Google wants its AI to see all the photos of "you and your loved ones." Billions of users must now decide.

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Kinda creepy. I was about to migrate to Immich, fortunately I'm not in the US, so I don't get that update yet. It does seem like a lost battle, anyway :( Even if I migrate to a privacy-respecting FOSS solution, my friends, family, acquaintances and random people around me will not (well, some may). I will still be featured in their photos out of my control.

I just had an encounter of the turd kind with a banking app that I want to share.

I'm in the process of migrating to a new degoogled phone (GrapheneOS) and upon installing the app in question via Aurora Store, it gave me an error message, saying it had not been installed from a "trustworthy" source. It would, therefore, refuse to start and tell me to install it from the Play Store. (For anyone curious: it's the Consorsbank app, and the issue is well-known at this point.)

In spite of being on GOS, I was faced with the prospect of

• installing Play Services Framework (sandboxed or not, I don't want that shit)
• installing the Play Store (sandboxed or not, I don't want that shit)
• logging in to the Play Store (I definitely don't want that shit!)

only to run a damn app.

I eventually used USB-debugging and ADB to trick the app into thinking it had been installed from the Play Store. LINK to the ADB command, translated into English

So even though everything is running fine now, this doesn't feel like a victory. For the first time in a long while, I feel I have come head to head with a piece of tech that was not just maladapted for my janky way of running things and just needed some tinkering. This was outright malicious, refusing operation and trying to force me to use services I want nothing to do with. It only gave me the option to either give in or walk away and stop using their services. Now, I don't mind doing that for non-essential things. I don't have big tech-owned messengers, I don't have social media (save Lemmy) and all the other stuff people these days feel they cannot live without.

Banking, however, is a different kind of beast. Banking is essential. Second factor authentication is usually done via apps these days. And if this kind of thing becomes normal for banking apps, and Google keeps locking down Android so hacks like the above won't be accessible any more, things are looking grim.

Tonight has left me with more questions than answers. Is Android still the 'right' ecosystem? What are the alternatives if this thing becomes more wide-spread? How do we combat this? Put pressure on banks to keep technologies open? Revert to physical second factor generators, until those become phased out by banks as well?

So I need some kind of cloud storage for work, however I want to move away from Google Drive (obviously). While I started my deGoogling journey by switching to Proton Unlimited, I am now looking to decentralize services from Proton, especially Proton Drive.

I have already tried the "put it on a hard drive and carry it around" route and unfortunately, it is just not working.

So the two Drive alternatives I have found are NextCloud and Filen. I would love to hear people's opinions on each (good and bad), and I am also open to any other suggestions.

apparently you cant use an alias

Samsung is retiring it's messages app, and I don't want to install Google messages to replace it.

What apps are you using instead and what do you like or hate about them?

Edit: thank you for the suggestions :) This is more options than I was expecting!

I finally deleted my Google and YouTube accounts!

I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to go to the ball with me 🤓

And also, do you happen to know a way to remove the leftover "artifact" after having removed Samsung's Honeyboard? Just installed Heliboard as part of my degoogling processs and it's GREAT.

Rooted Samsung Galaxy S23
One UI 7.0
Android 15
Keyboards: Heliboard and Simeji

I implore you not to advise me to ditch the phone for Pixel. That's a topic for another day. This post is about how far I can push the limits on an inherently spyware riddled Samsung. I use the Play Store for USB Audio Player (paid) and an electronic ID app required to do most payment and government related tasks here. I am not logged into Google or Samsung. Here are my apps, which I manage with Obtainium:

I have blocked most internal trackers and "dangerous" permissions/app ops with the AppManager. I have also removed all the safe and some expert level stuff with Universal Android Debloater. Any and all constructive advice is welcome! :D

Over the past year I've been minimizing Google in my life to the point where I could nearly delete my account for good, but I've got two decent roadblocks still - their android calling app, and Google Fi.

The former feels like the only one that actually filters out spam somewhat effectively and transcribes voicemails to text, both key features. The default GrapheneOS phone app didn't seem to compare last I tried.

The bigger hurdle is Google Fi. Frankly in the Northeast US they feel like the only actually affordable carrier, comparable plans at the other big names are practically double the cost or more. I've looked into some smaller carriers, but every single one seems to have some controversy or other dogshit dealbreaker.

Any recommendations for these last two things? It'd be huge to finally break off these last couple things. I don't think I could get to the point where I could totally delete my account (mostly because of a few game logins lmao), but at least I could cut off everything that actually matters.

I have already a degoogled phone on /e/OS which works pretty fine but I have r​ed​ an article which said /e/OS is not actually very safe because it has very old security patches compared to ​AOSP which has is up-to-date.

/e/OS is the product of Murena company which is promoting their own stuff for profit.

Of course GrafeneOS would be better for privacy but I have a fairphone so it is not an option. ​What about CalyxOS ? It is more privacy o​riented but now releases are paused. Do you think I should install existing build of CalyxOS for FP5 or install LineageOS and find a good DNS/VPN to block ads and trackers. This is a tool I like on e/OS/​ to​ have a view on blocked trackers.

What alternative would you advice on AOSP ?

Hello,

I have decided to degoogle myself however I am wondering there are some services which I use which only allows google login. so like what can do about it? also does android run without google account?

