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Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

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Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if these mentioned apps comes with google's dns resolvers baked in, in that case routing through pihole doesn't help here.

I set up a rule on my router to drop any DNS traffic and DoH traffic to well known DNS providers unless it comes from the server running pihole. Otherwise it was proving very hard to find out how to force applications / mobile devices to use my DNS server.

you could also just NAT port 52 to your pihole. (translating 8.8.8.8 ofcourse).

I don't know if this would work with DoH. (but DoH is terrible anyways)

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#232
post #93

Between this and Jeffrey Paul's article shared yesterday about Big Sur and Apple Silicon[1], it's becoming increasingly tempting to throw my phone away and keep using only Linux with no applications primarily developed by these giants (i.e. no Chromium, etc). Supporting initiatives like the Librem phone is also moving up in my list of priorities, once I get enough money to spare at least. [1]: https://news.ycombinato…

!

what do you do with it?

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people have basically unlimited data these days, and I'm sure nobody is worrying about the cost of a DNS request.

Most people I know don't have unlimited data. My plan, for example, gives me 10GB/month. In any case, DNS queries shouldn't be a problem for most users.

In my neck of the woods, "unlimited" means 10GB uncapped, with throttling to just about good ol' ADSL speeds after that.

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux high end phones will never be a reality, at least not what people here would consider Linux at best you’ll get is Android or Android like OS. Other than that you’ll get low volume low end devices at high end or higher prices due to lack of economy of scale. What most consumers actually want and I’ll put in that list also many many people that say they want a “Linux Phone” but in reality will go back to their iP…

I'm currently using an Fxtec Pro1 [1], which has a respectable Snapdragon 835 and 6GB of ram. It was released last year with an older processor but compare the Geekbench scores to the "High end" new Pixel 5 [2]. It unofficially supports quite a few distributions of Linux including Ubports Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS, and LineageOS. Official support for Ubuntu Touch and LineageOS is coming next month. It's a niche devic…

I've been keeping an eye on this for a while now. Is the battery user replaceable?

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#235
post #93

Between this and Jeffrey Paul's article shared yesterday about Big Sur and Apple Silicon[1], it's becoming increasingly tempting to throw my phone away and keep using only Linux with no applications primarily developed by these giants (i.e. no Chromium, etc). Supporting initiatives like the Librem phone is also moving up in my list of priorities, once I get enough money to spare at least. [1]: https://news.ycombinato…

I ordered my Pinephone this month and patiently awaiting it. Despite what may currently be lacking, it's in a good enough place to be a daily driver for myself. My Blackberry Q10 served me well for years but the battery is starting to go and the OS + apps are no longer supported. I can actually say I've skipped Android/iOS entirely.

You're saying the PinePhone is a daily driver before you've tried it?

I just got mine and it is significantly buggier, crashier, and slower than expected. The USB C port is also of low quality. It is overall worse quality than expected.

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux high end phones will never be a reality, at least not what people here would consider Linux at best you’ll get is Android or Android like OS. Other than that you’ll get low volume low end devices at high end or higher prices due to lack of economy of scale. What most consumers actually want and I’ll put in that list also many many people that say they want a “Linux Phone” but in reality will go back to their iP…

What I want is a Maemo-based phone, with at least 20% marketshare and an Android compat layer so there is an ecosystem to support it, and the same camera as any other flagship level phone.

Maemo was great, and so was WebOS in the Pre days.

App distribution was also better on both platforms. Maemo used apt under the hood, and Preware[1] was phenomenal. These days the two vendors that own 99.4% of the mobile OS market[2] don't want to let you install apps unless they can get a 30% cut.

[1] https://webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:Preware

[2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then next time Windows is updated it re-enables all of that garbage.

When disabled via group policy, no it doesn't.

"Windows telemetry can be easily disabled", you said, but what you're talking about is the opposite of easy, isn't it?

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

!

what do you do with it?

One could still make .. how do you say, "telephone" calls?

Phones still have a lot of compute and sensor hardware that standalone apps can make use of. Heck, my Galaxy S3 can be a desktop replacement with MHL-out and USB or Bluetooth interfaces. And a lot of patience.

Re: Google sued: Idle Android eats mobile data to send telemetry and preload ads

#240

These bits of litigation are interesting, but my usual takeaway is a mild contempt for the whole thing. Whether it's something minor like this or a major antitrust cases (eg, the recent adwords EU case), what is and isn't legally actionable seems arbitrary from a non-legal perspective. Even legislation efforts like european "cookie laws" and such seem bumbling and naive. What's the legal fix to this, assuming google…

Legal remedies are almost always bad. They're really only good as a last resort. Who actually wants to spend years of their time and lots of money in court over company abuses?

The true solution is technology. We need software that blocks all kinds of telemetry and advertising while also leaving all the other good functionality intact. We simply make it impossible for them to abuse our good will in any way, their business interests be damned.

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