favoredponchoHow Google Tracks and Scans Everything on Your Android Device
mjrDe-googled phones exist, but they’re rooted or using a custom firmware. Usually, these phones spoof Google Play Services, replacing that layer with something called MicroG.
So root and flash your phone today!
A_norny_mousseIs that a quote from the article? I feel compelled to add that, wrt mobile devices, it is possible to live without Google Play Services.
i dont bother spoofing google play services, all my apps work without it, infact you can just disable google play services on android phones stock rom (or at least that has been my experience so far) and thats what I have done, sure gmaps embed now doesnt work but i havent needed it, my bank app works fine, whatsapp will throw a random “please enable google play services” notification once day but it works fine without any issues
RubberElectronsGot a pixel? Check out calyxos, it’s a free system upgrade that rips out anything google but allows almost everything to work, even the play store and all your usual games and bank apps.
AkasazhLiterally dead for now… Had chaos with leadership
Soon of a bitch 😓
What moron is willingly still purchasing pixels? Might as well put a livefeed camera for Google HQ in your home lol
djdarrenIf you tear out the parts that talk to Google, then the phone hardware isn’t spying on you. It’s just hardware.
The critical piece tying your phone to Google every 3 minutes is called “play services”.
Calyxos was an OS for the pixel hardware that replaced play services with a FOSS library (called microG) which tricked regular apps into thinking they were talking to and getting responses from Google, when it was actually all happening on your phone.
If you have a Pixel, then GrapheneOS is the sensible choice. Not least because it currently only works with Pixels anyway.
I absolutely do not want to run Google binaries on the phone, graphene doesn’t support microG and instead want you to run Google’s binaries on your phone, sheet sandboxed.
I hate that idea.
Does it mean that you basically cannot use apps then, which require Google Services? Or how does it exactly work there?
Currently trying e/Os and wanted to look into Graphene and Lineage to see the which one works the best. I just don’t want to use anything from google.
I’m not an expert by any means, I moved directly to Graphene after 15 years of iPhones without really touching Android in between, so I mostly scrabboed about, found a path that worked and stuck to it.
But the way I use it is with Aurora to install apps from the Play Store. You can use it anonymously, or you can log in to your own Google account.
In terms of other Google services, you can install then, whereby Graphene will run them in a sandbox. You have control over how much data they can have. For me it strikes a happy balance between knowing that I have some semblance of control, but also having the convenience of things like Maps. And Google’s camera app is much much better than any of the others I’ve tried. Which is annoying.
Ah thank you very much for enlighten me about Graphene OS, that so far the best description I have seen.
Used Aurora before on Android too.
I probably will wait until they find a way to not be dependent on Google services, as I want them to have no data at all, if I have the chance to do it.
Hopefully there will be more alternatives in the future. But we will see where it will go with Google trying to stop side loading.
tabular
This is fine🔥🐶☕🔥Google Pain Services
Not sure if typo or intentional joke
rnercleeasiest way to stop that ☞
pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.gsf pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.ims pm uninstall --user 0 com.android.vendingThis is a good tip, but what will stop working or start acting up and is this guaranteed to survive reboots, upgrades?
from my experience none of my apps broke, only get some annoying please enable google play services notifications from whatsapp, and embed google maps also breaks, suprisingly my bank app works fine, havent had any issues beyond this, survives reboots but I havent tried updates as my phone doesnt receive those anymore and the rom scene for my model is non existent
Doing this Bricked my phone.
Nope
cabbageThere are some user friendly Android based alternatives out there, since it’s based on open source. Personally I’m running a device with /e/OS, which you can either install yourself or buy a phone with it pre-installed. There are also some other user friendly options out there such as the Volla Phone.
But yeah, iOS is probably a better bet than stock Android, as Apple has a history of being abusive towards their customers in other ways than by selling their data. But crucially both Google and Apple are American companies, so you should avoid depending on their cloud services to whatever degree possible. There’s no such thing as safe data if it is stored by an American company.
/e/OS - e Foundation - deGoogled unGoogled smartphone operating systems and online services - your data is your data
ECOSYSTEMKEY FEATURESGET /E/OSNEED HELP /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled”, mobile ecosystem /e/OS is an open-source mobile operating system paired with carefully selected applications. They form a privacy-enabled internal system for your smartphone. And it’s not just claims: open-source means auditable privacy. /e/OS has received academic recognition from researchers at…
TruscapeYou’re just changing the bucket which the data is dumped into and the interface used. It’s an unfortunate reality that you need to research and be willing to take charge of your devices to proactively prevent spying.
GrapheneOS, /e/ OS, and other ecosystems are mandated to have complete data security. Google and Apple will never directly grant you the permission to turn all the data taps off.
But if a Graphene device takes a non-malicious approach to data management out of the box, can’t you just buy one of those instead of doing research and taking charge of your device to proactively prevent spying? Why not just let a trustworthy organization like the Graphene project manage it for you, instead of an untrustworthy one like Apple?
“A graphene device” doesn’t exist. GrapheneOS must be installed after purchasing a compatible device (Currently the Pixel line, but soon to be expanded to another manufacturer).
You can buy a phone that arrives running GrapheneOS. This might not be advisable, because it adds another point of trust in the refurbisher who actually does the flashing, but you don’t need to have the skills or do the research to install it yourself to get access to a device that runs it.
