI that controls every single action they make. Many games usually offer an easy, normal, and hard mode for the AI, and that typically just means the AI getting more or less training, or it being trained off of better or worse players.

Conclusion

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. If you want more tech tips and digital blabbering, save yourself, the economy, nature, and most importantly, a bookmark of the CheeseBlog to to stay tuned for more posts. Cya!

I finally found a cheap way to circumvent AI skimmers

It is called Anubis. It doesn’t require some complicated CAPTCHA, nor does it cost literally any amount of money. It’s open source and available on GitHub.

Now, the interesting part about this skimming circumventer is how it works. In fact, it doesn’t do any of that stuff that the typical anti-bot website addon requires, such as asking the user to do some annoying test of vision that also secretly tracks clicks and mouse movement (or taps if it detects the connected client is a mobile device via the User Agent sent by the browser) to decide whether or not you’re a bot. It’s actually really simple.

Instead, it just does some math. Not math as in stuff that watches your every move and calculates some garbage. Hell, I’m pretty sure it lets the skimmers right in without doing some block or whatever. It just does some really complicated math with some really big numbers, and the math usually varies each time you visit. See, for normal users, this isn’t a problem. Maybe just an extra half a second or two of the page loading—no big problem. But when you’re running a big database with tons of computers skimming every page on a site, the extra money that costs piles up, and quick. Especially if your site has over a hundred pages and tons more links that lead to repetition.

This usually deters the person managing the skimmers or AI from, well, skimming your site, often trying to steer away from it instead. That means your work (probably) won’t be used as often by people putting together AIs or large masses of data! Even better, you can give a big middle finger to search engines like Google and Bing that really aren’t that good! Anyways, if you want to see more tech alerts and cool news like this, remember to tune in to the CheeseBlog for another post. Cya!

Worldcoin solves a problem that didn't exist

You ever hear about a company so convinced of its own importance that it builds an entire multi-million dollar product just to "solve" a problem it basically invented? Yeah. Welcome to Worldcoin.

So here’s the pitch: spend hundreds of dollars on a futuristic orb with a built-in iris scanner that allegedly proves you're human—because, apparently, CAPTCHA and fingerprint biometrics just aren't cutting it anymore.

They say: “Bots can identify objects now! Click buttons! They’re evolving!”

No kidding. But here’s the thing: CAPTCHA was never just about identifying objects. It was about how you interact with the interface. The way you move your mouse, the tiny hesitations, the imperfect curves, the weird human flaws—that's what sets us apart from bots. Not just clicking a picture of a moped.

CAPTCHA tracks behavior. Bots are still hilariously bad at behaving like actual people. That's why it works. Is it perfect? Nah. But it’s free, widely supported, and doesn’t need you to stare into the Eye of Sauron just to post a YouTube comment.

But here comes Worldcoin, acting like we've all been living in CAPTCHA hell, suffering, begging for a solution. And their big solution? A damn orb that records your biometric data, stores it somewhere you’ll “totally not worry about,” and ties it into a crypto wallet.

Oh, and Sam Altman’s involved. You know, the same guy already working on AI that's smart enough to fake being human—and now he's trying to sell you a product that detects if you're human. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

Worldcoin is literally solving a problem that nobody had, using tech that nobody asked for, in a way that nobody trusts.

Save your money. Save your eyes, humanity, and most importantly, your brain so that you can tune in to the CheeseBlog for another post. Cya!

What I think on the whole AI thing

Honestly, my thoughts on AI are a bit mixed- let's dive in on that topic.

The Pros

AI can be very useful at certain points. Some main ones are if you want details on a specific topic, and Google can't give you anything (this has happened to me several times, which is why I mention it). Its also very useful for if you want a summary on a book that is absolutely massive. This includes things like some Stephen King books (I still am surprised by how massive some of those books are). Or, you could even just use it as someone to talk to when you are lonely! Overall, AI can be extremely useful in some cases, but sometimes not so much in others, which leads me to

The Cons

As practically all AI websites say in fine print, it can be incorrect. This is quite annoying to me, because that means I might have to double check by creating a new chat and asking the same question, or Googling it-which eliminates the entire point of using AI. Another issue is how intrusive it is starting to get. No matter where you look, it's there! Search engines, web browsers, social media, etc. Google? Gemini. Brave? The one integrated in the browser and Brave Search (I forgot the name of it...). Facebook? Meta AI. Even my photos app has AI editing tools in it! What I'm trying to say is that there's no shortage of it. The rules of the AI producers can also be very limiting, too, which makes it feel useless sometimes.

Conclusion

What you think of AI depends on what your Point of View is. If you focus on the cons, you probably won't use AI-which I and many other people would understand. If you use AI, nice! It can be very useful, so it's good that you're using it for what you want and need. Anyways, this is all I've got for now. Bye!