Why YSK: Because you deserve to have peace of mind. Your privacy can mean your safety. I found out about this today, and in this comment I mentioned it and said I would make something more detailed.
I bet you heard that Google tracks you, as have I. But it’s insanely daunting to see every movement, app and thing you have interacted with on your device for the last 8 years just laid out in front of you neatly. When you add your google account on your phone(or any device), it tracks this, with a timestamp, including:
-any app you used(including Contacts, Calendar, Phone, and when you pressed your home screen button-it is regarded as Samsung UI Home etc.)
-apps you viewed on google play
-map area on maps(you don’t even have to search a specific place in order for it to get logged)
-if you called a place from maps(if you press the call button from maps to call a place and make a reservation, for example)
-images you saw and searched for on your browser
-location, video and voice notes and more
It is mentioned that if you log in on another device, it can keep track of this on that device as well.
#What can you do?
The first thing you can do is turn it off. Log on your google account, press the icon on the top right, then press on “Manage your Google Account”. On the left side you will see a panel, choose “Data and privacy”, and scroll on the center of the screen to see History settings, and press on My activity. You can choose to turn it off if you want. Make sure to stroll around to manage your advertisement settings, location settings, subscriptions and so on.
I also recommend switch to Proton Mail if you can.
#How I found out?
Recently, as you probably know, Youtube decided to be foolish(yes, more than usual) and force its users to either consume ads or buy Premium, blocking you after three viewed videos if you use any form of ad block. I said ew, no. Let’s use yt clients that don’t scrape your data and allow you to have privacy and no ads, it’s about time I jump ship.
I didn’t want to have to manage every subscription and videos in playlists manually(it would take days). I wanted something for my desktop, and I stumbled upon FreeTube. They have a guide that tells you how to export subscriptions and videos, the whole thing.
Following the instructions, I inevitably stumbled upon my managed data. It’s a weird feeling seeing all that was. I vaguely remember how I felt in those years, but I never thought I would see what I was doing or what app I was using then. Inevitably we forget some trivial things in our lives, but this is what gets to be remembered, and this is the proof that we existed. It’s strange.
Ending note: I assume most people here probably already know this, but I just wanted to pass this along for awareness purposes. I knew that I wanted to have random stats at the end of my life to like, review and read, but not like this.
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eh, i realized a long time ago than the only privacy that exists is between your ears.
it’s possible to have privacy with technology, you need to use alternatives
Yeah it’s just hard sometimes. I try to strike a good balance between privacy and not making my life waaaay harder.
people who care about privacy are trying hard to make it easier. Hopefully in the future privacy will be the easiest option
Not really, it’s possible to reach it online, but it comes with compromises to user experience. That’s not something most people will ever want, but everyone can easily minimize the data being collected about them without harming user experience.
Turning off your history in Google is about as useful as using the incognito mode in Chrome. It just hides it from you, but you can be sure Google is keeping their own copy. Don’t use Chrome, gmail, Google docs… Use custom ungoogled roms (GrapheneOS, LineageOS). Switch to Linux, use privacy friendly dns, or even your own… The path to privacy is a long and arduous constant fight, full of inconveniences.
Dumb question but what are your thoughts on just using iOS
It’s closed source, so how can you really know what Apple are or are not doing? I don’t know if publicly available external audits are done on Apples software, but I doubt it.
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A very fair point. I am stuck on iOS for work but for personal use lineageOS with MicroG
The path to privacy is a long and arduous constant fight, full of inconveniences.
You got that right! Especially when rooting your phone is the best option. I never did figure it out, that shit is hard!
I don’t root my phone these days anymore. It makes a whole host of other issues with banking applications and the like, plus a nasty app might take advantage of the elevation as well. Either a full rom, or going the path of adb disabling system apps. Not pretty. Using GrapheneOS these days.
Good point! Yeah I couldn’t even unlock my bootloader on my Oneplus 😭 so i disable what apps I can these days
I don’t find magisk hard at all. Where did u get stuck?
I couldn’t unlock my bootloader on my oneplus 9 pro. I also tend to need DETAILED instructions for things, so there is a chance I missed a step and didn’t realize it. I also didn’t know that there’s a difference between rooting and running a different OS…I thought they were the same thing.
I also didn’t know that there’s a difference between rooting and running a different OS…I thought they were the same thing.
Root gives you and allowed programs special access and “abilities”, but it doesn’t change the whole OS. Why you even need root though? Tbh I was just lazy figuring out how to install microg so I root to do so. And enjoying sold QOL and a different webview in the process.
Usually the bootloader is unlocked via adb, but some phones, like ones from xiaomi, needs another step or two. I bet there are details videos on YouTube.
I was trying to degoogle and permanently remove the google shit, and at the time this model had just come out and there wasn’t much about it. I may try again on this phone when it starts to go.
I don’t root my phone these days anymore. It makes a whole host of other issues with banking applications and the like, plus a nasty app might take advantage of the elevation as well. Either a full rom, or going the path of adb disabling system apps. Not pretty. Using GrapheneOS these days.
