Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

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Maximizing privacy on Android without custom ROMs? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

30 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've had a Galaxy S22+ for 2 years and still want to use it. When I look up how to maximize privacy on Android, many results say to install custom ROMs which I can't since its a US model and the bootloader is locked. I just want to minimize tracking and sharing of personal information. I could use a firewall app like RethinkDNS to block trackers, but could I completely block tracking from Google and Samsung? Are there any lists of packages to uninstall to improve privacy? (I've used ADB to remove a bunch of bloatware. Ex: pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.samsung.android.arzone)

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Cutoff internet access on all apps that expressly do not need it. Install Netguard or the likes if you don't used a VPN and see what apps are calling home.

[–] refalo 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I thought you needed root for app-level firewalls?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Straight from their site.

NetGuard provides simple and advanced ways to block access to the internet - no root required. Applications and addresses can individually be allowed or denied access to your Wi-Fi and/or mobile connection.

Blocking access to the internet can help:

reduce your data usage save your battery increase your privacy

Edit: Uses the same slot as VPN on a phone. Thus you have one or the other. Not both. PC is different.

[–] refalo 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately I cannot use a VPN because several apps I use (including android auto) do not work with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

in netGuard you can create exceptions for apps that "do not work with" a vpn

[–] refalo 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

how on earth does that work? I thought it had to have an always-on VPN connection to do any filtering (or not)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

it's an "always-on vpn connection". NetGuard passes through the apps in the exception list unfiltered

[–] refalo 1 points 1 month ago

exactly... it needs the vpn to even pass anything through... but the apps that don't work with vpns... don't work with vpns. as in, it detects the presence of an android vpn connection and refuses to work, it's not related to what internet connection it actually uses, just that a system-controlled vpn is active on the device.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Then perhaps this could be a way for you to lockdown internet traffic to and from your device. Major privacy improvement.

[–] refalo 1 points 2 months ago

I don't understand how if this requires a VPN which I can't use?