Why are you visiting a bunch of tracking websites?

Usually it’s user behaviour that needs to change, not picking the ‘special’ software. A libre base is all you need and there’s a few. The “most” secure browser won’t help you retain privacy from Facebook when you use it to chat to friends on… Facebook. These sorts of questions drift into nonsense and pointlessness. X, Y and the rest of the alphabet all could all be of use to you. What do you actually want to do? The most secure browser is offline and doesn’t load anything. Now what? How’s that going to help you? If you take this community’s name to actually mean anything than the correct answers exclude Google’s chromium. There. You have another answer: anything that’s not Google-chromium. Now what? Using ungoogled-chromium downstream when the upstream is controlled by Google is indefensible if the objective is to regain ‘control’ from Google by DeGoogling yourself.

Yes, it’s today. Donate now.

This is a step too far. What will they announce next?

Google Canada starts using account activity to estimate your income

Google Canada starts using account activity to estimate your location

Google Canada starts using account activity to estimate your interests

Is there no one that can stop Google Canada? Are they in the room with us now?

Most governments are fascists. They want what Google is working towards: a certified device. Once you have a platform that the majority owns and is certified you can start rolling out more fascist policies, like identity verification for asinine things. The American courts failed a long time ago in regards to software with Microsoft. You could make cases against Google decades ago, but literally no one cares for some reason.

But at what cost?

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It must be stated: Google is malicious! The language used here and elsewhere conceals the fact that: a) Google is a for-profit company with no morals (they work with militaries and surveillance-agencies to kill); b) they operate in a monopolistic manner; c) they’re eroding control of your personal-property.

This is just another move by Google to consolidate control over the AOSP. It doesn’t matter that this convoluted sequence can temporarily ‘bypass’ Google’s wishes–in fact I would state this is clearly worse. Removing the ability to install non-Google-endorsed software on your own private-property could be illegal. This is perhaps the only thing they could do to prevent lawsuits, only they’ve made it so asininely convoluted that only 0.01% will actually complete the process that it should be illegal monopolistic behaviour. American courts have absolutely failed everyone by allowing this rampant malicious behaviour to be the norm in American-software.

Google’s Android already created friction for installing software outside their ecosystem. There is no justification for this behaviour. It cannot be defended. Stop following their market-speak. This is belligerent and malicious behaviour!

To put a finer point on this: Google is charging a recurring fee to anyone who wants to distribute software to phones–Android-phones. If you have a need to distribute software to your organisation’s mobile-computers you now need to pay a recurring fee to Google, or… jump on one foot, spin around, touch the ground and hope Google doesn’t bully you further. Oh, and you have to do this dance personally for all 438 mobile-computers you manage. The absurdity of the situation is appalling! The fact you have users defending–and that is what these sort of responses are doing: defending one of the most profitable companies in existence–“oh, just do the dance now so it won’t inconvenience you later”.

The “escape hatch” is down that corridor, to the left, left, right, left, left, up, right & behind the book-case; take the stairs up, down five flights; depart at Washington D.C. and on arrival you’ll see a button. Press it. It might not do anything.

–Google

I’m confused. You write as if privacy and convenience are somehow related. They’re not. They’re completely independent of one another as are rabbits and trains. You’re regurgitating corporate-propaganda: software-companies steal your resources (time, money, electricity, bandwidth, data, etc.) and retort they do so for your convenience when confronted. That’s a lie. It just so happens it’s easier to steal when your software has a monopoly and vendors actively prohibit and deter any alternative software.

You don’t get a choice of what software is on your computer when you buy it from the retailer. The fact is you’ve been conditioned and only know how to use proprietary-software that’s become a standard via lobbying and exclusive contracts between software-vendors and OEMs. That has fuck all to do with convenience.

The fact that Google and Apple have a near duopoly over software distribution on mobile-computers (i.e. I want to use my bank’s app and that’s only distributed via Google’s PlayStore™ or whatever Apple’s thing™ is called) is a national-governance issue not a mater of convenience.

