How to stay private when using Android • Hacker News Board

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#21

Post by izacus » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #2

Unfortunately all of these things are bandages on a sinking ship. They're technically better than nothing, but in reality they simply do not fix the problem. Even worse, it's possible (even probably) that some privacy controls simply do not do the think they say they do. You are essentially trusting a company with a rubbish track record in privacy violations to pinky swear they stop tracking you when you toggle a swi…

Can you please list a few privacy violations that create the track record? Comparable to e.g. Apple giving Siri voice recordings to 3rd party contractors without the ability to disable it?

I'm sure it'll be easy, easier than downvotes.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#22

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

If you want to stay private, give up the idea of a smartphone altogether. If you (quite understandably) do not want to do that, you're pretty much just kidding yourself.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#23

Post by MobileVet » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

... don’t use Android, period. Google did a great job with PR in the early years, but the reality has always been that your data is exploited to their ends.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#24

Post by izacus » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

These Android topics are always full of complete fabrications about how Android actually works (usually from Apple users, which don't know a lot about the OS).

Let's see if this time is any better or we'll see Apple marketing people come out of the woods again :)

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#25

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

swiley wrote: post #13

I hate iOS but good god android is awful! I bought a cheap one on new years to use as a balloon tracker (GPS boards are expensive so it seemed like a good idea.) There are absolutely no diagnostics, every setting (including critical ones) seems to move around between OS updates. They’re constantly breaking things you actually need (termux API is missing half of what’s useful and silently fails on most things now) whi…

I dunno, I find Android more obvious than iOS, but it seems pretty obvious it's because I've used one more than the other.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#26

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:50 PM UTC

loraa wrote: post #4

99% of the population don't want to essentially make their phone useless and difficult to use. This is the problem. Also that 99% doesn't care that the government knows they have downloaded Candy crush.

Yeah, essentially all these DIY fixes to surveillance involve majorly inconveniencing yourself and being a technical expert to maybe achieve what they're suggesting.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#27

Post by newscracker » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

They should’ve added a point #0 advising people to get a flagship device or an Android One device from vendors who have a track record of selling a phone with the latest Android release and also getting updates to the devices quicker.

Every other point in the article pales in comparison if the new device you bought is running a release more than a year old and you’re guaranteed never to get another update (or may get an update for a year). The point about keeping the software up to date is moot for most Android users.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#28

Post by OrgNet » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

Android is a nightmare (both for privacy and for the artificial limitations imposed by Google)... the only solution appears to be a pure Linux phone like this: https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinephone-braveheart-limit...

I don't sign-in to my google account on my phone but I'm pretty sure that they do shadow profiles like Facebook does

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#29

Post by singron » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #21

andrepd wrote: post #2

Unfortunately all of these things are bandages on a sinking ship. They're technically better than nothing, but in reality they simply do not fix the problem. Even worse, it's possible (even probably) that some privacy controls simply do not do the think they say they do. You are essentially trusting a company with a rubbish track record in privacy violations to pinky swear they stop tracking you when you toggle a swi…

Can you please list a few privacy violations that create the track record? Comparable to e.g. Apple giving Siri voice recordings to 3rd party contractors without the ability to disable it? I'm sure it'll be easy, easier than downvotes.

For example, turning off "location history" didn't prevent Google from tracking your location history. You had to also disable "web and app activity".

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#30

Post by elric » Wed, Jan 01, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

MobileVet wrote: post #23

... don’t use Android, period. Google did a great job with PR in the early years, but the reality has always been that your data is exploited to their ends.

What are the alternatives? The iphone is prohibitively expensive for most people, and it's unacceptable that privacy should only be available to the wealthy.

There's basically an Android/iOS "duopoly" out there, and it's only getting worse. There are now bank accounts that are unusable without a smart phone app, and guess which platforms are supported...Google Play and Apple App Store. And don't even think about sideloading onto a rooted device, it won't work "for security reasons". Such bank accounts, and services like Apple Pay, are effectively enabling vendor lock-in for very important services.