Does anybody know if alternatives like GrapheneOS + microG mitigate these issues? Or should I just switch back to a 2005 flip phone at this point?
Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
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Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#62I use GraphineOS and LineageOS without Google Play Services. They are great and are suitable replacements for Apple and Google.
- Osmand(FOSS) for maps (supports being fully offline!)
- Signal and Discord for messaging (Discord is sandboxed)
- Newpipe(FOSS) for Youtube
- F-droid(FOSS) for my FOSS appstore
- APKmirror for the few non-free apps I need
- Libretorrent(FOSS) and VLC(FOSS) for watching movies
- Firefox(FOSS) and Vanadium(FOSS) for browser
- K9 Mail(FOSS) for email
- Infinity(FOSS) for Reddit
- Secur(FOSS) for 2FA
- Taskkeeper(FOSS) for reminders
Almost everything you need is in the F-droid FOSS app repository. It all works, and it works well. You can buy a used Pixel 3a for around $80 on Ebay and have a better experience in every category than iOS, hardware and software.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#63Feeling quite smug about switching to CalyxOS earlier this week.
Definitely on this boat. CalyxOS feels like it strikes a good balance between security/privacy and practical usability--the locked bootloader and app-specific firewall options are a huge plus, while MicroG ensures that I can still use every app I used to with the old Pixel-specific OS without ceding all of my data to Google Play Services.
Invariably people bring up the signature spoofing needed for MicroG as some huge security hole, but from what I've seen it's really a non-issue--CalyxOS has tight restrictions to specifically allow only MicroG to use this, it's disabled for any other app.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a Pixel. That it took a screenshot when I switched apps makes sense. It allows the task switcher to open immediately and show the most recent state of all my apps. A screenshot of some sort is mandatory for the OCR functionality that allowed me to select text from these tiles in the task switcher (super handy!). I’m now on iOS 15 on an iPhone 12 Pro Max. I think I’ve seen movement on the tiles in its task switc…
> I think I’ve seen movement on the tiles in its task switcher, so I’m not clear if it takes screenshots. In my experience, it seems like only the app you were in when you brought up the task switcher continues to update the screen. If you go somewhere else, like just back to the home screen, it goes static like all the rest.
This is correct. iOS snapshots the app as soon as it's moved into the background, and that snapshot is what you see. When you bring up the switcher, the foreground app isn't backgrounded yet — that only happens if you go to the home screen or actually switch apps.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a Pixel. That it took a screenshot when I switched apps makes sense. It allows the task switcher to open immediately and show the most recent state of all my apps. A screenshot of some sort is mandatory for the OCR functionality that allowed me to select text from these tiles in the task switcher (super handy!). I’m now on iOS 15 on an iPhone 12 Pro Max. I think I’ve seen movement on the tiles in its task switc…
As I understand it, each iOS application is sort of like its own 3D plane within a larger environment, hence why the launcher shows up without any lag. I hope someone can do the work of pasting the original Aqua framework overview that’s probably still hiding somewhere on the Apple website. The manner in which the combination of OpenGL (Metal?) and PDF work to render UI and elements on OS X and iOS is really quite re…
Compiz and all subsequent compositing managers do the same thing for Linux (each app has its own surface in the GPU and can be composited in 3D), and I believe the compositing in Windows Vista and later is similar.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a Pixel. That it took a screenshot when I switched apps makes sense. It allows the task switcher to open immediately and show the most recent state of all my apps. A screenshot of some sort is mandatory for the OCR functionality that allowed me to select text from these tiles in the task switcher (super handy!). I’m now on iOS 15 on an iPhone 12 Pro Max. I think I’ve seen movement on the tiles in its task switc…
How have you found the transition to iOS? For me, the task switcher OCR feature is absolutely killer, one of the main things still keeping me on Android. Does iOS have anything similar?
iOS 15 now OCRs text across the OS, including screenshots. So you can take a screenshot and get OCR'd text from there.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#67Does anybody know if alternatives like GrapheneOS + microG mitigate these issues? Or should I just switch back to a 2005 flip phone at this point?
It definitely helps--the vast majority of snooping comes from Google Play Services, so options like GrapheneOS + microG or CalyxOS resolve that issue quite nicely. They also have app-specific firewall abilities, so you can disable background or foreground network connectivity on any app you're suspicious of.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#68it's always amazing to me that a typical android user tells me they hate iOS because it's locked down and android is much more open -- whenever i follow up with what apps they've actually side loaded they don't know what i'm talking about, never mind about whether their phone is rooted and they're running a rom.
yet a majority of them use very expensive handsets that compete in a premium space to iOS devices and ciphen data not only back to google to to their respective manufacturers and anyone else that puts bloat on their phone -- bloat that they can't remove on their "much more open devices".
what was the silly movie that had the quote "the greatest trick the devil made was to convince the world that he didn't exist.".
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#69A distinction needs to be made clear here with regards to the data being transmitted to Google by LineageOS in this study.
In the cited paper (https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/Android_privacy_report.pd...), the device used to test LineageOS was a Google Pixel 2 running LineageOS 17.1 which also included an installation of OpenGapps 10.0 nano.
It's not the OS that is transmitting the data over to Google, but rather OpenGapps (ie. Google Play). OpenGapps is software that can be optionally installed after the initial installation of LineageOS (but before first boot). A user can still use LineageOS without OpenGapps, though they just won't have the benefits (and drawbacks) that come with it (such as being able to use apps that require GSF). The user can instead opt for an app manager like F-droid or possibly Aurora Store.
In addition, there exists an alternative to OpenGapps called MicroG. This is like Google Play but allows users the option to anonymize themselves. One can find custom LineageOS builds that include MicroG from the MicroG website (as the members of the LineageOS project do not advocate for its use, instead giving preference to OpenGapps). Keep in mind, however, that there are fewer devices supported by those builds.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#70I use GraphineOS and LineageOS without Google Play Services. They are great and are suitable replacements for Apple and Google. - Osmand(FOSS) for maps (supports being fully offline!) - Signal and Discord for messaging (Discord is sandboxed) - Newpipe(FOSS) for Youtube - F-droid(FOSS) for my FOSS appstore - APKmirror for the few non-free apps I need - Libretorrent(FOSS) and VLC(FOSS) for watching movies - Firefox(FOS…
Just bought a pixel to test lineageOS out. Worth mentioning that if you want less Google and still want to use normal Android services in the OS you need to install the MicroG lineageOS ROM. Otherwise, you're still sending Google a lot of info through Gapps or MindTheGapps.
Graphene or lineage without any of those is also an option but you'll be missing a lot of the normal everyday apps you use. IMO if you're going that far though you might as well just go back to a flip phone.