• curious_one@lemmy.ml
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    4 years ago

    Google’s Android is at least open-source and there are some vendors that try to optimize it for better privacy.

    That is misleading. There are no large vendors that offer such devices. Only option AFAIK is /e/ foundation with its 3rd party installs, but they are by no means an established player.

    • poVoq@lemmy.ml
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      4 years ago

      Try looking at it a bit less extremist. Sure there are no large vendors that go as far as /e/ does, but that is largely because most normal users do actually want to use the Playstore and some Google services. So while you are correct in some way, there are definitely vendors that load much less privacy problematic apps on their default system images.

      • curious_one@lemmy.ml
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        4 years ago

        Do you know that spying happens exactly trough Google services? You cannot have any expectation of privacy with Google services installed. Google has monopolized spying on Android by restricting APIs that can be used to spy on users (wifi/bt scans, filesystem, background processing).

        • poVoq@lemmy.ml
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          4 years ago

          Yes I am fully aware… but the context of comparing it to Apple is key here.

          • curious_one@lemmy.ml
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            4 years ago

            I saw that. I think its unreasonable to argue in favor of Google despite Apple being disastrous. The only privacy conscious option I see for smartphone usage is LineageOS without Gapps + FDroid or /e/ for less tech savvy people. Lots of tracking happens trough WiFi/BT mapping and that means you have to get rid of problematic pieces of SW stack at a pretty low level: Gapps and ditching iPhone completley.

          • curious_one@lemmy.ml
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            4 years ago

            yeah I’ve seen this research, and again I’m in no way defending Apple’s user abuse. You say that Apple spies much more identifiers which is true as per paper but is true only while using device without touching Play services. It’s measuring spying activity only in idle/startup mode of operation. I kinda doubt Google doesn’t use WiFi MAC address of phone for social/location mining. Paper doesn’t mention anything about what kind of spying happens when you start using your phone as a typical user would: mail, web, maps, YT.

            • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.mlM
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              4 years ago

              The thing is, you can degoogle/detelemetry any Android device with my known smartphone guide, without root, and any Android 9+ device fully. (Android 7/8 can be hard to do and should not be used as daily driver anyway now.)

              Can you do that with Apple device? No.

              • curious_one@lemmy.ml
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                4 years ago

                I agree with you fully on that front. I just think we should demand more than just some settings options.

                • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.mlM
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                  4 years ago

                  The answer to that, according to Apple fanboys is, do not buy Apple. That speaks volumes about Apple users and their care for privacy, security and anonymity rights.