Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to stay private when using Android

protonmail.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 177 posts

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#71

Post by wongarsu »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #31
decasteve wrote: post #8

> 7. Review your cloud sync I used an Android device for a short while a few years ago. I disabled all sync functionality and would back up to my own storage device. After an OS update, all of the sync functionality was automatically enabled and everything on the device was uploaded to Google’s services anyway. So I deleted everything that was uploaded, then deleted my google account, and bought an iPhone and swore t…

I wonder if this kind of behaviour is illegal under GDPR. At least it should be in my opinion.

Syncing contacts and pictures without opt-in sounds very illegal under GDPR.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#72

Post by izacus »

panpanna wrote: post #42
izacus wrote: post #24

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 :)

This is unfortunately very common but doesn't take away the fact that privacy on Android can be significantly improved with very small changes. For example: * Reintroduce the network permission * Add a notification event so your smartwatch etc can subscribe to that instead of requiring full access to your email account * Clean up the Google privacy settings which is right now the most complex part of Android * STOP p…

Of course, I'm all for expanding privacy (I've actually led several workshops to help people de-Googlify Androids and will continue to do so).

However the issue with HN these days is that these topics turn into brand cheerleading, where people come out of the woodwork to proselityze Apple while mercilessly downvoting any posts that talk about privacy issues on iOS platform.

That's not defending privacy - that's just defending another corporation and letting them get away with violations.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#73

Post by morganvachon »

johnsea wrote: post #39
emodendroket wrote: post #22

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.

It's not all or nothing privacy. If you give up Android/Google Play (and Facebook etc.) you have a much smaller exposure. Buy an iPhone or a Jolla (or, maybe in future, PinePhone or Librem). Then use Firefox with uBO, DuckDuckGo and Fastmail. And you have a much better privacy in 2020.

> Buy...a Jolla

I would absolutely love to do this, but I live in the US. Recently I visited Jolla's website and was excited to see that they offer an officially supported installation for Sony Xperia 10 and XA2 phones. I found several listings for those devices on eBay, got really excited, and almost pulled the trigger on one. I went back and read the fine print on the Jolla site and discovered that they won't sell the OS to you or allow you to download the free version if you live outside the EU, Switzerland, and Norway.

It's so frustrating that there is a total lockout in the US when it comes to smartphone OSes; I have a Lumia 830 sitting in a drawer I'd be fine with using but since Microsoft officially dropped support it has developed issues that prevent it from being a daily driver. Besides, Microsoft's track record on privacy is hardly better than Google's.

For now I can either carry a dumbphone and a separate smart device like the Gemini PDA running Linux, or just continue using my increasingly slow and glitchy iPhone 7 (I don't want face recognition or a notched display, so I refuse to upgrade to the X and beyond, and the 8 is still too expensive to justify such a minor upgrade).

I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to buy a PinePhone (fuck Librem and their constant deception around their products), and if it works out as a daily driver I'm all in.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#75

Post by thawaway1837 »

danShumway wrote: post #54
izacus wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1. Google tracked user location even when location history was turned off. 2. Most people don't understand the full extent of Web and App Activity permissions -- they don't understand that this will allow Google to do things like parse search queries out of DuckDuckGo searches on Chrome. 3. Similarly (until recently) most people didn't realize that Google was using email info for advertising, including purchases made…

I did not know #3. That’s messed up.

Email privacy should be sacrosanct.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#76

Post by kodablah »

Benjammer wrote: post #58
squarefoot wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is undeniably true that Android, just as any other networked product by Google, is a nightmare with respect to privacy, I hardly believe that Apple doesn't collect any user data. They very likely want to remain the #1 solution for wealthy people who don't want their communications to be bugged, and they're surely much much better than Google in that context, still I don't trust them because their product is…

Apple's incentives as a product business align much better with user privacy than Google's incentives as an ad business though.

That's not strictly true, as Apple's incentives as a business are to prevent user choice, regardless of the privacy benefits of the choice. Therefore if you believe, say, that browser engine choice can help privacy (both individually at a micro level and for the ecosystem at a macro level), then Apple's incentives as a product business align much worse with user privacy on that point. The same can be said for other Apple incentives such as kowtowing to some anti-privacy regimes, disallowing advanced software, etc. Treating this as black and white is just wrong.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#78

Post by morganvachon »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #61
elric wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 side…

$200 for an Amazon Renewed iPhone 7 which I just bought when my previous iPhone was stolen. https://www.amazon.com/iPhone-7-Plus-Renewed/s?rh=n%3A169477...

The 7 is at the bottom of Apple's support list from this point forward, and I recommend you check your battery health on that "renewed" device before you decide $200 is a good deal. You can get "new open box" (opened but never used/used for a week and returned) iPhone 7 devices for less than what you paid.

I'm not trying to sour your purchase, but I'm desperately trying to find something to replace my iPhone 7 that is not Android and not a face-scanning iPhone, and I'd rather spend good money on something like the PinePhone or a Jolla (if they would sell to me) than wasting money on the Apple treadmill.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#79

Post by dorkinspace »

ddevault wrote: post #45
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #3

Amazingly bad advice. They don't even mention to set a non-chrome, privacy-focused browser as default (brave, Cliqz, Firefox, etc).

Amazingly bad advice yourself, listing Brave and Cliqz as privacy-focused alternatives before Firefox.

I've been using brave and Firefox because of a perceived privacy benefit over chrome.

Would you mind expanding upon this statement on regards to Brave?

Thank you and happy new year!

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#80

Post by chacha2 »

frou_dh wrote: post #17
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've found some iOS apps tremendously useful over the years, so no, I'll pass on your hangup condemning all Mobile OSes to death.

Which ones?
Post reply on HN