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How to stay private when using Android

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Re: How to stay private when using Android

#81

Post by NetOpWibby »

izacus wrote: post #68
NetOpWibby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is getting better at providing more affordable iPhone options. You’re not getting a flagship under a thousand bucks but you’ll still have a damn good device that’ll be supported for a while.

The cheapest iPhone available in my region still costs almost as much as the average worker wage. The Android phones are available for 1/5th of the price. Also iPhones are not localized to the local language at all, so this again provides significant barrier to less well off.

Oh wow, I didn't know that. That sucks.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#82

Post by Accacin »

izacus wrote: post #70
johnsea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There a secondhand iPhones (it's also better for the environment). Otherwise no alternative than using a desktop computer and forego some smart conveniences.

The problem with secondhand iPhones is Apples relentless war on repairability - with Apple Stores not being widely available and Apple limiting supply of spare parts (and using DRM to lock them), those secondhand iPhones are very poor value proposition. Especially when new Androids come with manufacturers warranty, local repair center and fraction of the cost.

DRM? Wasn't that only with the fingerprint sensor? (Which was wrong anyway). On my iPhone 7 I've repaired the screen, battery and charging port and haven't had one problem at all.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#83

Post by asdkhadsj »

izacus wrote: post #66
Terretta wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, none of this matters when you’re continuously polling Google’s API endpoints for your email.

How is that different than Apple iPhones polling iCloud backends for your email? Or visiting websites?

Depends on what criteria you care about. In the example of polling, and the data that can leak from said polling, it's only different in the sense that we _know_ Google is evil in this equation.

So if this is a concern of yours you should definitely not use Google, and you should probably not use Apple.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#84

Post by Terretta »

izacus wrote: post #66
Terretta wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, none of this matters when you’re continuously polling Google’s API endpoints for your email.

How is that different than Apple iPhones polling iCloud backends for your email? Or visiting websites?

I presume this false equivalence is trolling, since only one of the two firms mentioned derives ~90% of its revenue from targeting ads, and the implications should be self-evident.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#85

Post by throwaway41597 »

Honestly, Android is hopelessly so much worse than that. You need to disable/adb uninstall tens of apps because, you have no way to actually remove them. Some of them cannot be disabled (Google Play Services for instance).

Additionally, you cannot have a secured up-to-date WebView (rendering library for Android apps showing web pages) without signing in with a Google account and updating Google Chrome. I found out while trying to remove as much spyware as possible from my Xiaomi A3 Android One phone. As suggested in the blog post, I didn't sign in with a Google Account.

But the WebView [0] is updated via the Play Store which requires an account. So I said I'll just compile Chromium and provide my own WebView. But the system has a whitelist [1] of WebView implementations that excludes everyone but Google to render webviews.

So I'll root my phone and find my way into the whitelist? Well it seems (at that point I'm discouraged to look) that will break future OTA updates because the diffs they send assume the system partition is bit-for-bit unchanged.

So I'll compile Android (AOSP) and flash it? Well, I should have bought another phone, because although my Xiaomi Mi A3 has its kernel on Github, binaries such as the radio firmware aren't available [2].

So I'll just install a precompiled ROM from XDA forums? Well, I'm still reluctant honestly, I'm sure the devs are great but they're still anonymous people on the Internet.

Maybe I should have bought a Sony, AOSP support is better [3], maybe I should have bought something supported by Lineage but then I'd depend on the branch developers.

I should say, it looks like there is some progress (more granular permissions, Android One, Treble, Mainline...) but it's regressing at the same time (removal of the Internet permission, Google Assistant, Play Store distributed system updates in Android 10...).

I remember Larry Page ranting about MS Windows a few years after he started Google. Well, my phone spies on me, is full of uninstallable Google-made bloatware, is locking aftermarket alternatives out with some gotchas and is nowhere close to the freedom I get from a commodity computer (which is far from perfect still). I remember the early Android team promising you can replace every app but a decade later and there are these whitelisting shenanigans.

By the way, I'm open to suggestions if anyone can help.

[0]: Technically, for Android 9, the fallback WebView is updated over the air but Google Chrome is updated with the Play Store

[1]: https://github.com/bromite/bromite/wiki/Installing-SystemWeb...

[2]: Technically, they're already on my phone but I wouldn't get updates anyway.

[3]: https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/#overview-co...

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#86

Post by q-base »

morganvachon wrote: post #78
hombre_fatal wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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 i…

I just bought a used iPhone X and have disabled the face-scanning and use code to unlock instead.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#87

Post by OrgNet »

panpanna wrote: post #40
OrgNet wrote: post #28

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

Do you use a web browser? Then 200+ companies already have shadow profiles on you.

I block most trackers...

but they don't have access to all those sensors on my phone anyways... including camera, microphone, gps, etc... unlike Google on your Android phone. You are comparing apple and oranges.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#88

Post by mumblemumble »

hindsightbias wrote: post #56
johnsea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

uBlock Origin is not on iOS. There is FF Focus, but not sure how much more secure that is.

Like every browser on iOS, it's basically a skin of Safari.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#89

Post by GeekyBear »

elric wrote: post #30
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 side…

According to the Apple prognosticator with the best track record for accurate predictions, Apple will be releasing a new model with the guts of the current flagship in the body of an iPhone 8 for $400 this quarter.

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2019/10/14/20913321/...

If the prediction is true, that represents a significant advantage in privacy, performance, and years of software support after the sale at that price point.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#90

Post by lern_too_spel »

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.

And yet Apple's OS collects more information than Google's. You cannot even write an app for your device without handing over banking details like a credit card. You cannot get your location without also sending that location to Apple. If you're in China, everything in your iCloud is accessible by the Chinese government.

Edit: this is not whataboutism. People are seriously suggesting using Apple devices instead for privacy, when doing so is worse, as I have shown. If you believe anything I've said is false, go ahead and point it out. I've stated these claims multiple times on Hacker News and not once have they been refuted, so I'll be happy to get corrections before I state them again.

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