I just started a new E/OS device with the Fairphone 6. The phone i used before was the Fairphone 5. With the FP6 i experience some annoying bugs what makes me thinking… Also the last couple of week on holiday in other country’s i experienced some annoying things with E/OS.
Now my question: When i use a (for example) Samsung phone and don’t use or use as little as possible Samsung and Google services. Install Duckduckgo tracker/blocker and use Firefox with the extension Privacy badger and uBlock is E/OS then still giving me so much more privacy? And if yes why and what?
You can’t, they run in the background and you cannot control them.
They are controlled by Samsung/Google, who can collect as much data as they want.
After all, it is proprietary software. When you use it, it is on their terms.
it will depend on how successful and consistent you are in doing so, as @MRTN pointed out, some of these services are deep within the system and cannot be switched off just like that and w/o risking functionality of system or apps that rely on those services (see e.g. the doc-link).
Of course installing/using only FOSS-apps and using the vpn-interface of the device for tracker-blocking with an app like personalDNSfilter OR mullvad VPN (DNS content blocking activated) OR netguard OR RethinkDNS OR the like will help a lot but will not bring you to the level of a degoogled device (but might be a reasonable compromise in case you rely on specific services/functions that you do not get to work in eOS … btw what annoyed you, what did not work in eOS for you? maybe there´s help in the forum to get these issues solved…)
Sure this will then affect the browser but not the rest of the system. If You use google in your browser it is of course good to choose that option. But it does not affect the Android operation system and googles whereabouts therein.
Well, it is my 5 cents but a Samsung phone is in my opinion a bad example as it is jam packet with bloatware from both Google and Samsung that you cannot uninstall or disable.
So your data will go to two entities instead of only Google.
I think you can block trackers from self installed apps, but not from Google and Samsung as they are deep within the OS.
So you think you have control over your privacy? Or does Google want you to think you have control…?
Again, it’s proprietary software, you can’t verify the source code of the software, you have to take their word for it.
The question is: do you really trust a company that gets multiple fines every year for violating privacy, unfair practices, breaking laws,…?
In 2022, they got fined for tracking users’ location even after they opted out.
Privacy or security are not on/off 0/1 and there are things you can do to improve it, for example DuckDuckGo browser & ad/tracker blocker, VPN, getting rid of the worst offending apps, sequestering the worst ones in “private space”, etc.
You can also pick an iPhone over Android or get two devices. One, let’s say a Murena Tablet, for all your daily browsing & searching and a separate phone that has your bank apps and other stuff on it. If you spend 90% of your online time on the e/os device, you are a lot better off than doing everything on a Google phone…
For example, I value the security of tokenized payments with Google/Apple Wallet over cash/plastic card payments.
Or, you can use Brave Browser with Tor or Tor browser for security…
Or, use Proton/etc cloud drive over Goggle…
Keep reading these types of boards and you will find plenty of things to improve your privacy short of e/os…
