As the title say, I have 2 android phones , both factory reset and logged in with google accounts. Checked the dns logs on both-

Phone 1 connects to google server but is minimal

Phone 2 is going bonkers, connecting to google server , xtracloud server etc.

Phone 2 battery drops 5% in a hour and phone 1 doesnt drain at all.

Which bring me to the conclusion that phone battery draining has something to do with google accounts as phone 1 google account has fake name and details but other has real name and also a phone number linked to that account.

Please feel free to correct me. Thanks

Recently got a Galaxy 4 smart watch gifted, but I am continuously getting barraged with (repeated) permission requests and hit with restrictions on features due to not granting certain permissions.

Is there an alternative that fulfills the following requirements:

• respects my privacy by both, not storing my data on their servers and not selling my data, both health and identity data.
• works with Android, i.e. Is not restricted in use by using Android as the Galaxy 4 apparently is.

I mainly want to use the watch to track sport sessions, basically just for running.

Are there any tips on how to keep my peace of mind when dealing with smart watches? Things to keep in mind, etc?

Thanks in advance!

Title basically. I want to know what are the differences and which is the best in terms of privacy. Also, F-Droid says that Fennec tracks your activity, is it true?

I have a network-wide pi hole and I noticed that it requested activity.windows.com, a url blocked by my pi hole, even while my pc is suspended. I pinged 10.0.0.217 and it is currently unreachable. So, somehow, windows pc’s turn on networking, phones home, and turns off even while suspended.

Creepy behavior

Sorry for the poor quality / lack of screenshot, this is from my work computer which I isolate from my personal devices, so I just took a picture.

I've been using skiff. com for sometime, as they claim to be a fully privacy preserving app suite like GApps or proton. One thing I like is they provide 10GB storage even for free accounts, where proton eventhough much bigger provides only 500MB.

But that got me wondering... Are they trustworthy as proton? Is there a chanve they end up being a honeypot? Does data actually gets encrypted before sending to the servers in a trustworthy way?

I hear many people say that the Google Pixel is good for privacy, but is it?

I'm asking this because I find it weird, of all the companies, Google having the most “privacy”.

Looking for a note-taking app, preferably that I could use straight from a browser. I’m currently using Standard Notes. Not sure if that one is any good, but E2EE and open-source which at least checks those boxes. I don’t store anything too sensitive and I don’t need a whole bunch of features, though I suppose I’d use them if they were available.

I’m honestly not too picky but maybe discussion here could help someone else out who may be looking for the same thing with higher expectations? I’ll switch over to a better option if there’s something considerably better.

Thanks in advance

Yo how'd our hommie sideofburritos get old school quick access on GrapheneOS? Is this just an old version? The video's only a year old! So I'm on GOS Android 13 (aka big dumb quick access button purgatory), totally confused and totally jealous. I can only imagine an out of touch board testing a new android version and telling the developers to make the buttons bigger and dumber while they tell their managers "okay, we can do that" while they die a little inside. This is the most egregious design offense committed in the history of AOSP.

Please tell me this can be fixed with System UI Tuner or some other bullshit that doesn't kill my battery life or privacy.

I've been having a look for one but can't find any. Am I missing something obvious?

And what do you actually use? I know the answer is probably self-hosting but maybe there are other solutions for a decent privacy.

Hello, I try to keep my Debian laptop as private as possible, but for work, I need to use Windows software, so I run a VirtualBox with Windows 11. My PC runs smoothly without any issues, but I need to access my specific hardware USB ports, and it doesn't recognize them. I read that I need to install the Extension Pack, so I downloaded it, but before installing it, I get a warning message that seems to suggest I'm accepting some risk to my computer. I don't really understand this stuff, so I wanted to ask the following:

Is there any security or privacy risk associated with the VirtualBox Extension Pack?

Is there any other way to access my USB-C devices without installing it? (I've already tried selecting USB 2.0 and 3.0, but the list shows "no device available").

Thank you very much to whoever responds.

PS: Also I found this on the Internet: "The user agreement VirtualBox extension pack states of sharing a user’s data to the US govt. including the hardware information and so on. Does it make sense even if I use Tails/Whonix for anonymity?" :-/

https://privacytests.org rate Brave as the best browser.

For example, I downloaded Tor network and using it for illegal activities. Can my govt track me? Can US govt track me? I know it encrypts something but if I remember correct, FBI was able to find some Tor users before.

Note: illegal activities was for example. I'm not going to do anything illegal. I'm just planning to serve my instance with a onion address.

From a first perspective it actually looks good! I think these kind of regulation were really needed. But i would like to hear your opinions!

Online privacy: Best privacy related thing I've done is use a nickname. If I search my real name on Google, only two results show up (and my Instagram, but I deleted it) from the same site, my place in some school competition. That's it! But if I search my made-up nickname... Github, Gitlab, Reddit, StackOverflow, LocalMonero, fucking SuperTuxKart and A LOT MORE related results - basically my whole internet life. I stared using randomly generated username for each account in case my name is somehow leaked from my nickname account.

A month ago I also bought Pixel 7a and installed GrapheneOS as my daily driver. Separate accounts are AWESOME. I have account for personal use (family, photos, friends, etc.), (not basic) internet use (Lemmy, podcasts, torrenting, youtube/newpipe, etc.), google apps (maps, drive, galaxy wearable, etc.), finances (banking app, Paypal, crypto wallets, etc.), school apps (teams & ms office, Canva, etc.), and anonymous account (Tor, OnionShare, Session, Briar, etc.).

On personal profile I have "always on" VPN to my house, so anywhere I am, apps think I'm home and it's useful for public Wi-Fi-s. On the internet profile I have "always on" MullvadVPN. On anonymous profile I have "always

I use self-hosted Bitwarden. Can this de-anonymous me on the internet profile, because traffic from Bitwarden goes to my home, or will this know only Mullvad (that already knows my home IP, because it has to)?

I also switched to ProtonMail, LibreWolf, and Startpage. I self-host Nextcloud, Syncthing, Monero node, Pi-Hole, etc.

Recently I started deleting all my accounts that I don't use anymore. Now I'm pretty happy about my anonymity online.

Physical privacy & security: I weak ago I got a RFID blocking wallet. I bought it in a store where I am signed in for news and sales, and I also get a lot of cheaper things because of it. But they basically track everything I buy, where and when. And that is with all stores if you have the stores card (I only have one, because parents pay for everything currently). Does anyone know if this stores share data between each other or with someone else? I live in Europe, I know we have better privacy laws than US but it's still bad, right? I am also joined in club of students in my city - cheaper movies, skiing, tickets, etc. Is that also a privacy concern?

Payments: For privacy reasons only pay in cash, I know. What about if there is no cash option? I've heard of prepaid debit cards, but they only work in US. Is there any way for private payments in Europe? If not would something like Revolut be more private than traditional banks?

For online payments I can buy prepaid debit cards for US services in XMR. And for not US services like ProtonMail? Is there something like privacy.com (with virtual cards) in Europe?

Thank you for all comments :)