Sorry to post my shitty neofetch to this community
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2023
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Google "Only spy the web" is highly inaccurate...they are everywhere. In every website, in your android phone, in your YouTube, in your Google drive, in your email, in your Google maps...
Anyways... I will calm down now. :)
In your car, your TV, your network, your dns.....
Everywhere.
They are even part of paying for the massive underwater cables between continents that all internet traffic runs through.
They took everything over.
It's the most extensive surveillance network in the world.
Literally 1984.
Except that instead of an authoritarian government using it to totally control the learned populace, they are showing you ads.
We've still got a way to go before 1984. If it did happen, you wouldn't be able to discuss it.
To be fair, Google does release data to governments so I guess it's both.
Used to be a joke, now its a journey.
Literally 1984
Who is accessing the cables/data has never been more important, it's literally the difference between being in or out of reach of the law.
It's cute, people think their android os isn't collecting an embarrassing amount of data. Even if you turn everything off but cellular, it still phones home with cellular tower triangulation, app usage, call history, general web activity, weather the phone thinks your walking driving or riding a Bike, device diagnostics, etc.
Yes but we do what we can.
demand compensation we should be paid for it
Once a month google sends me this email. "Your timeline".
It's a map with this line drawn on it showing everyplace I went that month. Home to work to the grocery store to my dealer's etc.
Why are they showing this to me? Is it an advertisement of services? A brag? A threat?
It's a smidge disturbing.
For me, it is useful. At the very least, such a blatant display of tracking information means people will know about it and disable it if necessary.
It should be an opt in feature, but it has helped me a couple times. I got beat up pretty bad after leaving a bar and couldn't remember anything about the night, was able to retrace my steps from the google stuff.
It is opt in. someone didn't read.
Oh that's spooky. What phone do you have? I was almost gonna say that it's likely a pixel thing, but I have one too, so idk why they would brag with your data.
Its baked into Google Maps.
And if you try to revoke their spying access on a rooted stock device, they force a reboot ☹️
Hence GrapheneOS sandboxing the Play Store. It is ironic that Google is the only phone manufacturer that allows for installing a different OS. But I suppose the fact that GrapheneOS has pushed security updates that have made it into stock Android and the fact that most users won't bother installing an alternative OS on their pixel phones is why they allow such shenanigans.
I use rooted LineageOS on my 4a 5G, though I do still have GApps on it. Next phone I buy I'm thinking I'll give GrapheneOS a try. Leaving behind my rooted system level adblocking would be difficult for me though.
I stand correctted then. Please tell me a few of these other manufacturers!
I stand very corrected. My apologies for not investigating this further before posting. I suppose i should rephrase my previous comment as:
I find it ironic that Google allows its flagship product to be rooted with an OS dedicated specifically to limiting data harvesting of Pixel users.
@z3rOR0ne @somedaysoon
I don't do Android development, but I would imagine rooting makes it easier to test things, as you wouldn't have to rely on ADB all the time.
@somedaysoon @z3rOR0ne
With Samsung these days, it's usually impossible to root without some sort of exploit on US models unfortunately.
Pinephone is the obvious one, BUT! Have you heard of FairPhone? These things also make it easy to install other operating systems on them. Also Beter for the climate ig.
Can users who use Google Fi switch too? Will call screening still work?
I use alternative for all google services.
YouTube - piped.video
Google drive - Mega Drive or Anonfile
G-Mail - Proton
Google Map - OSM (Open Street Map)
It would be fun if some government required companies that off free services to disclose how they make money and allow each user to see their particular value. This might help open some eyes....
open their eyes to what? the fact it costs money to run a service? its either some data mining or everything costing a helluva lot more. and im sure youd complain about prices too.
A universal claim only takes one case to disprove, and I'll be that case: you're wrong. I actually seek out the pay services and cut out the "free" ones.
My real complaint is when the huge companies offer a paid plan, but then still try to double dip and abuse my data and I. So I leave for the smaller guys who have an actual reputation to protect and so have garnered some trust. The hard part are things like google street view, or youtube, where competition is way behind due to the sheer inertia that incumbents have (e.g., creators using youtube due to the huge potential audience).
Other thing hard to ditch for me is android, as I really don't like how tightly locked down apple's walled garden is - not being able to run real firefox with my choice of extensions is a showstopper for any mobile platform.
And not just google stuff, the big companies are for sure in exchange so if you do something on instagram, google will know it for sure.
Therefor im trying to step away from google, here are my alternatives to the google services:
Google drive -> Nextcloud Gmail -> Tutanota Youtube -> (im still using this) Maps -> Open Street Map Authenticator -> Aegis Chrome -> Librewolf/Firefox Passwords -> Bitwarden
(All of these alternatives are just my own preferences and what I daily use)
For youtube, there's libre frontends like newpipe and piped (but of course you are still using youtube)
Sure, but all of those, except the phone (and TV mentioned in another comment), are part of the web.