Testimony during Google’s antitrust case revealed that the company may be altering billions of queries a day to generate results that will get you to buy more stuff.
I can’t say I don’t use Google as I own an unrooted pixel on the Fi network but I’ve done what I’m able to lessen the information given to them by stopping the use of the search engine, browser and sandboxing any Google pages in my FF browser. It started bothering me how much I was relying on one company for nearly everything online.
My next phone will likely be rooted and running a different OS.
Pixel is still one of the best options overall despite other Google enshittification. There are plenty of ways to move away from Google defaults without changing the OS. If that’s not enough, you’d still benefit from their software support. Third party OSes like LineageOS and Graphene can use Google’s updated sources and binary blobs for driving the hardware during the same 5-7 year support lifespan. As a result those OSes should be able to run securely on a Pixel at least till the end of its official support span.
I’m pretty reliant on a couple of big providers I find. Usually Amazon is my first search stop then Google. I find I need to disable my ad blockers to be able to use the sponsored links. I often am searching for a solution product not a specific item so I’m curious about the options. Then I narrow down into specific items which Google does a pretty good job of I find for me.
I was an early Google adopter so I’ve been using Google for a lot of things over the years.
I often use search within Google Maps to find locations hours, reviews on a experience, and a location or business’ website.
I’ve recently switched to Duck Duck Go and FF and I find it might be a familiarity to the types of localized results I miss as I’m still pretty plugged into the Google eco system and duck duck go doesn’t seem to hit the mark as closely for me.
How does rooting “cripple” security? You still need to give Superuser permission to apps on an individual basis. So long as you only give Superuser permission to widely-used open-source apps, what’s the “crippling” change?
Or do you mean having an unlocked bootloader, which gives anyone with physical access to your device tools to unlock your phone? That’s related, but different, from rooting. And you can lock your bootloader and keep root access, so they aren’t interchangeable.
you can’t lock your bootloader and retain access for one. that’s an easy way to brick your device. it cripples security because in order to gain this access you are patching in the sudo binary (which doesn’t normally exist on Android and is therefore not designed to be securely used) and a bunch of selinux policies that give extremely vague permissions systemwide. data exfiltration is made a much simpler task when a user has rooted their device.
it is also increasing attack surface. you now have to trust that this per app permission model is actually functioning correctly and isn’t exploitable.
edit: it is worth noting that having root access on a desktop Linux system is horribly insecure as well, though. I completely remove sudo on my systems (although considering one can just invoke su -c or su - root that doesn’t help too much in actuality)
edit: it is worth noting that having root access on a desktop Linux system is horribly insecure as well, though. I completely remove sudo on my systems (although considering one can just invoke su -c or su - root that doesn’t help too much in actuality)
You have just proven you never or very rarely use a computer. How do you even update the system without sudo or an alternative to it?
Without root permissions you basically can’t manage your system anymore.
su - is actually the traditional way of getting superuser permissions on a Linux device—enter your root password, and it gives you a root shell that can perform all administration tasks. I’ve never even had sudo installed on my systems, because it doesn’t improve security for my specific use case. (How relevant is this to the various Android-device-related points? Not at all, really.)
I can’t say I don’t use Google as I own an unrooted pixel on the Fi network but I’ve done what I’m able to lessen the information given to them by stopping the use of the search engine, browser and sandboxing any Google pages in my FF browser. It started bothering me how much I was relying on one company for nearly everything online.
My next phone will likely be rooted and running a different OS.
Pixel is still one of the best options overall despite other Google enshittification. There are plenty of ways to move away from Google defaults without changing the OS. If that’s not enough, you’d still benefit from their software support. Third party OSes like LineageOS and Graphene can use Google’s updated sources and binary blobs for driving the hardware during the same 5-7 year support lifespan. As a result those OSes should be able to run securely on a Pixel at least till the end of its official support span.
I’m on android and how I protect myself in this phones environment is:
VPN - Mullvad is my go to
App Cloner - Obfuscate and scramble my GPS, Wifi, Phone Model, Google Analytics ID, and MAC address on isolated apps.
Brave Browser- Set to delete cookies, history, ect when it closes
Last Pass - So the above is easier to regain access to accounts
I’m pretty reliant on a couple of big providers I find. Usually Amazon is my first search stop then Google. I find I need to disable my ad blockers to be able to use the sponsored links. I often am searching for a solution product not a specific item so I’m curious about the options. Then I narrow down into specific items which Google does a pretty good job of I find for me.
I was an early Google adopter so I’ve been using Google for a lot of things over the years.
I often use search within Google Maps to find locations hours, reviews on a experience, and a location or business’ website.
I’ve recently switched to Duck Duck Go and FF and I find it might be a familiarity to the types of localized results I miss as I’m still pretty plugged into the Google eco system and duck duck go doesn’t seem to hit the mark as closely for me.
rooting cripples your security and there is little benefit to it.
There’s a lot of benefit to it, and if you don’t install all the crap you find on the internet you’ll be fine.
well sure, for customisation sake there is plenty benefit. the security concerns are more plentiful, however
How does rooting “cripple” security? You still need to give Superuser permission to apps on an individual basis. So long as you only give Superuser permission to widely-used open-source apps, what’s the “crippling” change?
Or do you mean having an unlocked bootloader, which gives anyone with physical access to your device tools to unlock your phone? That’s related, but different, from rooting. And you can lock your bootloader and keep root access, so they aren’t interchangeable.
you can’t lock your bootloader and retain access for one. that’s an easy way to brick your device. it cripples security because in order to gain this access you are patching in the sudo binary (which doesn’t normally exist on Android and is therefore not designed to be securely used) and a bunch of selinux policies that give extremely vague permissions systemwide. data exfiltration is made a much simpler task when a user has rooted their device.
it is also increasing attack surface. you now have to trust that this per app permission model is actually functioning correctly and isn’t exploitable.
edit: it is worth noting that having root access on a desktop Linux system is horribly insecure as well, though. I completely remove sudo on my systems (although considering one can just invoke
su -corsu - rootthat doesn’t help too much in actuality)You have just proven you never or very rarely use a computer. How do you even update the system without sudo or an alternative to it?
Without root permissions you basically can’t manage your system anymore.
su -is actually the traditional way of getting superuser permissions on a Linux device—enter your root password, and it gives you a root shell that can perform all administration tasks. I’ve never even hadsudoinstalled on my systems, because it doesn’t improve security for my specific use case. (How relevant is this to the various Android-device-related points? Not at all, really.)