Hello, I have a OpenVPN server with PiHole. I have installed e/os and I have blocked the domain *.google.com in PiHole completely. Now push notifications (from Signal) don’t come through on the device. When I unblock *.google.com the notifications come through. So I was wondering if some layers of e/os still use a google service (for push notifications?). Im not sure if signal uses push notifications or other notifications but they don’t show up when blocking google.com. (Or do I need to change a setting or something?) Thanks.
Well… That’s by design in that oligopoly landscape. There are two push services most of the apps rely on - Apple’s and Google’s. And both are being used and snooped on by govs → https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38566840
So, it’s not in the hands of /e/ to change which Push infrastructure is being used - we need some alternatives for these walled gardens and (the most important part) Apps and their backend services need to support these alternatives as well. So, nothing /e/ can do about…
or see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38543155
Add/Edit 1:
I’d like to think of an alternative, where the users themselves can setup and host their own push servers and App backends directly communicate with them - but as of now this is just dreaming.
For Signal an open source variant exists, which as for as I know doesn’t use google push.
Check out Molly:
https://molly.im/
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