i think they are both equally privacy intrusive by default but if you take the time to get rid of telemetry and the gapps then android will be better then running windows on your pc

It’s worse. You are giving the planet’s largest and most powerful ad selling platform access to every aspect of your life. Windows doesn’t know where you are every second of the day or read your texts. Google is terrifying.

Google puts telemetry in the default keyboard app. Let that sink in for a moment.

Worse, probably, because your PC doesn’t have a lot of the sensors your phone does. But I guess it depends on what you’re trying to keep private.

It's even worse because phones have cameras and microphones and I believe Google uses the latter for tracking for ad related purposes.

Eh, kinda. It's not quite as easy to escape from GApps as it is to install Linux, though, so it's understandable.

My advice is to look into LineageOS, DivestOS, and GrapheneOS and see if your device is supported by anyone. If not, it's possible to remove GApps using ADB, and you can use NextDNS to block tracking.

Yeah that's a fairly reasonable comparison.

I want to go google-less, but I do have paid apps from google play that I must sign in to download.

I'm gonna go with no, because of containerization and permission management. On your computer, any program can do pretty much anything, unless you explicitly take measures against this. On a smartphone, you get a lot of control over your apps. In newer Android versions you can even completely disable cameras and microphones (even if only in software).

I would use a throwaway account and avoid giving Google any personal data tho. Of course they could still figure stuff out, but it's harder and unreliable, not to mention super-duper illegal (at least in the EU), so I kinda doubt they go the extra mile.

I believe that Google services collect a lot more data. You can also turn off telemetry in windows by disabling the service and such, so I'd probably say the big G is less private then Microsoft. Microsoft also has a slightly less tracking business model.

Its a pretty low bar but Android is going to be more private then Windows. Google having privileged access to your phone is still terrible but Windows doesn't really have any privacy protections by default. Android at least does things such as sandboxing its non privileged apps. It also provides a lot better hardware security for your data then most Windows devices would...outside of secure core pcs its pretty trash for hardware privacy in the Windows world.

I would say it's almost the same, but you have less control of what your android is doing with the data it collects, I would go for https://e.foundation/e-os/ if you care about privacy. Instead, Google Drive, you will use Nextcloud.