7 simple things I always do on Android to protect my privacy - and why you should too
www.zdnet.com
Your personal information is highly valuable to many threat actors. Here's how to keep it safe.

Until you get a chance to leave behind Google’s Android operating system completely, here’s an article I saw with a few fairly simple things you can do that will reduce (although not eliminate) the ability of Google and others to scrape your data and monetize you.

I already do step 1 (Firefox etc). But looking at step 5, for example, my phone had all those ad options set to “on”.

  • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
    11·
    3 days ago

    The first thing(s) do:

    • Install adguard with system-wide ad & tracker filters enabled; change my DNS to a private service that also features DNS-based ad and tracker blocking.
    • Disable any google features: syncing, backup, uninstall/disable all google apps, etc.; replace with FOSS or privacy-friendly alternatives.
    • after that, it’s the process of replacing the browser, keyboard, etc.
    • agavaa@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 days ago

      I’ve done a lot of these steps, but when I tried FOSS keyboard app my bank’s app refused to work because the keyboard was"insecure", accepted Google keyboard only 🤡

      • noodlejetski@lemm.ee
        2·
        23 hours ago

        I’ve had that happen with Credit Agricole’s app in the past. it would close immediately and load a website that suggested using Google’s Gboard or Microsoft’s Swiftkey :|

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
        21·
        2 days ago

        Adguard for android (paid). It runs as a local VPN and cleans up everything, including most ads in apps.

        You can find cheap lifetime licenses for sale. I’ve been using it for many, many years.

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
            2·
            21 hours ago

            Just an FYI:

            "AdGuard servers are located in Frankfurt, Germany, and the apps do not communicate to any servers in Russia. This was a deliberate decision to keep our servers (as well as the company itself) in a different jurisdiction. Even among AdGuard DNS servers, which are supposed to be located all over the world, we don’t have any in Russia. With how things are developing, we may soon have no office there either, or have a considerably smaller one. To reiterate:

            • AdGuard apps do not connect to any servers in Russia.
            • AdGuard DNS has no servers in Russia.
            • AdGuard VPN also has no servers in Russia. The one that’s said to be in Moscow actually uses some IP address magic to present itself so, but is actually located in the Netherlands.

            Secondly, we do not condone what’s going on in Ukraine and we have expressed our opinion on this earlier. Filters maintainers, support team members, QA, developers — the war has changed lives of many people that are very important to AdGuard as a company and to me personally. Our only desire is for it to stop as soon as possible." SOURCE

            The Adguard team has been among the most trustworthy in the privacy space, and their self-hosted, and local-first services shouldn’t be casually cast aside so quickly.

          • jherazob@beehaw.orgEnglish
            1·
            23 hours ago

            Can you do ad and tracking blocking using their VPN thing? And can you turn off the VPN part leaving just the blocking going?

          • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
            2·
            2 days ago

            Yes, that’s a great FOSS alternative.

            The only reason why I don’t use trackercontrol is that I can’t use it at the same time as an actual VPN. And since I already paid for AdGuard, it’s on all my devices. 🤭