Sorry to post my shitty neofetch to this community
Google spy through android as well
And chromeos
Mmm, chromeos 🤤
I use lineageOS because of this
I’ll be switching to Lineage soon…
Google forced my manufacturer (Fairphone) to effectively ‘disable’ the fingerprint scanner from android 13 onwards for the FP3. Our Lineage fork reverted that Google mandated change thankfully
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Me too I use Lineage for microg and I haven’t had any compatibility issues
or if your device has a maintainer willing: EvolutionX. im surprised how painless of an experience this custom rom is. and it’s got no bullshit stuff in it either. fucking crazy. they even got ota support… it’s like oem rom experience, only, there’s no third party spyware installed(excluding GApps. but even google’s telemetry can be highly restricted when we install AFWall+ and use NextDns+Adaway along with it). it’s been years(close to a decade actually) since I’ve used an oem rom on my personal phone, it’s just that good
Degoogled my Tab.
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“Lol nobody can spy me, I put tape on the camera”. Quote from my mother…
I wish my only privacy concern was stolen nudes. Ignorance can be bliss.
I signed up for a credit card once, in person on paper. Never heard back, discovered tears later several cards had been opened kn my name and left delinquent. Fuck me for trying to apply for my frost credit card, apparently.
I’m way more concerned about my microphone than my camera
Well… at least she won’t be deepfaked. So there’s that.
reminder to use firefox with privacy extensions
Or use librewolf whoch is a foek of firefox just with all the privacy related stuff preinstalled like ublock.
But can it group tabs on Android?
Afaik yes. I don’t use that feature tho.
Fuck Mozilla
Just, why?
Supporting deplatforming and censorship
I have started to hate Brave with how much of their BS that they have added in the browser. Things like VPN, Rewards , Wallet, News and more. Heck, Chrome now seems better to me bcoz of all these
features(bloat) they have managed to add. Same with Edge.Brave solves one set of problems… And replaces them with an entirely different set of problems. I’ll stick with Firefox.
Firefox is not safer. It’s just a different browser for people who don’t like to say ‘chrome’ in their mouths . It’s not really any different in the safety. It’s like how people think private browsing is private but it’s not. It’s just a comfort label.
Do you KNOW anything about online privacy?
Not using Chrome is a great first step since your browsing data isn’t directly fed to Gogle. Not using Gogle as your search engine is just the next step. Just by doing this you have mostly ridden G*ogle of the ability to know what you’ve been searching, but they can still get around.
This is where using stuff like Firefox and Brave is important. Because these browsers come with built-in protection against trackers. But that’s not just it. You want MORE. Next up is installing uBlock Origin. Set it up properly and congratulations you just became essentially invisible on the web. If that isn’t enough then you’re welcome to use TOR or a VPN to completely demolish all good attempts at tracking and spying. In fact, TOR alone would be enough for most users.
You fuckers always act like having privacy online is impossible or something when it’s really not. All it comes down to is user tech literacy and knowing what do to. I don’t want a browser that straight up listens on the mic to everything I say. NOBODY who knows shit thinks that “private browsing” is safe. NOBODY. That’s why using Firefox is just one step and not all of them.
You fuckers always act like having privacy online is impossible or something when it’s really not. All it comes down to is user tech literacy and knowing what do to.
And you elitist fuckers love to shame others when it should be made easier for users. Shame on you.
That’s a fairly simplified look at the whole picture though. Fingerprinting is a whole other beast, and Brave and Firefox and associated forks have varying and incomplete protections. For instance, only the Firefox-forked browser called Mull seems to effectively randomize data for canvas fingerprinting, whereas Firefox and Brave don’t have protections against it at all. Saying you’re essentially invisible on the Internet following your steps is pretty inaccurate. There’s way too much money in this shit; web services are fingerprinting on everything they can.
I was talking about PC, it’s just cherrypicking to assume anyone who mentions Firefox as a private browser doesn’t refer to hardened Firefox. And for the record, I use Mull. Like I said, you just need to know your shit.
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How many years has it been since chrome had a “bug” that had it activate some “antivirus” project that was scanning files on the entire machine even when it wasn’t running?
Both Android and ChromeOS are Linux, and Google’s spying there…
We should all be thankful that ChromeOS is flaming hot garbage that no one should be using on UX alone.
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Do we really need to bring back “GNU/Linux” for the pedants?
It’s funny how Linux is only Linux if it benefits Linux nerds but the moment someone points out that Android, Chrome, Steam Deck, anything with telemetry and Linux has telemetry all of a sudden it’s not “really Linux” anymore.
It really is Schrodinger’s OS.
It’s the first time I hear that Steam OS isn’t Linux. Why wouldn’t it be considered as such?
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Stalking. Spying sounds like a kids game or movie. This isn’t observing. This isn’t passive. It is actively exploiting. It is predatory, targeted, manipulative, with intent. It is stalking.
You’re right and I’m making the switch to using this word while bitching about their stalking.
