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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

#301

Post by izacus »

ignoramous wrote: post #241
as-j wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before everyone grabs their pitch forks....as someone who does telemetry tracking devices, 350megs/mo is pretty easy to do and send nearly 0 data, if you do it wrong....let me explain: TLS connection setup is ~10k so if do an 1 HTTPS call/telemetry that's 48 calls home/hour. (11,600/10k = 1,160 https connections/day. There's 1440 minutes/day) Of basically calling home every minute and sending not much. Ok calling hom…

That makes me wonder if its Google Play Services (mandatorily preloaded into every Android device) that connects frequently / keeps a connection idle to support things like Push Notifications?

Yes, it's the Play Services which handles push notifications and quite a bit of other APIs bound to Google servers as well (e.g. Nearby, Maps API, etc.)

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

#302

Post by green7ea »

alok-g wrote: post #165
green7ea wrote: post #53

I recently got a new phone and the battery life doubled once I disabled all the default permissions on google apps. I knew they were consuming battery but that's a lot.

Can you please share more details. I would like to replicate.

If you could replicate that would be very interesting since a single datapoint doesn't say much.

Brand new oneplus 8T and I was getting ~1 day of battery life with about 3-4 hours of use. I never enabled any google services and that was the default configuration.

I went app permissions and disabled everything that I was able to disable. The only apps that had default permissions always enabled were google services. The battery day is now ~2 days with slightly heavier use and the display running at 120Hz instead of the default 60Hz.

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

#303

Post by nunodonato »

29083011397778 wrote: post #300
nunodonato wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same with me. I'm buying a new phone soon due to mine being too old and slow. Librem seems like a great choice, even though it still has a quite good share of bugs... but I need to support this effort. It's sad the lack of alternatives

> I'm buying a new phone soon due to mine being too old and slow And you don't think this is related to Google Play Services constantly running in the background, searching for networks, location, open & installed apps, and OS metrics, per the linked article? Reading through r/BlackBerry, it seems my KeyOne is only useable because I've disabled Google Play Services - otherwise it would be dramatically slower with muc…

I might give that a try... I dont use any google services except maps, but there are easy alternatives to that. thanks for suggestion

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

#304

Post by baybal2 »

foresto wrote: post #281
baybal2 wrote: post #272

Very simple way I know that not many people know: Download a cert from offending Google servers, and blacklist it in Android. The TLS library on the Android will then block it

This is a neat trick; thanks for pointing it out. Just keep in mind that Google may have a sizable pool of certificates in use across their various servers, and they may rotate them on whatever schedule they like. Keeping up could become a chore.

An option: block the root cert

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

#305

Post by BlueTemplar »

411111111111111 wrote: post #243
BlueTemplar wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, right, I confused median with '1 dollar per day' extreme poverty line : https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty Which should be around 5% these days. > Second, people living in those countries aren't buying US data plans at US prices are they? You don't live in the Congo but shop for your data plan at a California strip-mall, do you? Ok, so what are these prices ? https://www.cellularabroad.com/packages-congo.…

I pay 19.99 € for 10gb and unlimited G3 after (Germany). It varies wildly between countries. I know some eastern nations that have 50gb G4 for 10-15€, which is about as much as you'd pay for 1 meal in a pretty cheap restaurant.

You consider Germany and eastern (Europe?) to be third world nations ??

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

#306

Post by aitchnyu »

lanfeust6 wrote: post #190
luord wrote: 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.

The brick wall I noticed was MS Outlook and Teams on Android didnt let me copy paste text to any non-MS app, other apps just got a plaintext error message. To open any link, I had to install Edge for Android. The phone also has policies enforced by MS Intune. How will a new player break into this market?

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

#307

Post by samoa42 »

nunodonato wrote: post #303
29083011397778 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm buying a new phone soon due to mine being too old and slow And you don't think this is related to Google Play Services constantly running in the background, searching for networks, location, open & installed apps, and OS metrics, per the linked article? Reading through r/BlackBerry, it seems my KeyOne is only useable because I've disabled Google Play Services - otherwise it would be dramatically slower with muc…

I might give that a try... I dont use any google services except maps, but there are easy alternatives to that. thanks for suggestion

> I dont use any google services except maps

you may have gotten that wrong

'google play services' is software package (app) that sits between the os (android) and the (other) apps. it provides a lot of middleware like maps and push-notifications. it has grown in power to the point that an android phone without them is pretty much pointless, hence micro-g tries to substitute.

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

#308

Post by Closi »

AsyncAwait wrote: post #42
Closi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It got the market multiple vendors, Apple is the only manufacturer for iOS and Android is the only option for all other manufacturers.

Right. But as a proponent of open devices, neither Google/Android nor Microsoft got me there, because their policies were similar towards the customer, if anything MS was leaning heavier towards the walled garden approach of iOS. So what did the existence of a third player with identical approach bring?

> So what did the existence of a third player with identical approach bring?

Like I said, competition with Android. Not just for consumers, but for manufacturers too.

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

#309

Post by slothtrop »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #235
lanfeust6 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Based on other reported experiences which may be inconsistent.

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

#310

Post by hakfoo »

fuzxi wrote: post #283
dimator wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying this, and let me tell you, the user experience is absolutely terrible. The Play store and what it gives you is incredibly hard to live without, unless you really just want to use your phone for texting, browsing, and calling. If you're a minimalist, then great. If you're accustomed to what a smartphone can do, not so great. The alternative app stores are full of unimpressive, small scale apps. Dozens…

>no maps apps (of worth) OSMAnd >no yelps, no IMDb What do these apps provide that the mobile sites don't?

My guess is that some sites identify a mobile browser and deliberately cripple the experience to promote "download our app to see more."

In particular, I seem to recall if you landed on Yelp, a lot of content was "here's 150 pictures, but you can only see 3 on the browser."

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