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by Fnoord 3438 days ago
> We can't do anything about Google though.

Yes, we can! Don't use Google, or use certain settings in the applications which enhance your privacy. The default settings are not always the best settings for the user.

Don't use Google Search. Use a search engine which respects your privacy such as the scraper DuckDuckGo (DDG).

Don't use Gmail. Use an e-mail provider which doesn't scan through your e-mail. Where you got IMAP access. Use a device where you can use GPG. Or use alternative methods of communication.

Don't use Google Maps. Use a maps application which respects your privacy such as OpenStreetMap or (arguably) Apple Maps.

Don't use Google Fit. [...]

And so on, so forth. Ask yourself the following: do I really need this? The answer is often: "not really."

You have the option to use neither. If the choice is Android or iOS you pay more for iOS devices but your privacy generally suffers less. [Ignoring the option of dumbphones] there's a third option: don't take your phone with you. It is a choice to take your Android or iOS device with you. Among others, Bruce Schneier wrote about this in his book Data And Goliath.

1 comments

But you can't avoid google analytics..
> But you can't avoid google analytics..

That's the easiest to avoid. Ghostery, or a simple edit to your /etc/hosts file.

The problem is that tracking is much more pervasive, and there are many more ways you can be tracked that are much harder to block than Google Analytics.

What about for iOS? Sure there's more pervasive methods, but I doubt any are as ubiquitous as GA. My ghostery plugin shows GA for nearly every website I visit.
I thought iOS browsers' adblockers can at least do domain-based blocking, which is enough for the typcial GA case?
There are adblockers for iOS, but not for old versions of iOS and I think 32 bit versions of iOS don't work with it. IIRC Apple has allowed it since 9.0.
Adblock works on Android.
Try Privacy Badger, made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. It protects you from many trackers, not only Google's, for example it disables the tracking capabilities of Facebook like buttons. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
Why not? There's loads of options. Some examples include uBlock, NoScript, /etc/hosts
Doesn't ublock block requests to the likes of GA?