Always mind blowing. I recall a video from Copperhead showing the difference between a gApps enabled phone vs no-gApps.
Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
71–80 of 377 posts
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#72I 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 t…
I don't agree regarding your flip phone comment, that's silly. I don't use any form of Google Play Services (No OpenGapps or MicroG even) and my phone works completely fine.
The only thing that doesn't work is push notifications, which isn't a problem because FOSS apps like Signal bundle their own notification system that does not use Google Play Services. Discord however, does not get push notifications (which I wouldn't want anyway)
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#73And yet we have articles that say iOS is similar if not worse and people pile in to “both sides” it (1). Why is it I feel it’s clear that fundamentally iOS favors privacy (for profit) and Android eschews it (for profit) yet it’s somehow debatable still? (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28819318
Do you have any evidence the iOS operating system is better in any significant way? The article you linked focused on the apps available in the store, not the phone OS itself (which is what this article is about).
Apps draft off what the OS allows, iOS keeps adding features at the OS level (do not track, “app tracking health” metrics, advertising opt out, etc). At best Android grudgingly offers some of this after the fact, at worst does what this article offers.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#74And yet we have articles that say iOS is similar if not worse and people pile in to “both sides” it (1). Why is it I feel it’s clear that fundamentally iOS favors privacy (for profit) and Android eschews it (for profit) yet it’s somehow debatable still? (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28819318
iOS collects and transmits all MAC addresses on the local network even with location services off, there is no way to disable this:
> iOS shares with Apple the handset Bluetooth UniqueChipID, the Secure Element ID (associated with the Secure Element used for Apple Pay and contactless payment) and the Wifi MAC addresses of nearby devices e.g. of other devices in a household of the home gateway. When the handset location setting is enabled these MAC addresses are also tagged with the GPS location.[0]
[0] https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
So the answer is clearly that while they are both bad for privacy with the default configuration, some Android devices provide more control over the device and thus options for disabling telemetry.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#75I 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.
The only limitation is push notifications, which isn't a problem because FOSS apps like Signal bundle their own notification system that does not use Google Play Services. Discord however, does not get push notifications (which I wouldn't want anyway)
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#76Feeling quite smug about switching to CalyxOS earlier this week.
Can I expect CalyxOS to support the Pixel 6 rather soon? Is e.g. camera performance dependent on closed source Google code/firmware? What are the limitations there?
I was going for GrapheneOS, but tbh seeing that one main developer's personality issues turned me off big time. I don't care about technical advantages, if I have to trust in that guy's impulse control. Too small a project for that.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#77A 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 rath…
Yep MicroG is the route I'm going on Pixel3a I just bought. You don't need to sign into any Google services to use them. For now I'm just using maps. I found a nice Reddit article on de-googling even more as well. If you install OpenGapps you might as well forget it-
https://www.reddit.com/r/fossdroid/comments/clg2ca/how_to_de...
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#78And yet we have articles that say iOS is similar if not worse and people pile in to “both sides” it (1). Why is it I feel it’s clear that fundamentally iOS favors privacy (for profit) and Android eschews it (for profit) yet it’s somehow debatable still? (1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28819318
How anyone can say iOS favors privacy with a straight face after the CSAM debacle is beyond me.
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#79it'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 ciph…
You are correct. I have the same experience often.
*siphon
“The Usual Suspects”, Keyser Söze
Re: Android phones are sending significant amount of user data with no opt-out [pdf]
#80I 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…
I hope you have recurring donations setup for all these FOSS apps. FOSS still means that developers need to eat.