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Freeing My Phone from Google

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Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#21

Post by millstone »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #12
xref wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree on gmaps, especially with Apple Maps available for iOS users. Gmaps is strictly better, but not enough to balance their incentive to truly abuse that data against me.

Apple is strictly worse on location data collection than Google, so you are not solving GP's problem. The OSM apps on Android are viable options for preserving privacy. Apple Maps is not.

No. Apple is far far better.

You can't sign in to Apple Maps. Apple doesn't know who or where you are, except via a random frequently rotating identifier.

Google pushes you hard to sign in with your Google account, tracks your searches and location, and associates that data with everything else they know about you.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#22

Post by izacus »

commoner wrote: post #15
cameronbrown wrote: post #3

There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. There's simply no alternative to the amount of value these bring me. OSM is getting good but it's just not there yet. I'm working on this in my area. I'd suggest to anyone worried about Google tracking to use Privacy Guard built into LineageOS, which aims to make each and every request for sensitive permissions explicit. A big benefit of free…

Google Maps is fully compatible with MicroG, a free and open source replacement for the Google Play Services client. MicroG includes UnifiedNlp, which was discussed in the blog post. https://microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ At the moment, I recommend the previous version of MicroG (0.2.6.13280) since the latest version (0.2.7.17455) may have compatibility issues. If you're using LineageOS for MicroG, builds on…

MicroG talks to Google servers and uses Google's infrastructure while breaking the terms of service (at least in case of FCM).

Same goes with NewPipe - you're using YouTube without actually paying for bandwidth, storage costs or the video author.

So you're not actually getting yourself rid of Google or tracking, you're just using their resources without paying the asking price.

Use other alternatives instead.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#23

Post by commoner »

tarsinge wrote: post #19
cameronbrown wrote: post #3

There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. There's simply no alternative to the amount of value these bring me. OSM is getting good but it's just not there yet. I'm working on this in my area. I'd suggest to anyone worried about Google tracking to use Privacy Guard built into LineageOS, which aims to make each and every request for sensitive permissions explicit. A big benefit of free…

> There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. Did you give a recent try to Apple Maps? Just finishing a few months road trip across the US and to my surprise I vastly prefer Apple Maps for the navigation and I now default to it. While in France I can't live without Waze/Google Maps because it's so efficient to workaround congestions in real time, I found it no better than Apple Maps in…

Apple Maps would be a solid alternative to Google Maps if it were released on Android, but it's only available on iOS. The parent commenter appears to be using Android (LineageOS).

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#24

Post by izacus »

tarsinge wrote: post #19
cameronbrown wrote: post #3

There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. There's simply no alternative to the amount of value these bring me. OSM is getting good but it's just not there yet. I'm working on this in my area. I'd suggest to anyone worried about Google tracking to use Privacy Guard built into LineageOS, which aims to make each and every request for sensitive permissions explicit. A big benefit of free…

> There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. Did you give a recent try to Apple Maps? Just finishing a few months road trip across the US and to my surprise I vastly prefer Apple Maps for the navigation and I now default to it. While in France I can't live without Waze/Google Maps because it's so efficient to workaround congestions in real time, I found it no better than Apple Maps in…

Apple Maps requires you to buy a device whos content is completely controlled by a single corporation and is fully locked down by pervasive DRM.

It doesn't really fit the tone of the article.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#25

Post by nvrspyx »

tarsinge wrote: post #19
cameronbrown wrote: post #3

There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. There's simply no alternative to the amount of value these bring me. OSM is getting good but it's just not there yet. I'm working on this in my area. I'd suggest to anyone worried about Google tracking to use Privacy Guard built into LineageOS, which aims to make each and every request for sensitive permissions explicit. A big benefit of free…

> There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. Did you give a recent try to Apple Maps? Just finishing a few months road trip across the US and to my surprise I vastly prefer Apple Maps for the navigation and I now default to it. While in France I can't live without Waze/Google Maps because it's so efficient to workaround congestions in real time, I found it no better than Apple Maps in…

Instead of !g, you can use !s to use Startpage, which uses Google results, but privately.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#26

Post by commoner »

izacus wrote: post #22
commoner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps is fully compatible with MicroG, a free and open source replacement for the Google Play Services client. MicroG includes UnifiedNlp, which was discussed in the blog post. https://microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ At the moment, I recommend the previous version of MicroG (0.2.6.13280) since the latest version (0.2.7.17455) may have compatibility issues. If you're using LineageOS for MicroG, builds on…

MicroG talks to Google servers and uses Google's infrastructure while breaking the terms of service (at least in case of FCM). Same goes with NewPipe - you're using YouTube without actually paying for bandwidth, storage costs or the video author. So you're not actually getting yourself rid of Google or tracking, you're just using their resources without paying the asking price. Use other alternatives instead.