I turned off my activity history, and I’ve noticed a needlessly degraded experience on some Google apps, like in Maps where it no longer labels your home location as “Home”, but it’s a saved location anyway.
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The biggest privacy problems are Google location services, G play services and G analytics in other apps. This approach doesn’t fix that.
/e/OS is pretty good!
While this helps… If you have any Google software, it tends to call home anyway by using hardcoded IPs into their apps. Samsung does likewise. The solution being, not only a DNS server, but also a serious firewall in the router. And, even better, a ROM you can trust, such as LineageOS.
How cN I get a copy to see ally data? While it certainly is creepy, I want to just see everything I have forgotten. So many things I’ve looked up and can’t remember when I went to find it again I couldn’t remember but I couldn’t just ask my computer. I consigned myself to knowing they were probably doing this when I bought a Pixel 2 so long ago.
I downloaded duckduckgo which blocks all the app tracking and it did shock me just how much data was being collected.
Apparently DuckDuckGo shouldn’t be trusted either
Why?
This may explain it
https://www.digit.fyi/duckduckgo-tracking-controversy-explained/
I don’t use DDG, but below your article was this one saying they discontinued their tracking agreement with Microsoft:
https://www.digit.fyi/duckduckgo-ends-microsoft-tracking-agreement/
Idk then but I remember hearing it somewhere
[https://www.digit.fyi/duckduckgo-tracking-controversy-explained/](DuckDuckGo Microsoft Tracking)
For even more counter-measures, going to plug privacyguides.org, as well as the lemmy community (and instance) that is run by the owner of the site, !privacyguides@lemmy.one
I’d hate to be that paranoid tbh
Wait until he finds out about Google Maps Timeline.
Wait until he finds out about Google Maps Timeline.
I don’t think I could live without timelines. Makes tracking hours and miles a million times easier when invoicing people.
One of the best things about it! I’m so forgetful when moving between multiple customers
I don’t think I could live without timelines. Makes tracking hours and miles a million times easier when invoicing people.
Wait until he finds out about Google Maps Timeline.
Are you using an app? Seen the multiple comments thing happen, so has me wondering if it is an app that is causing it or a certain version of lemmy.
Probably general network lags when the instance was overloaded. Lemmy seems to not handle that very well for now, be it in browser or in an app.
I was using Liftoff for some days now. I like the interface but now I see it’s somehow buggy. - responding from Jerboa
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Can u remind.me what were waiting on
Or if you are able to degoogling Is possible
Yes and I will add to this… Just degoogle your phone and slowly stop using Google services. Even this is not a perfect solution but its better than doing nothing.
I am a gmail user so I’m not in a position to preach, but I am glad that I’m not using an entire phone made by an ad company.
I want to know if the proton unlimited subscription is worth it?
I changed over to it and I am very happy with Proton. The only thing I don’t use is the new password keeper.
thank you! its all pretty confusing, I’m thinking about open source as well, AnonAddy and simplelogin seem great and being open, I would be more than welcome to donate in the near future if I come to like their work. I just find different tools for email/passwords/vpn, mildly irritating
I’ve been using AnonAddy for a few years, can recommend.
I wish they had a working API for their online storage, so I could use rclone with it to back up some stuff
It’s become very apparent that all their creepy tracking hasn’t even improved their advertising, and clearly not their AI. So wtf is their data hoarding even going to if they aren’t improving from any of it?
My moment of realization was when gdpr was introduced and I pulled all data Facebook had on me. Found call logs, every picture I had, sms conversations etc from my Sony Ericsson phone and all of my android phones. They scraped everything of every phone I ever owned and used Facebook on. Some sms conversations were from when I was 10 years old. Very strange feeling and that made me delete Facebook and over time move away from big tech in general.
I use a couple of counter measures and I am quite happy since years and hope to be as invisible as possible for tracking companies. I have a samsung phone, this is what I did:
- on your pc install adb
- when switching on the phone for the first time, dont connect to wifi, dont make or use a google account, press skip and all the fake “warnings” until you see your launcher
- download a browser apk of your liking and install it via browser
- activate developer mode for apk (you find the instructions online)
- via command line remove all samsung bloatware
- uninstall all google apps except the absolute must haves like “google play service” and so on
- go into settings - apps in your phone and deactivate all remaining google apps that you dont dare to delete via adb
- install an alternate app store via your newly installed browser
- install wireguard and setup connection to your vpn at home
- on my homeserver install pihole or adguard home to block google out completely
- set a different search engine like qwant or so in your browser
- install all the security add ins in your browser to your liking
As a result, I am almost google free, except probably for samsungs trackers. Sometimes apps or commerce websites dont work as they use google captcha or things like that.
Do you really think Google will stop storing those juicy records of you if you click a switch?
I’d trust them to stop storing it but I don’t trust them to stop processing it.
Ingest -> Train various AI models -> /dev/nullrather thanIngest -> Train various AI models -> store for future training
