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13 votes
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Email is not broken
12 votes -
US officials are ramping up criticism of the GDPR, which they say protects cybercriminals
17 votes -
Bill requires employers to keep implanted microchips voluntary for workers
17 votes -
Apple switches to its own chips for Mac computers as it adds features, privacy controls
25 votes -
Terrible, dangerous EARN IT act set to move forward in the senate; attack on both encryption and free speech online
27 votes -
Google starts deleting location history after eighteen months, by default
12 votes -
Facebook accused of trying to bypass GDPR, slurp domain owners' personal Whois info via an obscure process
9 votes -
Scott Alexander has deleted his Slate Star Codex blog due to the New York Times planning to reveal his real name in an article
48 votes -
Oracle's BlueKai tracks you across the web. That data spilled online.
5 votes -
Andrew Yang is pushing Big Tech to pay users for data
18 votes -
Moroccan journalist targeted with network injection attacks using NSO Group’s tools
2 votes -
What's wrong with email?
14 votes -
Dating apps exposed 845GB of explicit photos, chats, and more
11 votes -
The most urgent threat of deepfakes isn't politics, it's porn
10 votes -
Privacy browser Brave under fire for violating users’ trust
23 votes -
Incognito mode detection still works in Chrome despite promise to fix
11 votes -
The great race to surrender our privacy (2019)
5 votes -
Schools turn to surveillance tech to prevent Covid-19 spread: "We are very much interested in the automated tracking of students"
6 votes -
Internet service provider Optus has been ordered to hand over the details of a customer accused of defaming a Melbourne dentist through a Google review
7 votes -
Black Lives Matter protesters aren’t being tracked with Covid-19 surveillance tech. Not yet
6 votes -
Introducing peer-to-peer Matrix
18 votes -
Employee monitoring software surges as companies send staff home
18 votes -
Grandmother ordered to delete Facebook photos under GDPR
12 votes -
Tracking the location history of military and intelligence personnel using the Untappd beer-rating app
11 votes -
New York Times phasing out all third-party advertising data
21 votes -
Introducing Signal PINs: A method of storing some account data (profile, settings, etc.) securely on Signal servers in case you lose or switch devices
16 votes -
The workplace-surveillance technology boom
4 votes -
Have you tried degoogling your Android?
In a pursuit of a more privacy-oriented mobile computing I've installed LineageOS ROM on my phone and decided to try living without Google Play Services, which usually provide aGPS (cell tower...
In a pursuit of a more privacy-oriented mobile computing I've installed LineageOS ROM on my phone and decided to try living without Google Play Services, which usually provide aGPS (cell tower geopositioning), push notifications and lots of other frameworks like Google Maps that apps use as libraries.
My phone has 4 primary uses:
- Communicator - mostly Telegram, WhatsApp and Slack. Email of-course.
- Navigator - GPS and Maps are an irreplaceable tool if you're living in a modern metropolis
- Internet browser - obviously
- Music Player - music on the go
So let's see how you're supposed to tackle each of the uses, while using as much FOSS as possible.
- System functionality - both push notifications and aGPS can be solved by microG - fake Google Play Services library. Not sure how it implements push, but aGPS is checked against Mozilla's geolocation database.
- Communications - Telegram is available on F-Droid (OSS app store), but everything else is not. The solution here is to use Aurora (Play Store front-end to rip APKs) and install them manually. Push notifications might be broken even with microG (WhatsApp is missing notifications for me, sometimes). AOSP email is fine, K9-mail is ugly but works somewhat better.
- Maps and navigation: OpenStreetMap is the obvious choice here and OsmAnd delivers the frontend. It has enough metadata for businesses to get you around, but compared to Google Maps it's can be sometimes lacking and/or out-of-date. Navigation itself is decent, but it's missing timetables for public transportation compared to GMaps, which can be a problem, especially if trains are cancelled or delayed. Overall it's very usable, almost feature complete, but I've found myself falling back to Google Maps in my browser when it comes to using public transport.
