this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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Note that, while µG minimises data sent to Google, if an app uses Google's services in any way or has its own Google analytics or whatever, Google privacy issues still exist. Though in most cases to a much lesser degree.
Easily minimized by using the TrackerControl app, you can get it on F-Droid.
DNS blocking is useful to have but will do next to nothing against Google's tracking.
Agreed. There's no "magic pill" for privacy and security, it requires a lot more, which I happily have been able to implement in my home.
DNS blocking, plus a very well configured PFSense firewall, a VPN that routes all your connections over your own network, regardless of where you're at, Pihole, local network segregation, etc.
So, yes, TrackerControl is just 1 of many factors used to block some tracking, it does help, however little it may be.
You have not; that's what I'm saying. TrackerControl is DNS blocking, just local on the device rather than requiring a certain network setup. Neither of them will do a dent in Google's tracking.
I get you, that's what the "etc." is for. My network is load balanced at the PFSense level with a fiber connection and Starlink, VPN'd at each WAN through ProtonVPN and NordVPN. On top of that, I have absolutely no Google services in any of my devices, including, but not limited, to my phone, running on GrapheneOS. EVERYTHING else I have is Linux or BSD, and I host my own SearXNG search engine at home from my UnRaid server.
And while it is true that Google can still see a lot of what goes on in my browsing, they cannot point any of that browsing to me, because I do not exist for them anymore.
I'm sure they do keep the data they gathered from me when I used Google accounts, and there's little to nothing any of us can do about it, so stopping providing them with more personal identifiable data is the next best thing we have.
Is this bulletproof?, of course not, but at least I can obscure a lot of my internet actions from most actors out there.
One of the advantages of having Unbound + PiHole/Adguard home, is that caching DNS, keeps most requests within my network for the translation to IP, so while my network does have to go outside every now and then to refresh translations or to get non-existing ones, it's minimal in comparison to the regular user.
We should all be striving to make it as hard as possible for all these tech giants to get their paws on our data, knowing that there's no 100% way of reaching that.
As you say, only 100% private way is to drop civilization entirely and hide in a cave for the rest of our lives, but that doesn't mean we should willingly surrender and be defeated by Crapple, Microshit and Fuckgle, among others.
Come get my data, you could maybe get it, but you sure as hell will have to work your ass off to get it.
Well, that misses the entire point here. µG is "Google services", just a rather minimal implementation. You're talking about an entirely different scenario.
They sure can. The identity may not have your clear name attached to it but that's of little relevance; it's still linked to you. Pseudonymous != anonymous.
There's tonnes of ways to map between pseudonymous profiles and real names if you wanted to but there's no real need to do that as they can deeply violate your privacy for immense profit without any clear names involved. That's the perverse thing about these data krakens.
The Google accounts' data itself should actually be deleted if you're in a jurisdiction with half-way effective privacy laws. The shadow profiles they collect on you to this day however...
It's by no means a bad setup but I don't see much of a privacy win in it w.r.t. outgoing connections. Such DNS-based tracking outside of your home network simply isn't a huge data leak if you're not using known-malicious DNS servers and those can be changed using one dead-simple setting present in pretty much every SOHO gateway.