Ask HN: How to increase privacy on Google phones/devices?
I have a Nexus 5X and recently stumbled on My Activity and my location timeline while browsing around on my phone. Having this type of time and location data on company servers terrifies me.
It's not financially feasible for me to switch to another device (like an iPhone) right now. How can I increase the privacy of my device?
2 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 14.5 ms ] thread[1] https://myaccount.google.com/privacy
- Flash AOSP (Compiling it from source rather than a pre-compiled rom is even better)
- Install microG, a drop in FOSS replacement for Google Play Services | https://microg.org/
- Install F-Droid | https://f-droid.org/
- Install Yalp Store, an app for downloading apks from Google Play Store via F-Droid | https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=yalp&fdid=co...
- Build CAF, Chromium for Snap Dragon | https://source.codeaurora.org/quic/chrome4sdp/ and tweak as you like. I add DuckDuckGo as my primary search and also use a majority of the patches from the inox-patchset | https://github.com/gcarq/inox-patchset
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With microG and Yalp you'll be able to cover 95% of your proprietary app needs. For example, I use it to occasionally install Slack when I work remote. But remember to always use the unstable version of microG so the latest apps won't complain about your Google Play Services being out of date.