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.

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Google Allows Creditors to Brick Your Phone (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I installed NetGuard about a month ago and blocked all internet to apps, unless they're on a whitelist. No notifications from this particular system app (that can't be disabled) until recently when it started making internet connection requests to google servers. Does anyone know when this became a thing?

Edit 2: I bought my Pixel 6 phone outright, directly from Google's Australian store. I have no creditors.

Were the courts not enough control for creditors? Since when are they allowed to lock you out of your purchased property without a court order?

I don't even live in the US, so what the actual fuck?

Edit 1: You can check it's installed (~~stock~~ Pixel 6 android 14) Settings > Apps > All Apps > three dot menu, Show system > search "DeviceLockController".

I highly recommend getting NetGuard, you can enable pro features via their website if you have the APK for as low as 0.10€, but donate more, because it's amazing. You can also purchase via Google Play store.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Use Lineage OS

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I did before I used Graphene, and my experience was a lot worse to be honest. Has it improved over the last two years?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You are much better off using a Pixel with GrapheneOS as far as privacy and security are concerned. Believe it or not, Google Pixels are the best smartphones to use de-googled. Truly outstanding.

Look up why Graphene team only supports these phones, it's on their FAQ page.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What was wrong with it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Lots of apps straight up didn't work, that was the main thing. The other thing was I had to use a VPN app to block app network access, something that is a built in feature of Graphene. Further, Graphene has much more built in security features including actually using secure boot.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Did you get your apps from F-droid? I run Lineage completely stock with F-droid. It might be good to make a distinction between regular Lineage OS and Google Lineage OS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm not to the point where I can use 100% F-Droid apps, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Exactly, I think we as a community need to have an accepted transition from proprietary spyware to free alternatives. I think step one would be to move to free apps.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I agree, and would say that 90% of my apps are. But there's a few (mostly banking related) that I can't pass up since the mobile websites are unusable.