- Internet browser - Firefox, with uBlock Origin installed (yes, it works on Android) it's really good.
- Music Player - there are tons of music players available on F-Droid, you can pick whichever suits your needs. Here I actually stepped away from the FOSS and bought myself a PowerAMP license on developer's website. One of the rare moments where paid Android software is available outside of Play Store.
Now that the primary use cases are solved, let's try some other useful apps:
- E-banking? Broken without Google Play, app refuses to even start properly.
- Bike sharing? Taxi app? Public transport app? Broken without Google Maps libraries for the obvious reason. You might or might not be able to use the browser version, depending on the app.
- Reddit Relay/any app that requires the license? Okay you've ripped the APK with Aurora, but you can't buy the license to remove the ads.
- Ebook reader? Nothing good on F-Droid, have to rip something off Aurora.
Basically you have to be prepared to use your mobile browser a lot. And for some of the sites, do it in a "desktop mode" with tiny text, since the mobile version will just nag you to download the app, that might be broken.
The takeaway is simple - you give up A LOT of convenience just to cut off Google analytics (which you still might get with apps like Slack). It's certainly usable, don't get me wrong, but I still feel kind of stupid fumbling with OsmAnd when I'm out with my friends and trying to look something up. I'll probably end up going back to the stock ROM, or just installing the Google Apps. For me it was an experiment and I think I've got a general feel on how much information and use I'm actually getting out of GApps.
So Tildes, have you tried degoogling your phone? How did it go? Are you still using it?
28 votes -
Apple Store's temperature checks may violate EU privacy rules, says German data protection office
5 votes -
So this is how privacy dies
8 votes -
Welcome to the age of privacy nihilism
13 votes -
Firefox Private Relay - Generate unique, random, anonymous email addresses
33 votes -
Exam anxiety: How remote test-proctoring is creeping students out
9 votes -
Hyperdome - the safest place to reach out
5 votes -
Nearly two years after Europe's GDPR privacy law came into effect, supporters are frustrated by lack of enforcement, poor funding, limited staff resources and stalling tactics by the tech companies
10 votes -
Twitter removes privacy option, and shows why we need strong privacy laws
17 votes -
After 9/11, Americans gave up privacy for security. Will we make the same trade-off after COVID-19?
21 votes -
Thousands of Zoom cloud recordings have been exposed on the web because of the way Zoom names its recordings in unprotected AWS buckets
24 votes -
Cloudflare announces free 1.1.1.2 and 1.1.1.3 DNS resolvers that block malware and/or adult content
14 votes -
An examination of Zoom's encryption and potential areas of concern in their infrastructure, including the transmission of meeting encryption keys through China
6 votes -
Zoom's explosion in popularity is shining a bright spotlight on the service's privacy and data-collection practices
15 votes -
Mark Zuckerberg discovers privacy
17 votes -
Zoom iOS app sends data to Facebook even if you don’t have a Facebook account
10 votes -
Why don't we just ban targeted advertising?
27 votes -
Enhancements to tracking protection in Safari: full third-party cookie blocking, 7-day cap on script-writeable storage, and more
10 votes -
We need a massive surveillance program
7 votes -
What file access do programs have if I install them? Can they see everything?
I am thinking on installing League of Legends, but I am not sure about the privacy implications of doing so. If I install it, would it be able to read all the other files in my computer? If it...
I am thinking on installing League of Legends, but I am not sure about the privacy implications of doing so. If I install it, would it be able to read all the other files in my computer? If it can, can I avoid the problem by using a guest account on my computer to play? Riot's privacy policy seems to be standard as far data mining goes, but I would like to know how much it can see if install it. I am playing on a Mac.
6 votes -
Government of Czech Republic adopted tracking of infected individuals via cellular networks
5 votes -
Google wary of sharing user location data in pandemic fight
9 votes