Microsoft: Gets slapped with antitrust lawsuits for including Internet Exploder with Windows.
Microsoft: Hold my beer.
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Do 3rd-party stores work on iOS?
F-Droid works quite well on my Google Pixel
In iOS 15 we should see side loading of apps from 3rd party stores. I think this was the result of an EU ruling? Hopefully someone else can confirm.
You mean iOS 17?
Ah! Thanks. Yes I got my upcoming numbers muddled. it’s the iPhone 15 and iOS 17. My bad.
Sort of, but you have to either mess with self-signing and reinstalling weekly, or trusting a 3rd party with mobile device management. Not great options.
Ah so not really natively then.
F-droid is (of course) not available in the Play Store, but it’s trivial to download and install it from their website after allowing your browser permission to initiate app installs.
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It hasn’t been hit directly but the EU Digital Markets Act will make that behaviour illegal, among other things.
You can just install a third party store and update apps through that easily…
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Personally, I just sideload a couple of apps and they tend to not have issues. It’s kinda nice
I’ll hold it. To pour it over their head. lol Edge the assimilated Chrome. most of their desktop apps open links in Edge instead of the default browser. I installed ‘no script’ on Edge and links open to a blank tab on MSN. copy links to my prefered browser. would be on linux except for one game I like
I use Opensuse for everything bar gaming. I dual boot to Win10 for any games I want to play. This setup works pretty well for me.
I did that with Gentoo and W11 but got sick of Windows messing with the EFI boot order and ended up nuking it. Proton games only from here on out.
Same, but with Arch and Win11
Same with Mint and Win10, but almost everything runs on Mint
Yeah, honestly Linux gaming has come a LONG way in the past few years. I rarely need to boot into Windows nowadays.
I do miss the AUR. I may return to Arch at some point.
tried that once. I worked in IT for many years. server monkey. mostly used VMs on large rack mount hardware for linux/windows servers running various services for a college. forget what that system was called. mostly retired the last 10 years. windows 10-11 took away my left side task bar option and I quit playing the one game. thinking about a new linux box with maybe a windows partition for dos games. VMs don’t usually play nice with games. current dust filter:
case: https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/legacy-products/cases/haf-xb-evo/
Linux*
*Except Ubuntu
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Idk that they are overtly spying, but they have telemetry reporting turned on by default now, and you have to manually turn it off. There has been concern in the community over what they’re doing with that data.
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Oh honey
If you’re forced to use Windows for some things, use Windows 10 LTSC. If you can’t buy it (because Microsoft refuses to let consumers buy a non-spyware version of their OS) then sail the high seas for it. It takes the telemetry out and you’ll have full control over the OS, can more easily remove Edge and can set your group policy and other stuff to completely block telemetry to your taste.
I keep 11 for some machine specific settings. It is on a separate drive from Linux and it exists in a post internet age of behind a router that will never give it access to anything. If I need something for it, Linux will placed those files on a separate drive to manually carry them over to little double middle finger OS. Maybe it can have internet one day when it grows up and vomits all its source code in a bankruptcy… Assuming it is not to late to abort this little monster toddler.
https://ameliorated.io/ is also a handy project for those that don’t want to tinker around with group policies and other tooling. I have been using AtlasOS on my gaming machine for a few months now and the experience and performance has been splendid.
I think it is funny that this community thinks it knows everything about privacy and security and every time I see a post like this it becomes apparent that the main of this community doesn’t.
I like the Fediverse but it is a security and privacy nightmare.
I know what you mean. It suck but whatever it’s better than giving data to a big company.
I mean, in this way we are basically giving data to every big company, aren’t we?
Facebook: you guys hide it?
Google: Laughing in Android.
Google: Laughing in Chrome, scanning your entire file system
Google: Laughing in bloody web DRM
Oh no my previous private keys 😱
The amount of telemetry that comes with GMS is insane.
linux is not inherently immune ya’ll
Y’all* :)
somebody never reads the logs
Pretty sure Google also spies through the OS.
It depends of the OS. The vast majority of Android devices " yes". But there are few exceptions like GrapheneOS for example, where Google code was almost completely purged from the system except from the firmware level (unfortunately), for basic reasons.
All you can really do is make the spying as difficult as possible. That’s really all we can do 🤷🏿♂️🤷🏿♂️
True. And unfortunately certain privacy measures can make it easier to digitally fingerprint you as a user. Also my mind is still blown since I learned about canvas fingerprinting. EFF.org describes it as follows:
Canvas fingerprinting is invisible to the user. A tracker can create a “canvas” in your browser, and generate a complicated collage of shapes, colors, and text using JavaScript. Then, with the resulting collage, the tracker extracts data about exactly how each pixel on the canvas is rendered. Many variables will affect the final result. These include your operating system, graphics card, firmware version, graphics driver version, and installed fonts.
These settings are different from one computer to the next. But they tend to be consistent enough on a single machine to clearly identify a user.
