Google has no room to talk here with Android.
this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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or chromeos
Ironically a Linux-derived OS.
It's always good practice to be careful who you trust with your data. Open =/= private. More choices helps, though.
Android is very far from linux desktop. And it is private, its is google services that are bad, therefore we can have things like calyx and graphene os still be private.
Depends on how one frames it. It's not the Stallman-defined "GNU+Linux" pureblood OS, but it nevertheless is built from a modified version of the Linux kernel.
And like any OS it can be made private and secure with the right components...or it can be cracked open like a data-farming egg without them.
I guess I can just take the low-hanging fruit and invoke Ubuntu as an alternative example, which was once something of a Linux entry point but has become more than fine collecting user data.
Ironically a Linux-derived OS.
Nothing ironic about it. There's nothing mystical about Linux, it's just a kernel. The guy who made it says he doesn't care about anything but code.
Personally, I only care about the code. When I say maybe there are people who worry about walled gardens and cloud providers who take ownership of your data, I am not one of those people. That's not what I actually care about. That's not what I do. What I do is code. What I care about is code.
"derived" doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
More like "you guys have users?"
(I use Linux btw)
I was going to down vote you to oblivion but then saw you use Linux. You are allowed to diss on it then.
More like
Microsoft ... I make billions spying Google .... I make billions spying Apple .... I make billions spying
Linux .... you guys make money spying?
Linux .... you guys make money ~~spying~~?
apple doesnt make billions spying. facebook and amazon do of course too.
Apple made 4 billion in 2023 from selling advertisements on their devices. Sure, it's only ~1% of Google's ad business buts still technically billions
That’s not the same as spying. Apple famously doesn’t hand over user data to ad companies.
They are themselves an ad company though.
Yes, they do. They're just better at pretending they don't.
Facebook doesn't need to spy, the users give it up willingly.
They also spy, because just a few billion isn't enough
This is the correct answer. Facebook has third-party scripts all over the internet. I wish people would understand this — just because you’re not a Facebook user doesn’t mean Facebook (or anyone else) doesn’t track you.
I’m not sure about Facebook but tons of trackers are in apps too so the typical “use an adblocker” grumble isn’t even accurate either.
”only on the web”, …yeah right.
Who made this meme forgot about android lol
....and chromeOS
google through only the web, what a fucking joke. if you have a google account check your activity history. it will list the times you have opened an app.
if you don't have a google account but your phone has google services, don't be afraid that you can't check it, they're still harvesting it.
want to avoid it?
Step 0: don't by samsung. xiaomi neither, they plan to make you unable to execute the next step.
Step 1: unlock your phone. take ownership into your hands. but back up your photos, the 2FA Authenticator app's data and whatever else is important, because it will get deleted.
Step 2: install a privacy oriented custom ROM.
Step 3: profit
keep bank services contained in the firefox browser. if they don't allow access there, switch banks, you'll be better off with a smaller one anyways.
GrapheneOS for google pixel phones, otherwise CalyxOS, DivestOS, maybe even IodéOS. All of these are Android but with better defaults, without irremovable spying garbage, and with some features nowhere else available.
if your phone is not supported by these, check LineageOS. or plan your next phone purchase according to the compatibility list of the above. if you're going for longevity but you don't need a flagship, Fairphone is agood choice, if you can look away from the lack of a JACK.
If all else fails, you can try using whatever the lastest community supported fork of Universal Android Debloater is. It uses ADB to remove bloatware, which bypasses vendor locks on keeping certain apps installed.
Obviously no real replacement for custom ROMs, but it's better than nothing.
That's undoubtedly useful, but won't help with the google part, even if it uninstalls some google apps
I’m a broken record: block Google (or whomever) with network-based blocking (IP and/or DNS), these guys have third-party tracking in virtually every website and app.
as an additional measure, sure. but these blocks are not hard to circumvent, so it's not enough in itself
They’re not hard to circumvent, sure but then why am I so effectively blocking almost everything not tied to the “real” first-party domains?
because they don't yet circumvent it. but also, are you completely sure everything is blocked? DoT, DoH traffic and such?
Well I MITM myself quite often to confirm it. I’m also smashing together hundreds of blocklists, and I always check the network tab of my browser’s developer tools and very rarely see anything coming from third-party domains.
Sure, sometimes assets are on the actual domain I’m visiting (or its CDN) but most of the time, even tracking scripts there are broken because they still call the blocked scripts.
By the way, it’s hilarious that everyone wants to fight so hard about this yet when someone says “use an adblocker” nobody says anything as if it’s the end-all solution.
I didn’t say “I have a bulletproof, surefire way to fix this.” I said “use network-based blocking.” However effective that is is up to the person implementing it; you have no idea how effective my setup is because you don’t have access to its configuration.
Almost every B2C company I've worked at, I've written or had my devs write proxies for whatever trackers we use. The reality is that every company to whom this data matters to figure out their business model will proxy their trackers. If they don't they need to fire their lead engineers.
It's actually pretty easy to disguise this traffic even to the point where you can use the originating server/cdn to interleave the tracking with the content source.
Proxy? Is it that hard to figure out how to bundle and serve assets from the same domain? 😂
It's not about serving assets it's about hiding telemetry from adblockers, dns filters, ip lists, etc.
businesses are truly developing malware
I feel like MS and Google should be switched. Web probably has more harvestable info. Plus phones.
The OS handles all the network requests, can take screenshots, and track your eyes
But yeah Google Linux is way more popular than Windows for personal use
Phones is absolutely a valid point these days, IMO OS > web + web browser in terms of what you can get.
MS and google both know what porn you are looking at. What you buy from your PC etc... MS knows how much time you are spending playing games + has screenshots of all your encrypted conversations etc...
There are so few native desktop apps these days, it's all on the web.
And the browser can glean a lot more about user interaction than just web traffic, like where you hover, what parts of the page you're interacting with, etc.
That's why I said that (combined with phone), Google probably knows more.
But it's probably a pretty close competition
spy
Spy ON.