Google Pixel 7 | 7a | 7 Pro - Unlocked Privacy Phone - De-Googled w/ GrapheneOS | eBay
GrapheneOS improves the privacy and security of the OS from the bottom up. It deploys technologies to mitigate whole classes of vulnerabilities and make exploiting the most common sources of vulnerabilities substantially more difficult.
Yes, but that is incredibly risky and I would argue a worse proposition for one’s personal data than buying an Android device or iPhone direct from manufacturer. You don’t know if any of the underlying system software components are compromised from a reseller. If you bought a used Pixel, reformatted the storage, and installed GrapheneOS fresh, you can be confident that the OS is untampered.
I would go as far as to say buying a preinstalled device would never be a good idea for any individual looking to use GrapheneOS. The tutorial for the installation is confined to a single webpage. People should learn to read the instructions and use the validation tools on GrapheneOS’s site.
i’d say so. i was a professional Android dev for years, and security and privacy are definitely one of the reasons i prefer iOS. i don’t have time to play with my phone so much for my personal device. Apple is the lesser of 2 evils since their business model doesn’t depend on this kind of tracking (even if they do it as well albeit to a lesser extent)
Alphane MoonTheir service line was growing much faster than hardware, it is a big part of their business. So their business model does depend on data collection.
You’re talking about services? That’s like Apple Music, TV, iCloud storage, etc. That’s different from Google scanning your emails to extract purchase information from order confirmations, logging all search activity, etc.
I am just curious, have you ever read Apple’s privacy policy?
What makes you think they don’t log your searches?
Apple doesn’t have a search engine
DrDystopiaLet me install some software on your devices and I’ll show you how to track searches without operating a search engine.
So have you or have you not read the Apple privacy policy?
Where did I say Apple has a search engine? I said Apple tracks and logs your searches.
If you think there is something to cite in the privacy policy, go ahead and cite it. It’s not my job to make your argument for you.
In reality, I think you’re being deliberately obtuse because you want to defend Google’s business practices for some reason. You’re conflating the way Google collects sensitive user information for the purpose of advertising in every single one of its products, including from non-Google apps and webpages with some technicality around verbiage in a privacy policy, which you have not even cited yourself.
Google, Apple, Meta it’s all the same to me. I don’t do fandom for oligarch conglomerates. I am not from North America.
In reality, I think you’re being deliberately obtuse because you want to defend Google’s business practices for some reason. You’re conflating the way Google collects sensitive user information for the purpose of advertising in every single one of its products, including from non-Google apps and webpages with some technicality around verbiage in a privacy policy, which you have not even cited yourself.
All right, all right! It’s all a big conspiracy to protect Alphabet and discredit poor little Tim Apple.
You got me partner. It’s all technicality in their privacy policy!
Yes, but Graphene is even better. The downside is that Graphene doesn’t currently support non-Google devices.
Looking just at location… Apple is actually better at location tracking precision than Google, and you can’t turn it off (even powering off your phone doesn’t shut it off). Disabling location services doesn’t prevent the data collection by Apple, it only blocks apps from using it.
Apple is probably better at not sharing your data with others than Goolge, but that’s a position of faith, not fact. If you trust Apple and are diligent about blocking location access to 3rd party apps, it’s better. But you should expect that if you’re giving location access to a free app (like Google maps, a weather app, a ride share app, a streaming app, etc.), you can bet they are selling your location data.
The last time I read the Apple privacy policy it sounded like they pretty much collect everything and let themselves share this data with whoever they feel like.
There was a lot of calming language, but it didn’t sound convincing to me.
That being said, if you like the Apple ecosystem and UX, it’s a solid option.
I personally believe their statements about privacy are nothing more than PR.
The only reason they dont share it with other apps, is because from a capitalist standing point, why the hell would you share information you want to sell?
Them being the only one having access to a billion peoples location data is why they are the richest company.
They very much do dell, and they very much share that data with the government they also pay a shitton of money in donations for ball rooms.
FWIW, from my last reading of their privacy policy, they openly stated that they do share PII with other companies who they consider to be their partners.
They claim that they don’t share PII with third parties “for their marketing purposes”.
That being said, you’re at the mercy of their definition of “partner” and interpretation of “for [the third party’s] marketing purposes”.
I should honestly just re-read their privacy policy (and the same for Google and Meta).
AFAIK google doesnt share your data that much outside of being very permissive to law enforcement, their main thing is advertisement, kinda of a indirect sell, as in it is your data that brings value to their advertising since thats how they do their extremely invasive targeted advertising
This is the correct comment. Google sells access to user data, not the data itself.
ripcordNot much I suppose. At least in case of Google, it’s governed by a single policy.
☂️-The article seems to go directly from “this piece of software talks to all the sensors and isn’t well sandboxed” to “Google has directed this software to profile and surveil users” without actually providing evidence to support that leap. Is Google Play Services sampling your location so that it can send it in to Google HQ, or so that it can detect if the device has been stolen by the cops and activate anti-theft mode to protect the user’s privacy?
If we can actually show mismanagement of user data by Google Play Services, we need to shout it to the hills, because those sorts of scandals are important arguments for increased privacy protections. But we need to actually find that mismanagement occurring, not just assume it must be because Google wrote the code and it isn’t open source.