21–30 of 452 posts
https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disabl...
How to disable personalized ads on Android:
https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-person...
It listens in on any audio and transcribes it. Probably handy for podcasts, but other things are just scary.
Maybe it's OK if Google does it, I don't really know. I dislike it, it concerns me. The device would have a transcription of audio conversations I have through apps like WhatsApp. Or it could do something useful like transcribe podcasts and hand the transcription over to the owners, so that they can publish it along with their podcasts, without Google needing to dedicate their servers to it.
But if companies like Xiaomi get this feature for free on Android 15 or 16, I know what they will use this tech for. I know what Facebook would use this tech for, and I wouldn't be surprised if they finally start to sell a cheap but powerful Android device.
With offline transcription the "your device is recording me" will get so much harder to detect, as no audio will get streamed. It will become so easy to listen for keywords like "lawnmower" and count their occurrences or their proximity to phrases like "need to buy", or "is pregnant" and stuff like that.
I don't want my devices to do this.
I mean at this point it's obvious if you're using a digital device data is going to be collected, that's part of society and living in the 21st century; could be your toothbrush, fridge, washing machine, car...All these devices generate data that is going to be collected. It's also changing how crime is investigated; Google can be asked for a list of smartphones in an area at a given time, can be used to collect evid…
" Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways." -Google This is a beautiful quote because it is an example of one industry's bad behavior leading to another industry's bad behavior, upon which the first industry then users the second's similarity to justify themselves. Cars only started doin…
For instance, I would consider it a much bigger privacy violation for my phone to transmit my exact location every hour than my current CPU usage every 10 seconds.
It’s always interesting how Android is given the benefit of the doubt on intent and that never happens with iOS.
As users, we are assured that telemetry is only for the purpose of "improving products and services", "improving user experience", etc. If one company is collecting 20x as much as another, all else being equal, one would expect that this would be reflected in the quality of the product/service/experience. Of course, Google's service is to advertisers, first and foremost. Users generally do not pay for what they recei…
Google Maps getting more precise telemetry data is actually so useful in improving the navigation experience in tricky intersections, overlapping roads, or low bandwidth areas where GPS signal and service can be spotty. I can speak from experience that friends with Android phones experience less jumpiness in their GPS location, less errors in navigation, and less of that pesky "You've Arrived" notification triggering when still far away from the destination.
What are the best alternatives to iOS and Android? Is it reasonable to consider the hardware itself "safe", given that the software tracks and calls home about every single thing it does? What are the alternatives?
If you're serious enough to use impractical solutions, you probably want a non-google Android distro: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib...
How to fully disable Google location tracking on your smartphone: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disabl... How to disable personalized ads on Android: https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-person...
Which cache is that talking about, the browser, or some system level thing? Doesn't clearing your cache break some of their fingerprinting and tracking stuff (timing side channels, etc.)? Seems kind of egregious to have clearing that simultaneously opt you back in.
How to fully disable Google location tracking on your smartphone: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/08/how-to-fully-disabl... How to disable personalized ads on Android: https://www.androidguys.com/tips-tools/how-to-disable-person...
I'd be shocked if after turning off all the settings on my phone it was impossible to track its location via some capability somewhere.