Ive just startee getting into privacy, but i had a few questions.
- I havent switched operating system yet due to fear of losing my data. I have a lot of pictures, contacts and messages i dont want to go missing. I have a one plus and i really love it. I do not want a pixel phone. Is there a way i can maintain privacy without changing phones?
- If i delete google play services, will my phone not work correctly?
- I have been replacing my apps with open source apps, is that helpful?
- What vpn should i use? I have malewarebytes.
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Maybe? There are ways to limit what apps are able to access the internet. Rooting, or installing a Custom ROM may be possible on your current phone.
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I won’t break entirely. It’ll probably mostly work, but a lot of systems in normal android phones do rely on google play services.
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Definitely. FOSS apps tend to be entirely local, not phoning home unless there is good reason in the context of the functionality of the app. At the very least, they will more often than not still work, if denied internet access. This doesn’t mean good commercial software doesn’t exist, though.
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A VPN is probably not necessary for your privacy. Using one is potentially even a privacy risk, as you then need to trust the company providing it, in addition to your ISP. Your actual internet traffic is encrypted either way, unless you visit websites that do not use HTTPS, which is extremely rare nowadays.
- Thank you so much! Ill see what i can download. Lineage os is not avaliable for my specific one plus phone. I’ll check with some other ones.
- I wanted to delete because thats how google mostly tracks people. Is there another system processes i should delete?
- Makes sense! Ive been changing them to make sure my data isnt taken.
- Yikes i didnt know that. I also use malewarebytes for antivirus so i just started using their vpn. So i paid for it, so i hope they arent bad actors…😭
antivirus software is, most of the time, spyware.
it shouldnt be needed on android anyway, if you keep it updated and don’t sideload stuff.
Yikesss. Ill discontinue it. I definitely got a few viruses on my computer back in the day. And i sail the high seas from time to time, so i dont want to get any foolishness from that.
I also do not update my device on time. Usually when i updaye my phone or windows computer, something be wrong with it for several weeks, so ive stopped updating them until it force updates. Do you why that is?
quality control on these updates are honestly on a downhill. especially on windows and some android manufacturers (looking at you, samsung).
they are still necessary to keep your computing safe though, but you don’t need to install them immediatly. i usually wait a bit until they had time to retract them if they break something big.
A VPN provider can potentially log every site you visit, just like your ISP.
The actual benefits are mostly practical, being able to access streaming services and other sites from other countries.
It does hide your IP but this isn’t as big a deal as you might think, and moot, if the ISP logs your activity.
It does not provide some special extra layer of encryption. It does encrypt the traffic, but most of the time, it was already encrypted anyway. The vast majority of internet traffic is.
Makes sense! Thank you so much! I didnt kmow much about the vpns
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What you can do is download the Aurora store from fdroid, which will give you access to Google Play apps without needing the Google Play store, and then go in and disable Google Play services. That way, if something breaks that you absolutely can’t live without, you can go turn it back on again. What you will find is that most apps will no longer send you notifications because most apps use what’s called Google FCM to provide you notifications which requires Google Play services. So in most cases apps will no longer send you notifications. Some apps will give you warnings to the effect of this app may not work properly without Google Play services and give you an OK button and in most cases they will work alright. And some few apps will just absolutely refuse to work. I know for a fact that Uber and Lyft will refuse to work without Google Play services enabled. With uber at least you can visit m.uber.com.
As the person mentioned above, using open source apps as much as you can is a great step in the right direction as they don’t phone home nearly as much. If at all. Make fdroid your new best friend and maybe add the izzyondroid repo to it.
Another category of apps you may have trouble with is mobile banking. I used to have a Neo bank called Chime, and their app worked fine without Google Play services, but I wanted to not need the Aurora store anymore, and I could not transfer between accounts with the Chime website, and so I ended up switching banks entirely.
Thank you so much! Downloaded aurora!
I probably will only use my computer for banking. It may be annoying, but to protect privacy, gotta do what you gotta do.
Yes ive been using droidify!! Its so good! It includes the f droid and izzy on droid
You’re well on your way to making some really good choices. I also have to ask, are you using a password manager already? And if so, which one are you using? I use keepassxc on linux and keepassdx (from fdroid) on android and sync the database with a flash drive. I don’t trust any clouds, and so I don’t have any of my files on clouds. Also, are you using Monero yet?
How does a password manager work? I never understood it. I dont want to mess up my password to where im locked out of those accounts. And i also want to be able to remember my password because ive been signing out of accounts. If i dont remember the password and i wont be able to use my accounts. Source: its happened before. And what happens if someone steals the password manager and gets all your passwords? My cousin is one of those weird people who created a unique password for every account and writes them in book. And im like what of someone steals the book? Like what if someome steals the flash drive. Am i thinking too much into this?
I havent used monero. Im also afriad of crypto. Can you tell me more?!?! I would love to start but i dont know anything about it.
So the entire point of a password manager is to give each website a unique password so that if one password gets compromised, your passwords for every other site are not compromised. Based on current computing power, each password you have for an online service really should be about 20 characters and totally unique and random. And for a human, that’s basically impossible to accomplish. So what you do is have the password manager do that work for you and then you have one master password which accesses the password manager database. By doing so, you only have to remember two passwords. One password is to actually log into your system, such as your Linux login password, and the other is to log into your database on your password manager, which then has all of your other passwords. What I do for backing my password database up is that my primary computing device is my phone and so my password manager lives on my phone and once every three months I copy that password database to two separate flash drives in two separate physical locations. I then also copy it to my laptop. So I have two computing devices with the password manager file and two flash drives with the password manager file which are in separate locations. Even if someone were to steal the password manager database file off of one of my flash drives or something like that, they would still need the database password in order to access it. And I’ve made mine over 20 characters long, so no computer is going to be able to crack it unless it’s a quantum computer, which do not currently exist.
