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How to stay private when using Android

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Re: How to stay private when using Android

#151

Post by mirimir »

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…

Yes, totally inadequate.

The problem, though, is that ~nobody would bother doing what it would take. And so there's the argument that recommending bandages is the most effective strategy.

It would be cool to see this acknowledged. Even if in tiny print somewhere.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#152

Post by deadbunny »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #46
qrbLPHiKpiux wrote: post #33

> smartphones per se are not evil. No, just the people who write the code.

It's not the people who write the code, it's their management. If they were paid to write secure privacy centric code then that's what would happen

Ah yes "I was only following orders", a classic defense.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#153

Post by ktpsns »

throwaway41597 wrote: post #85

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 wh…

And you know what? I guess Google Fuchsia won't have a major change at this situation. And if it did (since every clean restart should bring something positive), some years later the situation will be the same.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#154

Post by wheelerwj »

"Don't"

If anyone who has been a google fan/early adopter can attest to, the more things you learn to turn off, unistall, or otherwise disable, Google will find a way to add in even more shit to track you. They are, without absolute certainty, an advertising company. They will always find a way to sell more ads, its the only reason they exist.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#155

Post by fiatjaf »

wildmanxx wrote: post #144

This article is surprisingly and disappointingly simple-minded to appear on a place called Hacker News. It's a list of things aimed at my mom, not at a "hacker", whatever meaning you assign to this term. The most telling may well be section "5. Be wary of unknown sources" which recommends "You should never trust software from these sources". One of the key ways of making Android privacy focused is to install F-Droid…

Install everything from Google Play, that's all good. Never install anything from F-Droid, that's all bad.

That's basically what this article is saying.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#156

Post by hylaride »

slenk wrote: post #98
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…

So you are okay with everything being synced to Apple? What's the difference? Why do you think Apple respects your privacy more?

Because Apple isn’t an advertising company and doesn’t need to. They also at least come out and say they won’t share your data with 3rd parties, except as needed (this has caused some problems with Siri stuff in the past).

Google is an advertising company first. And advertisers will pay a lot more for that data.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#157

Post by nextos »

throwaway41597 wrote: post #85

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 wh…

I think the best practical solution these days is to buy a Pixel or some Sony Xperia, and install your own AOSP. Then run a F-Droid userland. If you have a Pixel, you also have access to things like https://grapheneos.org/, which is the successor to CopperheadOS, and perfect AOSP support. Sonys tend to loose some features.

A good alternative if you want a cheaper phone is to run LineageOS on a popular device in the Lineage community.

Something that is becoming a really good alternative is to run a device-independent ROM on an unlockable Treble device: https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations

As you said, stock Android is pretty hopeless in terms of privacy.

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#158

Post by Open-Sourcery »

freehunter wrote: post #140
jblz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "android is awful!" ... "I bought a cheap one" Nothing like condemning the entirety of a thing based on a single limited intentionally-bottom-of-the-barrel experience!

This is one thing I don't understand about the Android ecosystem... Android fans like to point out that you have a choice of phone price points from $100 up to $1000, where on Apple devices it's generally $600 to $1000. But if you actually buy one of those $100 phones and have a problem with it, the first response is always "well yeah that's what you get for buying a cheap phone". Seems like an illusion of choice if…

Smartphones are like many other technology products. Yes, you can get the cheapest one available but it will be total garbage or you could spend another $100 or so and get a pretty decent phone. Going beyond this point you get diminishing returns, is spending another $700-800 really worth it for a better camera, a faster CPU/GPU and a screen with a bit better colour when all you do is watch Youtube videos and browse facebook/instagram/whatever other social media?

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#159

Post by dTal »

itvision wrote: post #133
evgen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 5. Use the most common OS (Windows 10 at the moment) + the most common web browser (Chrome at the moment) Use the OS with built-in telemetry and the web browser that constantly reports your activity to a data harvesting company and which keeps trying to prevent people from blocking ads or limiting data harvesting on the browser? Try again.

Wiping all data in Google Chrome is enough for Google to lose track of you. Windows 10 leaking personal data hasn't been conclusively proven by anyone in the entire world. There's no evidence Microsoft has ever downloaded a single file off Windows 10 PCs (except for telemetry, e.g. application minidumps, which doesn't uniquely identify you, or contains any of your personal documents). Disabling telemetry in Windows 1…

>Disabling telemetry in Windows 10 isn't too difficult either.

Really? For future reference, how does one do this? Because I was under the impression that it was not possible to disable all telemetry, and that even the lowest "level" of telemetry that Microsoft offers is only available to "enterprise" versions of Windows. At least, that is what the wording used in the Group Policy Editor implies:

https://techcortex.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/disable-mi...

https://techcortex.com/disable-microsoft-compatibility-telem...

Re: How to stay private when using Android

#160

Post by throwaway41597 »

nextos wrote: post #157
throwaway41597 wrote: post #85

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 wh…

I think the best practical solution these days is to buy a Pixel or some Sony Xperia, and install your own AOSP. Then run a F-Droid userland. If you have a Pixel, you also have access to things like https://grapheneos.org/ , which is the successor to CopperheadOS, and perfect AOSP support. Sonys tend to loose some features. A good alternative if you want a cheaper phone is to run LineageOS on a popular device in the…

phh-treble looks pretty good, thanks for bringing it up! Any idea how one gets authentic updates to the radio after flashing a GSI though? Anyone here has tried it with a Xiaomi A3? Looks like most phones have partial support still.

Pixel phones are out of my budget so GrapheneOS isn't an option.

Stock Android has long been dead to me but I wasn't aware Android One is just as bad because most reviews focus on the UI.

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