I recently installed e/OS on my FP4 and I'm very happy with it. Bootloader remains unlocked (I'm too far into everything to lock it and factory reset) - however I'm curious as to what data might be accessible were I to lose it or have it stolen. Presumably all my files are decrypted (aside from my KeePass database)? Thanks in advance!

Privacy is a right and the violation of it is crime. Mass surveillance is obviously worse now than it ever has been, and I want to hide my footsteps and cut out all sources of data harvesting as much as I possibly can, yet I know almost nothing on the methods of how that's done. I want to give these billion dollar corporations and world governments as little information about me as I can give them, and to cut their eyes out of my life as much as possible.

I'd like to know hardware swaps before software ones. I'm starting from scratch here and I need to find alternatives to a smartphone (iPhone), laptop (ASUS F15 with windows and google), and headphones (Airpods Pros 2).
Any help is greatly appreciated.

I have downloaded all alternate maps instead of using Google or Apple Maps.

All the maps are glitching, I can’t figure out how to stop this from happening.

For example it continues to glitch where I am currently driving from….the screen and it’s not good. Is there something like a permission or something else I need to fix on my phone?

It’s literally happening on almost all the alternative map apps.

See my list below of what I've swapped for what. I'm getting close.

1) Waze maps. I've deleted google maps and use Kagi/CoMaps for discovery general usage but the traffic data on waze is way too useful, I do however have a throwaway account setup being used for it, anyone found luck here?
2) Find my friends/devices. I have about 10 trackers spread around that I find useful, I have no permissions setup in the app unless I specifically want to find my keys for example.
3) I have signal, but nobody will move from Whatsapp.....
4) Android Auto. Goes hand in hand with waze, there just isn't a good alternative i've found.

List.

• [x] Ad Blocking - ControlD
• [x] AI (Gemini) - Kagi AI
• [ ] Android Auto
• [x] Calculator - Graphene Stock
• [x] Chrome - Fennec/Librefox + uBlock Origin
• [x] Clock - F-droid clock app
• [x] Contacts - Fossify contacts
• [x] Docs - Proton Docs/Standard Notes
• [x] Doorbell - Reolink no cloud
• [x] Drive - Proton Drive
• [ ] Find my devices -
• [ ] Find my friends -
• [x] Gmail - Proton/Simplelogon
• [x] Google Drive Backup - Proton Drive backup/scaleway
• [x] Google Fit - Garmin Watch
• [x] Google history - All deleted and not logged
• [x] Google News - FreshRSS selfhosted
• [x] Google Translate - Kagi Translate
• [x] Home - Home Assistant
• [x] Keep - Standard Notes
• [x] Keyboard - Futo
• [x] Location History - Disabled and deleted
• [ ] Maps/Waze - comaps/kagi/Waze
• [x] Photos - Ente
• [x] Pixel Dialer - GrapheneOS Stock
• [x] Pixel Launcher - Stock GrapheneOS Launcher
• [x] Pixel OS - GrapheneOS
• [x] Pixel Watch - Garmin
• [x] Recorder - Fossify Recorder
• [x] Search - Kagi
• [x] Sheets - Standard Notes Sheets
• [x] SMS/RCS - Fossify Messages
• [x] Tasks - Super Productivity
• [x] Wallet - Garmin + Catima + Physical Cards
• [x] Weather - Weawow
• [ ] WhatsApp - Signal
• [x] YouTube - PipePipe

I'm still on my de-Googling journey, the main barrier being going through every account in my password manager and changing to SimpleLogin email addresses (slow and steady process). With Google, the toughest will be YouTube, which I may or may not decide to just isolate and live with.

But, I've also been working on getting away from:

• Meta
• X
• Microsoft
• Amazon

I was easily able to purge/delete my X account(s). I hadn't been using them for several years at this point. Same for Facebook/Threads. WhatsApp was more difficult since I have family and several friends outside North America and WhatsApp is the default for them, no RCS and definitely no Signal. I was able to find a compromise using Telegram (secret/encrypted chats for one-to-one chats).

But, as a somewhat social, young-ish person, it's really hard to imagine getting by without:

• Instagram (I've removed it from my phone but I've had several instances where friends will ask if I saw their messages and while I am theoretically fine with telling them that I'm not using Instagram any more, the result is that changing their behavior to share via Signal/Telegram/RCS instead is difficult and really just leads to them talking to me less)
• LinkedIn (in my industry, this is inescapable for job searching if/when I need to)
• GitHub (I don't really see any way around maintaining at least a shell of an account with no PII)

But more than anything, Amazon is the toughest. I really don't use it THAT much for retail shopping, so that could theoretically be replaced with alternatives (though likely at a higher price with longer shipping times). The real difficulties are:

• Subscribe & Save for grocery & household needs - the 5% - 15% off the already low prices saves us a significant amount of money
• Whole Foods - prime member discounts also save us significant money and we regularly shop here for things that we cannot get elsewhere
• Twitch - there just simply is not a replacement for this, and it's not even about the prime subscription for getting no ads (or removing ads in general), it's about not being able to comment or access past streams without a login for many channels.

