I am hoping someone has knowledge of how google does its tracking. I am faced with having to install some unsafe apps for work, and there is always Google tracking when web browsing. Some years ago I disabled all the settings for google information gathering. A recent check shows that Google has little information stored on me (just what devices I have used and what apps are installed). So it occurred to me is it better to let Google know who I am and thus apply my no-tracking settings, or is it better to stay anonymous and let google gather lots of data tied to me phones “fingerprint”?
In practice this would be use my /e/ phone for everything with shelter and firewall to minimize tracking, or is it better to use /e/ for the “safe” stuff and a separate Google android phone for the “unsafe” stuff?
Does anybody still trust GAFAM after all these exposures?
Personally, I think we have enough tools to get rid of Goolag spying on a smartphone, and they should be used anyway, because we need them against all the other digital voyeurists.
Privacy-respecting ROM + MicroG + properly configured firewall + system-level content blocker (AdAway) + Shelter + trustworthy VPN + the right web browser + focus on FOSS — all together it is a not bad protection. I’m not sure you need a second device considering this.
Ah I disagree on this. Goolag’s fingerprinting is very very good. For example I work in a largish company where a hundred or so computers all funnel the internet traffic out the one pipe. On my computer I use Firefox for most web browsing (with ad blockers, anti-tracking, anti-script etc.) I also have chrome for when I need to access Goolag’s services (mostly street view so I can understand where I am going). In almost all cases I can note the address found by Firefox, and it is enough to just start typing the first part of the number in Google Maps to have it complete the address for me. I can only attribute this to fingerprinting of my computer.
This would be true if I was not asked to use apps which require google services. Once that door is open then I don’t know which way is better. Personally I think Goolag is fingerprinting my device even if it does know who I am, so logging in makes no difference, but it would be nice to know.
Did you turn on Privacy Guard in your LineageOS [based] ROM? Is your MicroG properly configured? Is AdAway installed and running? Together with the Shelter, that might be enough to break the spying functions in many applications without affecting their performance.
If you want more, you can try XprivacyLua as an additional anti-fingerprinting measure, or MyAndroidTools to manually disable unwelcome modules inside your apps.
