If you are worried about privacy, you shouldn't use Google anyway. I write this from a deoogled android custom rom
this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2025
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Privacy
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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.
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What's scary is all of the ways they can track you even without your browser actively cooperating. For example, they can create an HTML5 canvas, render a bunch of shapes, and then probe individual pixels to get a read on your graphics card and drivers. The EFF has a very educational test you can subject your browser to in order to see how easy it is to fingerprint it based on these kinds of things.
This test just keeps refreshing infinitely
Kind of surprised to see that Brave does much better in this test than Firefox with extensions (on Android)
Oh God, wait for the downvotes....
Seriously, this is the reason I started using Brave.
privacy-enhancing technologies
Ahh yes, of course!
I don’t use google stuff rn so…
Not even Google maps since I had an ad placed in my route so it clicked the ad while I was selecting which route to take. Bu bye
Use Organic Maps
Me neither, but I guess the tracking will also take place when you just browse the internet and visit websites, that have Google Ad Tracking technologies implemented (which could be the majority of websites). Tracking and Ad-Blockers like uBlock might help a bit, though.
The specifics are complex—these are the algorithms that ingest all the data signals you give off when browsing the internet on any device, some based on who you are—device, IP and credential identifiers, but also the sites you visit and apps you use as a map to be followed and analyzed.
I've been using Noscript on firefox for a while. It basically blocks any JavaScript (and other stuff) unless you specifically allow it. It's not something that I would recommend for a casual user, because it breaks lots of sites. By using it, I've discovered how much nonessential stuff is jammed into your browser. Most of it is analytics and tracking. One home improvement store has over 25 scripts when less than a quarter are needed for a functioning site.
Some of the biggest offenders: offenders:
- home improvement stores
- car dealerships
- some big box retailers
Also, a shoutout to decentraleyes, a plugin to use local copies of JavaScript code so that it's not downloaded (and reported back to) Google.
Same here. I was a uMatrix user for a long time and I was astonished sometimes how bloated some sites were with scripts and tracking domains. Nowadays I mostly use Edge on my work machine which is somehow ad-free but all sites work.
Firefox with uBlock / uMatrix needed often too much fine tuning to make sites work properly.
Yeah. I know Ublock Origin can do this content blocking as well, but NoScript is just more convenient for me.
I thought they were already doing this... what's new now?
Someone needs to answer this
I wouldn‘t know, but could be it says something about that in the attached hyperlink.
I ain't clicking Forbes slop lol
Nice try tjo
What are realistic ways to protect ourselves?
Use browsers like Cromite, Iridium, Waterfox, Betterfox, Firedragon, Tor, Vanadium. Disabke fingerprinting in hidden settings or in about:config. Don't install too much extensions, if you can, none. That can be used to fingerprint you. If you don't have the need, disable javascript and webassembly. Change your useragent to something very common
Use alternative browsers (Safari, Firefox) and alternative platforms (iOS, GrapheneOS).
I've had some internal struggles on this. Have used graphene for a long time and the last phone completely avoided using any G products (not even sandboxed) but still worry about the hardware, especially with the new AI chips. Can't imagine that the ability to fingerprint using their hardware isn't available.
So I vacillate between Fairphone/PinePhone with Linux or just anonymity through the masses with iOS. It sucks, the whole turn. Either get a fully functional smartphone and pick your poison or use a limited or dumb phone but know your smart TV/car/computer/etc will still be there for vulnerability.
Apple tracks their users even more
Where are you seeing that?
Do you think it can track me in duckduckgo on android?
No, if you have a degoogled android custom rom
If it is the Android that comes with the phone, it comes with Google Play and Google Services libraries installed. It is tracking you already. If you use Duckduckgo at least they will not know what you search for (and you will get better search than AI-ridden Google search..).
If you want an Android that doesn't track you all the time, listens to you and those around you, etc etc, you need to use a vanilla android like https://lineageos.org/ as it comes, and not install the Google Services packages. This means that you may not be able to use some bank apps or popular apps such as Uber, etc that heavily depend on Google Services. Some chat apps may also have a delay in receiving messages.
Yes it sucks. It's doable though. Welcome to the future. If we do nothing it will get even worse.
Edit: some governments are pushing for apps to not depend on Google propietary libraries. For example in the EU transit apps (city, trains ticket planners etc) are being migrated away from using Google Maps and into OpenStreetmaps, and those apps run nicely with a vanilla LineageOS. We need to keep this momentum.
Any degoogled AOSP rom will do fine. I use InfinityX (made by a well-known indian rom developer, Tejas Singh)
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Presumably combined with Tor or a VPN or multiple ISPs.
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Not sure there is. Dimensionality of the trackble elements is very high. All of them have to either be the same or fuzzed across large groups of users.
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I'm on grapheneOS using Ironfox (fork of Mull because it's been killed off), I should be safe, right?
That's great
No. They are fingerprinting you when you use Google services, including Google ads on other sites.
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They killed off Mull? Bummer.
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I strongly recommended installing EFF's Privacy Badger on your and your relatives browsers.
This stops many trackers, and causes less side effects and less breakages than most filters (unlock et all).
If you have uBlock Origin then Privacy Badger is redundant. Also, more extensions = easier fingerprinting.
Privacy Badger focus on blocking trackers. uBlock origin blocks all kind of things Ads,Trackers,etc and so it have a higher risk of breaking sites.
Yes, they're mostly redundant. Happy uBlock Origin users should probably keep using just uBlock. People who don't use uBlock to avoid breaking websites, or just want to block trackers, should use Privacy Badger.
Another option if you wish to protect your whole network is to set up something like pi-hole or AdGuard. I recently set up pi-hole on our network. I’m shocked by the amount of blocked traffic coming from phones and windows machines. Don’t even get me started on the traffic from our smart tv.
What are these?
basically they hijack dns resolution to return does not exist errors when requests are sent to the tracking systems. highly effective, but also many sites are negatively impacted by them because no one codes for failure in the web industry.
how do they know where the tracking systems are?
there are well known distribution lists that people add servers to that these things periodically fetch and use to perform the blocking.
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