Thanks for taking the time to research and post this Henk! Perhaps we can turn this into a nice infographic, comparing /e/ with Google’s Android! We could also use apps like Exodus to monitor trackers of apps in the stock apps, etc. Happy to help!
Thank you, @Rik, for your support. Would be wonderful if you could monitor with Netguard your use of /e/ for a couple of days, and evaluate the state of un-googling of /e/ and the stock apps of /e/ for the use you make of it.
From there on we’ll see further for the future.
Thanks for your answer ! I’ll try the pro features then, and see what is happening 
I’ve tried NetMonitor, but as HenkK said earlier, it misses some information, and is not easy to use
Thanks for firejail, I did not know it, I’ll try !
@HenkK I installed Netguard from F-Droid several weeks ago on my Google phone (what I saw pushed me to search for alternatives and I found /e/… 
) and I was able to get the pro features with a donation for that as well, even though the developer says F-Droid builds were not supported.
Same experience for me. I really like Netguard. On /e/ the monitoring is totally different.
Your welcome, @Pat38 !
Are you ready for the /e/xperience? 
It would be wonderful to have a bunch of people who more or less regularly monitor their personal usage of /e/ for the state of un-googling the /e/OS and pre-installed apps. No official statements about /e/, just sharing personal observations.
Thank you @MmeDelatour !
Could you expend a bit more on ‘On /e/ the monitoring is totally different’ ? TIA.
I mean all the connections to google servers are missing.
And apps generally don’t start connections unless I want them to, except for the ntp services (pool.ntp.org).
@MmeDelatour , thank you!
Are you familiar with pool.ntp.org ? For an explanation see https://www.ntppool.org/en/ . I believe you can stop this by choosing for setting and maintaining the system time manually.
In the PCAP export of Netguard I see this kind of communication:
| 2020-05-16 15:57:46 | 10.1.10.1 | 84.241.227.82 | DNS | 58 | Standard query 0x832a A pool.ntp.org |
|---|
. . . .
|2020-05-16 15:57:46|84.241.227.82|10.1.10.1|DNS|122|Standard query response 0x832a A pool.ntp.org A 188.226.159.244 A 80.100.130.235 A 162.159.200.1 A 51.15.44.1|
|2020-05-16 15:57:46|10.1.10.1|188.226.159.244|NTP|76|NTP Version 3, client|
|2020-05-16 15:57:46|188.226.159.244|10.1.10.1|NTP|76|NTP Version 3, server|
The DNS servers answers with four time server in the neighborhood? And the first one is used to check the time. At least, that is how I interpret this. I am not a network expert. Unfortunately the PCAP does not show the payload of these messages. As for the privacy aspect I would like to know more about what information, more than the ip address, if any is sent to the ntp server. As for more specifically the state of ungoogling, I believe a NTP server might be owned by Google, but in general this is not the case. You and I could also start an NTP server. See https://gist.github.com/mutin-sa/eea1c396b1e610a2da1e5550d94b0453 . pool.ntp.org is definitely not Google?
Searching a bit further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Time_Protocol gives some history, and points to the most current version of the protocol (?) https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5905 Not easy reading… A quick scan gives me the impression that there is no personal information sent to the NTP server.
Can maybe someone else jump in and say more definite how this works and/or whether there is a privacy issue?
@Rik, I like your infographic very much! Thank you for creating this. The message is clear.
Just to be sure. In this thread we all speak on personal behalf. No official statements about /e/, about NetGuard, or about Google. For me goes: I am serious/honest about what I think and feel, but not an expert on Android, on network, on Google, or any other technique here.
@Rik, on a second thought. This thread is about using NetGuard to personally assess the state of un-googling of your own use of an /e/ smartphone. Your Infographic deserves attention on its own. Why not present it in a new thread, with your own explanation/motivation?
If you have inspiration for more, let it flow!
Because of the short, clear messaging content, the infographics have PR value, and could be re-used by /e/ if they want. See, for instance, https://doc.e.foundation/testimonies .
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Alright, thanks will post it when I’m behind my laptop again!
Thank you for outlining this possible approach, @Andy1, but it all depends on the goal. My goal is not to establish any generally valid truth about /e/. I restrict myself to observing with Netguard my personal experience with an /e/ smartphone during a few days. I am happy with what I observed, especially w.r.t. having stayed away from Google eco system almost completely. I intend to repeat this, for instance after a new /e/ version. I do this for my own sake. It gives me more certainty about something that is important for me. It does not give me 100% certainty. It says nothing for sure about what might have happened today…
If you want to try this out yourself, for yourself, you are very welcome. If you want to, I have a spare Nexus 5 with /e/ available for you. I am pretty sure you will be pleased with the results, but I do not guarantee anything. I am only giving ideas. You have to find out yourself what goes for you.
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