Similar arguments have been employed against ad blocking. Users should be aware of the ramifications of their software decisions, but whether someone should download and use Google Play Services vs. MicroG, YouTube vs. NewPipe, etc. is the user's choice.

From a privacy perspective, MicroG and NewPipe are much less intrusive than Google Play Service and YouTube, because the open source apps send less user data to Google.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#27

Post by sbr464 »

cameronbrown wrote: post #3

There's two Google apps I just can't live without: YouTube and Google Maps. There's simply no alternative to the amount of value these bring me. OSM is getting good but it's just not there yet. I'm working on this in my area. I'd suggest to anyone worried about Google tracking to use Privacy Guard built into LineageOS, which aims to make each and every request for sensitive permissions explicit. A big benefit of free…

Open question: Which Google Maps feature does everyone here use or value the most?

Driving/walking directions? Reliability? Traffic? Street View?

I imagine it’s a combination but curious in general what would a competitor need to master to change the conversation, if OSM isn’t there yet.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#28

Post by millstone »

devinl wrote: post #20
xref wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Android is the epitome of the surveillance panopticon. Google has every incentive to monetize that data for their ad sales targeting. Apple doesn’t. Beside that I’m a big fan/contributor/user of OSM (maps.me is my app of choice there). But if you want to go with one of the big, polished players, I chose the one that has little to gain and much to lose from abusing my personal data.

Apple's search ads are projected to be one of the largest online advertisers in terms of ads revenue in 2020 (they have larger advertising revenue projections than both snap and twitter). Device sales in general are dropping so they are expected to continue to invest in this area of their business. Given that Apple is a large organization known for their lack of transparency, I would be very surprised if they weren't…

Apple says in their "Approach to Privacy" that Maps usage "can’t be tied to your Apple ID" and that no ads can access data from Maps.

These are strong unequivocal statements. We should all be very surprised if they're outright lying.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#29

Post by cameronbrown »

izacus wrote: post #22
commoner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps is fully compatible with MicroG, a free and open source replacement for the Google Play Services client. MicroG includes UnifiedNlp, which was discussed in the blog post. https://microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/ At the moment, I recommend the previous version of MicroG (0.2.6.13280) since the latest version (0.2.7.17455) may have compatibility issues. If you're using LineageOS for MicroG, builds on…

MicroG talks to Google servers and uses Google's infrastructure while breaking the terms of service (at least in case of FCM). Same goes with NewPipe - you're using YouTube without actually paying for bandwidth, storage costs or the video author. So you're not actually getting yourself rid of Google or tracking, you're just using their resources without paying the asking price. Use other alternatives instead.

Blocking ads is ultimately irrelevant for me. I pay for YouTube Premium, however I get that most don't.

Re: Freeing My Phone from Google

#30

Post by meruru »

webmobdev wrote: post #18
ekianjo wrote: post #16

I really dislike people recommending Signal in a post about free software since Signal has a pretty bad track record when it comes to allowing non official clients to connect to its network. So much for user freedom.

Most people haven't even heard of https://jami.net/discover/ ... and that's the problem with messengers - you have to educate your social network and coax them to use the same product or you will be forever stuck with Facebook Messenger / WhatApp, iMessage et al.

Riot.im and the broader Matrix ecosystem are doing pretty well. Matrix was even adopted by the French government for internal communications.

I tried Jami when it was called Ring and I couldn't figure it out after some fumbling with the app and skimming of the website. If I can't figure it out how can I expect nontechnical people to? That was one of the reasons why I ended up adopting Riot/Matrix back then and have been pushing it since, but I'm still interested in alternative communication systems if they can bring any benefits to the table. Does Jami bring any?

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