Fingerprint help page goes to google?

Hi,
Why do I land on the google support page when I click on the Fingerprint help button in the new /e/OS?
I don’t feel secure if my fingerprints are going directly to google.

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Yes, I feel the same way. :grimacing: :unamused:

hi @Snowest thanks for pointing this out. I guess there are some links to Google that are still not been removed. Pl can you raise this in Gitlab.

This reminded me of something. In some (most?) Chromium-based browsers the little help button you see here and there will take you to Google’s Chrome support pages. That is the case with /e/ Browser.
In Bromite, which the Browser is based on, the help button will take you to the Bromite Wiki. Maybe with permission from the Bromite dev, Browser could have its help redirected there.

Yes, we can assume so, unless the contrary is proven. To define a goal and talk about it’s perfectly legitimate:

gael ungoogling
gael A fully UnGoogled smartphone
But to spread the message “A fully UnGoogled smartphone would be a great and special gift under the tree!” is grossly negligent and concludes beyond the usual verbal exaggeration of advertising and marketing slogans by far beyond the goal. Until the goal is reached, it must always be mentioned that a 100% google-free /e/ OS hasn’t yet been reached. Statements to the contrary from official circles damage the credibility of /e/volution!

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a totally ungoogled phone also means NOT to use a chromium browser. Please change that asap. It is known that google based apps to communicate with their origin. If you realy want to not get in contact with google servers, dont use google apps. It is enough that you have to use Android and there will be enough to disable or to remove so dont burden yourself with other google apps. There are lots of good browsers around which are not chromium based.

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So you would feel secure with your fingerprint again under different circumstances?
You want to search the internet for how secure are fingerprint scanners :wink: .

In addition: the help page takes you to Google, I wouldn’t call that proof the fingerprints themselves go to Google, too.

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I’m new to eos. To be honest I’m a heavy google and iOS user. So they actually have everything from me. I want to jump out of this train. All ecosystecosystems (apple and Google even Facebook) make me worry about our future.
That why I want to try to change and I’m discovering this new “privacy” phone witch is degoogleized. So I’m just wondering if google is poping up.

But just to understand how the fingerprints in eOS works. Where are those prints stored? Does it go to google?

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Hi everyone,

@Snowest thanks for raising the problem; eOS aim is indeed to remove all traces and connections to Google services except under microG where desired which provides its own privacy layer. We will check this one out.

Just to clarify, your fingerprint details don’t leave your phone (a dedicated hardware chip even) and that is the case on any Android and iOS phone. What you see is “just” a support web page. To remove these links we would have to mirror the content somehow, or maybe pass them through a reverse proxy which Google normally prevents (at least it was the case for Google.com when I checked some time ago). Otherwise all help links would be broken!

@Manuel kind of agree with the use a non-Chromium browser, although we apply multiple layers of ungoogling patches (by extending Bromite + own) to prevent the app from communicating with their servers. If you can prove that is still happening, please open a ticket and we’ll fix ASAP. Using eg Firefox as it seems we did earlier would make this easier for us, but there are other factors to be taken into account (like the system webview).

@marcdw we will check this, it could be a new feature in Bromite that we didn’t introduce or a regression on our side. I confirm help of /e/ Browser opens a Google support page as well.

@archje I understand your critique, and visiting a web page does count as sending some data (your IP and device model) to Google servers. So we take this issues as important too.

Thanks again for your contributions,
Arnau

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I dont have to proof anything as I am not using it and did not state that chromium does anything. I nearly wanted to point out, that ungoogling means also not to use google apps. I do use Firefox on e. But how about you look into jquarks? And for the store might be Aurora also a good choice? As your appstore is for instance missing my mobile banking app. And thats something important for me.

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Hello Arnau,
I’m a passionate advocate of /e/volution and contribute according to my possibilities on different channels.

All of this includes not only looking at the /e/ project through rose-tinted glasses but also critically. The declared claim of /e/ is high. I’ve to face it as a supporter as well as a responsible person at the e.foundation. Please consider my criticism as a wish for change in the right direction. Thank you.

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This here should still work …

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nice did not know that. Will do so in the next days.

Hej @Manuel,
do you have any idea how many financial institutions there are in Europe? If not, then read on here. Even /e/ Apps and Aurora Store together do not offer the same number of banking apps as the quasi monopolist G°°gle Play Store with its millions of Android apps.

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Well I think you miss understood me. I was not blaming the store to not have it or being bad. I just stated it is important to me. And of course I know such things. And I find your answer rather offensive then helpful. Especially that I did not know that I can request it inside the appstore.

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Well, you simply wrong misunderstood me. And no, my posting was not meant to be an insult, but only to say that nobody else but G°°gle Play Store can offer all banking apps.

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I did not write that you insult me. That you have been offensive. Two things mate :slight_smile:

This is completely false. And as a dev, an insult to the open-source community. Especially when you say this just after:

  1. Chromium doesn’t belong to Google. Chromium is an open-source browser, on which the Google Chrome browser has been built. They added a lot of their features in chromium. But a browser built on chromium isn’t “based on a Google app”. That’s a wrong statement.
  2. Aurora Store creates an anonymous account to make calls to the Google API. Aurora sends direct requests to Google. It’s an anonymization layer, but still.

So, please, dont say that you don’t want a browser based on Chromium “because it’s a Google app”, and then, that you would like Aurora store because you want your banking application on your phone.
In terms of privacy, it seems that the team currently ungoogling an OS should be trusted, rather than someone who just comes here to criticize and make wrong statements.

Edit: to be completely transparent, when I say " Chromium doesn’t belong to Google", I mean that as an open-source project, it’s not their IP. But yes, the bigger part of Chromium code comes from Google developers.

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Concerning Aurora its a question as you can see clearly right? And yes I am not all knowing but there are better joices then chromium in my eyes but I am not the one who has the calling. Thats as you wrote it up to the developers.