If you are able to manage online banking, then you will be able to manage Monero. The main difference between your online bank account and Monero is that if you lose your wallet seed phrase, it’s not recoverable. Unlike your bank account, where you can give them ID and your identification numbers and get your password reset. That is yet again another good reason to put your seed phrase in a password manager so that you can’t lose it. My personal suggestion would be the monero.com wallet made by cake wallet. Cake wallet offers multiple cryptos where monero.com only offers monero. Monero is digital cash. So you should get some and spend it on food and other such necessities and then get some more to replace it. Just like you would bills in your pocket. In terms of fiat currency, it will fluctuate because it is another currency. Just like how the euro will fluctuate in value against the US dollar, etc. In order to avoid that problem, it is best to fiat cost average where no matter what the current price says it is in your fiat currency, you’re always going to put X amount of fiat currency in it per month. So you might say, I’m always going to put $10 into it no matter what the price is. And that will help to smooth out the volatility compared to the fiat currency. You can also check out places like https://xmrbazaar.com/, which offer goods and services for Monero, or even my store at https://xmrbazaar.com/user/AuroraGeneralStore where I sell items for Monero and keep the prices stable over long periods of time so that you know what to expect. I base my prices on the average and so therefore you might be able to find the same item cheaper elsewhere but at the price I charge I guarantee you will get the item and you will know what you’re going to pay for it. Since Monero fluctuates against fiat currency, most people only keep their prices stable for like 10 or 15 minutes at a time where I keep my prices stable for like three and four months at a time. So if you need to buy some toilet paper today and then you need to buy toilet paper three months from now, it’s going to be the same price so you know what to budget for.
As for buying Monero, governments don’t like it because they can’t trace it. So they purposely do their best to keep it off of centralized exchanges. So the best place to buy it is from https://retoswap.com/. It’s a piece of software you download on your Linux, Windows, or Mac computer. And it lets you access the RetoSwap decentralized exchange.
You can also work for it or sell items for it like I do on XMRBazaar. There are plumbers, electricians, therapists, etc. on XMRBazaar, who all earn Monero from their normal work by offering their services in exchange for Monero. You can also choose to be a proxy shopper where somebody wants an item and they will tell you the item they want and you purchase it and they will give you Monero or you can offer items yourself for Monero such as I do at my store front above. I don’t personally do proxy shopping where I will buy any item for you, but I try to have the basics such as razors, shaving cream, toilet paper, things that you would need in day-to-day life available for Monero.
Thank you for your response! I’ll give a password manager a try! Which one do you recommend?
Monero is interesting, ill take a look! Should i be using tor with it?
I suggest keepassxc on desktop and keepassdx on android. If you are an iphone user keepassium is pretty good (mom approved).
As for whether you should be using Monero with Tor. You don’t have to, and it’s a lot slower if you do, but you do get some benefits if you do in certain scenarios.
I run my own local node which has a copy of the blockchain so that I don’t have to trust anyone except for myself and do not have access to a static IPv4 or IPv6 address and so I host my node as a Tor hidden service. By doing so, I can access my own personal node from anywhere in the world, no matter what network I’m on. And again, since I trust myself, I know that I’m getting correct data. By default, Monero.com and Cake Wallet use the Cake Wallet nodes and they are a rather trustworthy entity. So I would feel safe recommending just using them until you become more advanced and want to run your own. If you access the nodes through Tor, then obviously they won’t know your IP address. Whereas if you don’t access them through Tor, they would know your IP where you connect from. And it’s really up to you to determine whether that’s a problem for you or not. If you already use a VPN, you could just use that as well.
Thanks so much! Im gonna give those a try! I probably wont be fancy enough to back them up with a flash drive. I should tho.
Yep definitely not smart enough to do that yet🤣🤣 I’ll have to stick with retoswap or buying it through the actual website. Im gonna get a different vpn based on all these comments. Im gonna try mullvad, is that good one?
I havent switched operating system yet due to fear of losing my data.
If you value any data, you should already have backups (plural), right? So, if you decide to switch OS you don’t need to worry about your data since you have backups (plural). Hint: if you don’t do backups already, start now with or without OS switch.
If i delete google play services, will my phone not work correctly?
Depends what you do with it. What OS you use. My spouse is using /e/OS and she has access to all the apps she needs, but I reckon you probably don’t use the same app as we do (we’re both 50+) ;)
I have been replacing my apps with open source apps, is that helpful?
Depends. It’s probably a good idea but if you use open source apps to access and use non-privacy respecting services, well, they won’t help much.
What vpn should i use? I have malewarebytes.
One you trust. I use Mullvad and Proton. Both are paid for.
Im not sure! Whatever one that came with my one plus! I use my phone alot, so maybe something that has a lot of power. I have so many texting apps.
I should try a new vpn and see what i like!
netGuard to control which app connects to which site and which apps are blocked ☞ https://f-droid.org/packages/eu.faircode.netguard/ or https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard
Thats a good idea! I’ll check it out!