Most of my apps come from F-Droid/IzzyOnDroid repos. Only non-FOSS apps I have are Steam, Stremio/Nuvio, and PodcastGuru. Bonus: Warden scan report that lists all trackers/loggers contained in these apps.

@degoogle Trying to degoogle how am I doing..... minus CoDM. Mostly fossify apps

If you've never tried Nebula before, here are some one-week guest passes you can use.

Nebula is an ad-free streaming platform that focuses on quality, with a curated set of creators, and original content. It's a decent alternative to YouTube, and although their list of creators is still small, some of your favourite YouTubers might already be there, like Tom Scott, Captain Disillusion, Philosophy Tube, Legal Eagle, Becky Stern, Man Carrying Thing, and more.

Here are the codes. One per person, please. Visit https://nebula.tv/redeem to sign up and redeem.

Replace DASH with a hyphen.

Update: These codes are taken, there are more from good people in the comments!

• Code A
  ~~ad9a93ab-920f-4bea-9ef4 DASH 7cb203e59a98~~
• Code B
  ~~0118d334-d6b4-4c91-a5d7 DASH 6b1af25d7f87~~
• Code C
  ~~65a0c52a-9a45-44b8-81fe DASH 14918a17aa09~~

I get three of these every month, so I'll post them here when they renew, unless a mod tells me not to. Just trying to help people find alternatives to YouTube (and Google).

I've been using a degoogled customROM on a Pixel phone for years now. As a camera app I've been using firewalled Gcam, i.e. the official Google camera app, but forced to be offline.

Since the phone and the custom ROM have reached end of life, I need to switch to a new phone, and I'm considering a FairPhone.

Hence, I'd like to ask all users of degoogled FairPhones: which camera app do you use, and how well does it work as compared to stock?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/45309948

**

90% of the time right means 10% of the time wrong, huge deal when you deal with billions of queries! **

Can someone make a pinned post like the magathread on the degoogle subreddit for degoogled ROMs

I am planning to buy a new phone since my current 6-year-old one's screen is getting problematic.

I don't live on the European or American continents, and my country is rather short on choices—we only have Samsung, Apple, Huawei and other Chinese brands.

Importing is not an option because the prices rise to five to tenfold, and I cannot afford that since the already available ones are more expensive than the rest of the world here.

Which available brands and models can I easily DeGoogle and dodge other big corporation bulls?

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/48310133

This is a shoutout to the app QuickTiles and the developer and contributors thereof.

While at first glance it may not seem like a privacy focused app, however, ultimately, improving digital privacy is more often than not a balance between convenience/ease of use and, well, privacy^[There will always be know-it-alls and above-it-alls in the privacy community who trashtalk normies and/or beginners, acting like this and that is never a tradeoff. If you happen to be one of those, think about whether your attitude helps or hampers our efforts.]

I was almost about to let out a big sigh, thinking do I have to learn kotlin and java for this...? and then I found this app. It has some neat "add-ons" for the quick tiles panel on Android systems. Personally, I was looking for a quick setting to enable/disable data saver. This app had a "data usage" tile, which reduces the amount of requires "clicks" from 5 to 2.

Hi everyone! I'm still pretty new to the foss world and am actively working to de-google my life. I got a cheap used laptop and just installed Linux Mint so I can get some practice with Linux in general (raised as a Windows kid) and I have definitely appreciated the ease of Linux Mint, but I do plan to explore many other distros in the future as well.

I currently have the following:

Email: ProtonMail (and looking into Thunderbird and Tuta).

Messaging: Signal as my main, but I also have Molly that I am planning to migrate over once I can get my family on board.

Browser: Been heavily experimenting with this as I used to use the default browser (I have a Galaxy S23FE) and then switched to Firefox Focus while simultaneously checking out Brave (no, it's not still on my phone), however I am currently using IronFox as my main on my phone and LibreWolf as my main on my computers.

File storage: Proton Drive

Calendar: TimeTree (for friends/family) and Proton Calendar for personal.

VPN: Proton (I have the package deal) but have also been researching Mullvad as a possible future alternative.

Password Manager: Proton Pass (would be open to suggestions on others. I've heard BitWarden thrown around)

YouTube alternatives: Still playing around with LibreTube, FreeTube, and PeerTube, but I really like LibreTube's layout, just wish they'd pull the comments section too :/

Images/Videos: Also Proton Drive, but that's more of just a backup of them. Any suggestions in this area would be appreciated too!

I haven't had a chance to look heavily into it yet, but does anyone have any resources/knowledge on any banks that are foss-friendly? I'm in the US and there's plenty of laws around mandatory data, but if anyone knows of a bank that stops at that, I'd love to hear! I do eventually plan to go all-cash/pre-paid gift/credit cards, but a bank account seems necessary for now...

Anyways, please feel free to give me any and all suggestions! Thanks!

So I've spent hours deleting gmail emails on an account I've held on to despite moving to other providers. Had it for decades now. When I'm done switching the last of my accounts to my new emails, I think I'm going to make fake profiles in cat forums and select all the notifications I can just to fill Googles servers with bullshit.

In the days of memory shortages, I'm definitely not just giving them that 15 GB of space for them to use it to store and sell other's info while they use the cash to buy legislation. It sure would be terrible if others wasted all their storage that way too. Fill it up with emails about crazy conspiracy shit, Jesus, and Grindr messages.