Technology

Is that a quote from the article? I feel compelled to add that, wrt mobile devices, it is possible to live without Google Play Services.

Aurora Store, Fdroid etc. Graphene or similar OS. They got greedy - now they get nothing.

me laughing in de googled phone. my phone as never had had my gmail address typed in it.

Good thing I mostly use F-Droid (because finding anything useful on Google Play is a pain)

Google Pain Services

Not sure if typo or intentional joke

I'd say that depends on exactly what you're trying to protect. They're both large American companies with control over your data and your data and metadata will end up in their respective clouds. Push notifications will be handled by Google services if you use Android, but there's an equivalent mechanism for iOS just that it uses their servers. They handle some details differently, but I don't think any of those options deserve the word privacy.

There 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.

You'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 community ecosystems are mandatory to have complete data security. Google and Apple will never directly grant you the permission to turn all the data taps off.

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)

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.

Yes, but Graphene is even better. The downside is that Graphene doesn’t currently support non-Google devices.

stock for stock, they are not much better, no.

Twinsies

I dont understand... Its describing what android does. How can that be rage bait?

Nobody will rage over any of this. Its common knowledge already. Its the same thing that has been discussed for years.

Yeah this is what passes for tech journalism nowadays

This is a good tip, but what will stop working or start acting up and is this guaranteed to survive reboots, upgrades?

Are these the only packages Google uses for this purpose?

Why would you ever give the benefit of the doubt to the largest ad company to ever exist whose entire existence and history depends on tracking user data. They literally just had too settle a lawsuit for tracking users when they said they wouldn’t in incognito mode.

There are plenty of little hints in Android that they want to enable tracking (eg. Bluetooth and exact location permissions being linked despite there being no real need to). Y’all need Graphene yesterday. And we all need a new total alternative since Apple is quickly chomping at the bit for ad income.

Part of the problem with this stuff is that the corporations using it are very hush-hush about what exactly they use it for. The privacy policy just lists what they may collect (everything) and what they may use it for (anything).

I disagree that we need to find mismanagement first.

Never mind that Google is 100% opaque from outside and is not subject to inspections by its users.

Even if Google had an open door policy inviting and empowering any and all citizen auditors, I would still disagree that Google gets the benefit of doubt by default, and only after something blows up can we begin asserting our interests.

I think we can assert our interests any time, for any reason, and for no reason at all, with arbitrary aggressiveness, limited only by our own practical considerations.

Instead of waiting for things to go wrong, we can protect our interests before there is even a chance of things going wrong.

Can.

Will we? Each person has to consider their situation pragmatically, but if they considered everything and decided to assert themselves, we would be idiots to insist Google gets the first dibs, they have the initiative, and so how dare we want to limit Google in any way without first PROVING harm. Horse. Shit.

I take the same view toward any monopolies in general. We should not bother proving harm. We should break all monopolies as a matter of principle, even if they are "harmless."

And Google shound be given as close to zero information as possible. As a matter of principle.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Is Google Play Services sampling your location so that it can send it in to Google HQ as part of a secret location tracking operation that runs without user consent or knowledge

Yes they track your phone's location and movement constantly, but it's not a secret.

For an example of the evidence you seek... Google SensorVault location data was how they identified and convicted the January 6 terrorists. You might argue that complying with warrants isn't misuse of the data, but I'd argue that both the data itself, and the level of precision and detail, shouldn't be captured and logged in the first place. And I'm fairly sure that most google customers have no idea how pervasive and extensive the tracking is.

When you open the maps indoor you get immedieate location. This is not from GPS but from Wifi and cell tower data. This is only possible because your phone constatly transmits your location and network data. You can also call it surveilance because its 24/7 logging and processing of your location data.