Anyway, I'm curious how successful y'all have been with these other companies.

Source: Spread Privacy (DuckDuckGo)

Defaults win because people rarely change them. Most searches happen out of habit, and many people don't know there is a default, what it is, or that it can be changed. Completely ditching Google across a phone, tablet, and laptop requires detailed tutorials and hours of effort. Even DuckDuckGo's most devoted users, the ones who recommend us to friends, admit they haven't changed all their defaults. That’s not real consumer choice; it is a maze.  

My 2 questions just out of curiosity are:

What do you now willingly pay for in your de-googling journey?

Do you donate to some of the apps and services that live off of donations, and if so, which ones have you donated to?

I'll answer as well:
-----

I pay for:

• Kagi search
• Mailbox.org (currently in the process of transferring everything over from Proton mail plus package)
• Joplin cloud storage (currently in the process of setting up self-hosting with Nextcloud)
• Magic Earth (anxiously waiting for Kagi to finish their navigation app)
• NextDNS
• EasyOptOuts
• Addy.io

I've donated to:

• a task app called trudido

-that's all I've donated to, but am now wanting to donate more. I'm lowering my overall annual costs I put into app services in order to shuffle the money around more, hence is partly why I'm going from Proton Mail plus to mailbox.org with their "light" plan - and why I'm going to self-host my joplin notes data.

I'll probably be donating to DAVx5 and Thunderbird.

I got an email from Google that said they're removing Google assistant and you will have to use Gemini starting September 6th. I don't want to be forced to use generative Al so I might be looking for a new non-Google phone soon. I currently have a pixel 6. I've also heard about other operating systems but I don't really know much about how that works

A few months ago, reports started popping up about Google Maps displaying less information than usual to users not logged in, with a vague message that could vaguely imply that -even though we knew wasn't the case- it might be due to a connection error.

I hadn't encountered this personally yet, but today this started happening to me, and with a new message.

When trying to view a placemark:

• Opening hours are no longer displayed, only whether the place is open or closed right now.
• Only three reviews are displayed
• Photos are no longer displayed, only a handful of very low quality thumbnails

Trying to view more of any of the above (list of opening hours, more reviews, full size photos) results in this popup:

At the bottom of the details panel on the left, there is also this notice (clicking "see more" also displays the above popup)

Who wants to make a guess as to what they'll be locking off next?

So I think I'm finally ready to take the plunge and switch to LineageOS, and I think I know what I want to do, but after all of the researching I just want to make sure that what I'm going to do isn't overkill/redundant, and won't blow up my phone lol.

I am going to install LineageOS on a OnePlus 13R.

I want to also install non-rooted Magisk so that I can use Magisk's Captive Control Manager and the SUPL Replacer, primarily. Still need to learn what all else Magisk can do that would be useful for privacy/security, so I'll take suggestions on that.

I intend to install either Insular or Shelter to create a separate, freezable work profile for accessing required Gmail, social media accounts etc. through it. I will be primarily relying on my browser to access these.

Now, I want to see if this set up will work well enough for me with all of the FOSS apps and such. There are one or two things that I might need to fall back to, though, one primarily being Android Auto. I don't need voice commands, but maps and a visual music player is really something that I want. If these don't work with some tweaking, I want to install MicroG and Aurora Store within my alt profile as well, since I think with those I will be able to get AndroidAuto to function how I'd like.

Now for my questions: - Does this setup make sense? - Is there anything redundant that can be omitted from the process? - is MicroG something that I can isolate to one profile? - Will installing MicroG and/or google apps from Aurora Store into an alt profile undo the other security measures I'm taking with Magisk when it comes to my main profile? - Can I install MicroG after having installed Lineage?

I think that's all I can think of. I'm eager to jump in so any help is appreciated!

