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NE3R > TECH 29.04.21 04:12l 36 Lines 2116 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 744_N3HYM
Read: GUEST
Subj: Using a de-Googled phone
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<DB0ERF<DB0RES<ON0AR<GB7CIP<N7HPX<KF5JRV<N3HYM<NE3R
Sent: 210428/2208 44@NE3R.MD.USA.NOAM
If someone would have told the 1996 version of me that in 2020, I would be
carrying a tracking device telling stores about my shopping habits, insurance
companies about my driving habits, & huge companies about just about everything,
I would have said that is crazy. But that is exactly what I was doing, so, I
decided to make a change.
Doing something about that would not be easy. I would have to purge social
media apps from my phone, gas station apps, fast food apps, and well, pretty
much every app. But what about google apps, most if not all commercial phones
have embedded google apps that you cannot uninstall, along with underlying
services. To do something about it, I would have to completely format the phone
and load a different operating system.
It has been an adjustment. Doing without Google’s play store, payment services,
notification service, and maps are the biggest challenges. I either get my apps
as native APK files, where I would verify the PGP signatures or from an
alternative app store known as F-Droid. I stopped using apps to pay for
anything, which worried me once when I had to park my car in town but was able
to use the web site to pay the electronic meter. I am still doing without
notifications at this point, there is an alternative, but I am still a little
leery of it. For maps I have been using Open Street Maps, they are not quite as
good as google or apple maps, but it has been working well for me. I like that
it is all offline, but if I travel, I need to remember to download that area. I
also use K9 for e-mail and Signal for messaging.
Apple iPhone users, unfortunately, you get what they give you, as far as I know
you cannot load an alternative operating system on an iPhone.
Getting rid of all the tracking features on your Android phone does impact
functionality, and you still must have some level of community trust with the
open-source alternatives. The level of effort to set up the phone like this was
high. I do not know if it was worth the effort, but it was a good experiment
that I will be continuing.
73 de Joe NE3R
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