Not entirely disagreeing with you but, what exactly is “malicious” about separating photo and metadata? It could be just how their servers process and stores those photos, with the added benefit of geotagging videos.
I use Google Photos and upload in original quality. When I download from takeout, the metadata is still in the original files. Iirc, only if you select upload in “high quality” where they compress it again, do you lose the metadata in the file stored in the cloud.
Not entirely disagreeing with you but, what exactly is “malicious” about separating photo and metadata? It could be just how their servers process and stores those photos, with the added benefit of geotagging videos.
I use Google Photos and upload in original quality. When I download from takeout, the metadata is still in the original files. Iirc, only if you select upload in “high quality” where they compress it again, do you lose the metadata in the file stored in the cloud.
deleted by creator
Fair. I guess I never really needed to deal with that since I upload in original. That and Google Photos Takeout Helper made migrating easy for me.