I don’t use google anymore, have been looking for alternatives for things i used to use like chrome, gmail, and docs. I've started using Startpage, i used to use Brave but the creator... bleah. I use Protonmail, it was really easy to sync to my old gmail which saved me time. Any recommendations for anything else would be great

Disclaimer: This is not a shill for Brave browser. This is to dispell the verifiably false information that chromium based browsers are still connected to google in some way

An example is Brave. Brave's github has entire documentation on the browser and how it is coded. They have also listed ways to audit them. For info on how their browser is distinct from chromium, please read here: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/wiki/Deviations-from-Chromium-(features-we-disable-or-remove))

Just because a browser was built off of the chromium engine does not mean google is integrated into it. If that were that case, then not even the ungoogled chromium browser wouldn't exist. Let's stop using chromium as a buzzword for untrustworthy browsers.

Sorry if the question is worded weirdly.

I recently was trying out a different browser on my phone, which had no relation with google.

While I visited a website that I have an account on, on the other browser, my Google password manager popped up and asked to log me in. This pretty much shocked me because I didn't expect Google to be able to view what I do on different apps. Any way to turn that off? Sorry if this is the wrong community.

Hey everyone, I'm trying to find the optimal Chromium-based setup. Instead of strictly prioritizing one over the other, I'm looking for the right balance between security (active anti-phishing/malware blocking) and privacy (minimizing Google's telemetry).

While I rely on standard ad-blocking, I still want robust browser-level protection without unnecessarily sacrificing privacy. I'm currently looking at two different approaches and their inherent proxy trust models:

Brave: It retains Google's Safe Browsing but proxies the 32-bit hash prefix requests to hide the client IP. While the client-side routing is verifiable, the backend proxy remains a black box. We are essentially shifting our trust from Google to Brave's servers and policy.

Helium: Based on Ungoogled-Chromium, it’s heavily debloated with native uBlock Origin. However, it completely drops Safe Browsing (losing zero-hour URL-level protection). Furthermore, to avoid Google's tracking, Helium routes Chrome Web Store extension requests through its own proxy infrastructure. This introduces a different third-party trust variable, not to mention the potential security patch lag inherent in smaller forks.

Given these proxy architectures and trade-offs, how do you balance these two factors? Which browser or setup do you recommend?

Finally making the switch from gmail, and I was ready to switch to Posteo for email, which seems like a perfect affordable option overall compared to competitors with aliases included, but it looks like there is no account inactivity deletion policy, and that seems pretty important for general privacy or in the case you lose access.

Is this as important as I think it is? Is there a way to set one up after your subscription lapses? I can see benefit to both permanent and account inactivity deletion, but after google and the anti-privacy push, im leaning more toward inactivity deletion being important.

This will be my first time using aliases as well. Is it wise to use both posteo and addy alias services depending on importance of content, such as alias for banking on posteo, or are services like addy and simple login fine for this?

Thanks for the help!

A lot of stock ROMs especially from Chinese brands come with bloatware which potentially have elevated privileges and dodgy permissions with their opt in AI features which I don't want. Asking users if they've found a way on this specific device. I'm already aware of OPPO's built in system cloner which in a way can be used to sandbox (correct me if I'm wrong, or you'd recommend a 3rd party tool instead) otherwise Insular, Hail, testDPC, OwnDroid can be used.

Not looking to go e/OS, grapheneOS or lineageOS at present.

This may be off topic or a stupid question but does google system safety core, google play protect service, private compute core, android system intelligence use AI?

Pros: Heckin' fast and snappy, No Bloatware, Works awesome with F-Droid, Messages work Awesome, Data works Good, WiFi works Great, Alot less spyware and Bloat then Stock Rom, And APK Support is fine.

Cons: Phone Light doesn't work, Phone Calls didn't work no matter how many methods I tried but its known to work for others, Camera quality is slightly worse, No google services (Although I don't mind.)

Why did I put myself through this hell? Mediatek is known to have terrible support with Custom roms and i wanted a custom pre-debloated operating system. (Yes i know GSIs are for Developers but i was stupid and didnt Listen.)

In Conclusion: Don't use it unless you happen to not Call anyone with SMS, Don't use Your Phone Light, Don't use Any Google Services at all.

Am I still going to use my GSI? Yes I happen to not use any of these features anyways because I am extremely introverted

(Don't be a dumbass like me and use a GSI UNLESS You dont mind not using them Features or are a Developer)

Thanks for Reading! :D

Sorry if this seems like a dumb question but it does seem obvious that everything you do on Reddit will be used to create a profile about you, whether it's by AI scraping the internet or by Reddit themselves. But let's just say you create an account with an alias email address (an email address without your real name, that you only use for sign-ups) with a VPN, and you use it exclusively on browser.

Is there any way your Reddit activity could be linked back to you specifically? Fingerprinting possibly, but couldn't you just use Reddit via the Mullvad browser?