I hope fanboys don't start defending Apple / Google for their privacy measures etc. (esp. Apple) Both platforms are notorious (Apple more so due to its closed nature imo) and defending any is just weird.
The difference is, with a good number of Android phones, you can just flash a custom rom without any tracking built in.
Let’s leave it at “there are android phones”. Unfortunately it is not at all supported for the majority of phones, and for the ones where it is possible, it will result in eg. the purging of camera firmware.
Note that this study and the other one from earlier this year predate iOS 14.5, which introduced the “ask not to track” prompt that disables the operating system-provided unique identifier.
there has been a couple of studies demonstrating that basically is a useless feature, even worse, some apps track more when you "ask to not track". https://blog.lockdownprivacy.com/2021/09/22/study-effectiven...
What they want to do and what they actually can do are two different things. Facebook is one of the biggest trackers in the world. But when even FB was dealt a huge blow after iOS 14.5, I don’t think other apps could fare much better.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-14/facebook-...
I'm not going to debate the conclusion of this paper, but keep in mind if you pick Android, it's still very important to pick the brand correctly. When you open the Clock app on Xiaomi phones, the first thing you see is a privacy policy you need to accept (!). Samsung might be better on this. I saw quite a few people on other websites (not HN) who said they switched to Android after Apple's CSAM thing, but put little…
Flash Lineage OS without GApps, use microG if necessary. That will be miles better than either stock Android or iOS. Sure, that isn't really general user-accessible, but I'd expect it to be pretty easy for the general HN reader.
Or use Pinephone if you want "actual" privacy. Librem 5 is an alternative as well, albeit an overpriced one.
> you can have the best of both worlds and own an Android phone and an i0S device If you truly need privacy and control then the right approach is to have neither of them and consider a GNU/Linux phone (Librem 5 or Pinephone).
That is if you not care about usability and security.
That is if you not care about usability and security.
Security is in principle the same as in desktop Linux, which is not bad at all. See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... Usability suffers indeed, but the software updates will never end and it is improving rapidly.
Security of desktop Linux is unfortunately in the laughable category for the most part, with very few distro enforcing even the basics of SELinux/AppArmor.
Even then, every program runs under your user account with no more fine-grained permissions, meaning any program has the ability to send your browser cache/ssh files/photos whatever to wherever it wants, or just simply encrypt them.
Security is in principle the same as in desktop Linux, which is not bad at all. See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque... Usability suffers indeed, but the software updates will never end and it is improving rapidly.
Security of desktop Linux is unfortunately in the laughable category for the most part, with very few distro enforcing even the basics of SELinux/AppArmor. Even then, every program runs under your user account with no more fine-grained permissions, meaning any program has the ability to send your browser cache/ssh files/photos whatever to wherever it wants, or just simply encrypt them.
You are not wrong, but the security of Linux relies on FLOSS and community verification, which generally work better than the security of app stores, which are full of malware.
Security of desktop Linux is unfortunately in the laughable category for the most part, with very few distro enforcing even the basics of SELinux/AppArmor. Even then, every program runs under your user account with no more fine-grained permissions, meaning any program has the ability to send your browser cache/ssh files/photos whatever to wherever it wants, or just simply encrypt them.
You are not wrong, but the security of Linux relies on FLOSS and community verification, which generally work better than the security of app stores, which are full of malware.
And that is indeed effective in that malicious programs are almost nonexistent, but I think it oftentimes does give a false sense of security, as attacks not only happen through a malicious program, but through a buggy
ones that has to handle some potentially malicious data. Eg. a PDF reader, browser, etc while being written completely in good faith can easily compromise a system through a memory leak, that a clever hacker exploits. And with the over abundance of C programs in userspace for no sane reason in Linux land, it is not a far fetched idea how someone could hijack a process with a simple bug.
One thing you have to consider when debating i0S versus Android in the context of privacy is: you can have the best of both worlds and own an Android phone and an i0S device (if you can afford that, and I'm aware many citizens in third world countries don't have the luxury of owning two phones). It's like the old Chrome versus Firefox debates that happen every other month now on Hackernews & Reddit. I own a Chromeboo…
> you can have the best of both worlds and own an Android phone and an i0S device This is something I’ve been wanting to do! I’d love to own an iPhone and Android so I can get the best of both worlds. Does anyone have any suggestions going this route? Ideally I’d like to keep a single number that can be used on both devices and I can just decide myself what device I want to drive for the day.
I recently got a pixel 3a for $83 on Amazon and loaded up CalyxOS. I swap sims back and forth and (re)register Signal on the device I’m using at the time. I also use MySudo on each for my burner numbers. Works well and I get to try out Android. I’ve had an iPhone since the 3g one I think, and was an active iOS developer since iOS 4. I can really say I like both systems.
Nice, but that doesn't really address the plethora of other privacy/security concerns that Protonmail has server-side (like their IP logging which they claims never happened).
Please don't pollute the debate with incendiary inaccuracies. They said "by default, we do not keep any IP logs which can be linked to your anonymous email account." It's always been clear that if they were compelled to do so by law, they would have to comply and that's what happened.
They shouldn't give themselves the faculties to even do that. Mullvad refuses to implement anything that could identify their clients, I guess it was my fault, since I considered Protonnmail to be among them as "one of the best".