Neither Google nor Apple are doing charitable works here. I’ll brush over the details to paint a picture: any financial transaction that occurs within an ‘app’ distributed by those platforms results in a demand from the distributor for a percentage of that sum. How that general thrust affects banking ‘apps’ I’m not sure and I would hope there’s caveats for essential infrastructure like banking. Probably not; regulation is nonexistent for software-companies.

I don’t bank with banks that limit their clients to an ‘app’ distributed solely by Google or Apple. That behaviour has nothing to do with convenience and everything to do with economics, politics, self-determination and self-respect. I consider it abuse to the user to run non-libre software.

These programs are a waste of your time and resources. It is useless network spam who’s only outcome is to accelerate web-admins to move towards stricter filters to protect their computer resources from such spam.

The concept is wildly broken, because its perception of surveillance is incorrect. It puts too large an emphasis on web-traffic. This isn’t the 90s anymore.

I genuinely want to know what is going on in the author’s head. This is a program for Google’s Android–Google’s Android. It is their operating-system and where a lot of signals are captured. Google sees that you’ve downloaded Fauxx, even if you install it from a third-party (i.e. not from Google’s PlayStore™). They know what time your alarms are set for. They intercept every text message, every phone-call, every e-mail, every notification. If you have Bluetooth™ or other wireless protocols enabled they know what other wireless-signals are around you. They know when you’re driving, when you’re idle, when you’re at work and when you’re asleep.

Clicking on random links isn’t fooling anybody. Sophisticated algorithms look for trends, not one offs ‘hey, this user clicked on an ad for a product sold by Y’. Regardless of how much you think you’re spamming the network Google has access to millions of controls: people the same age, gender, ethnicity and whatever else, to compare against. People who are diligently populating databases with correct data.

I read the f-droid page–before anyone points to the spoofing of location data as some kind of protection–let me put real emphasis on: this isn’t the 90s. This is sophisticated mass-surveillance in 2026 that only increases in sophistication as time goes on. Users purchase increasingly sophisticated mobile-computers that are awake 24/7/365 scanning for an increasing list of wireless protocols which means more data for Google. More sophisticated patterns and algorithms to work alongside and with their national-defense contractors.

Google thinks you’re in the population that might commit political-violence. The NSA, CIA, FBI et al have been notified and now there’s human-eyes on you too, not just the surveillance of unthinking machines. Good fun.

Google doesn’t need a GPS signal to know where you are, where you live and where you work. They have access to a live map of global wifi-access points, cell-towers, Bluetooth™ beacons and a host of other signals. That map is updated daily by all the drones who go though life using their Google Android mobile-computer. Try as one might, this is a collective problem. On one hand it is Google’s mass-surveillance program, but they can only do what they do because everyone else is a snitch for them. A willing snitch. A snitch that believes there is no other way, but to be a snitch. Just try and convince someone not to use Google’s products.

Regardless, for privacy this is a pointless piece of software. You’ll just make Google richer. Those websites and ads clicked on were already paid for. Whether they represent your actual interests or not is besides the point. The transaction already happened and you just made Google minusculely richer. The correct thing to do is to block ad-networks from your network so they never even get loaded.

If you want to protect yourself from Google’s mass-surveillance systems don’t use Google. Use a GNU/Linux mobile-computer or GrapheneOS. To combat the effects of mass-surveillance (that is, the surveillance of you by the masses who do use Google’s products) get political. It seems absurd and a threat to national security that the domestic economy is held ransom by Google and Apple.

I’ll preempt the criticism of GrapheneOS by juveniles who barely have two brain-cells. GrapheneOS only works on Google branded mobile-computers. Ergo buying a Google product would make Google even richer than randomly clicking on Google’s ads, which go for what? $0.0006c USD?

Google’s product isn’t the hardware. It’s subsidized and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sold near cost (anyone who actually has information about this I’d be genuinely interested in reading). It’s not even made by Google. It’s made by the same factories that makes Apple’s mobile-computers and a host of other retailers’ devices. Don’t get hung up on the branding. Turning off a spigot for Google’s mass-surveillance system is infinitely more powerful than continuing to contribute to it, but with additional ‘noise’ that doesn’t even register.

Outside the domain of privacy I don’t like this idea of spamming networks or loading completely random garbage. At the most benign-end of the spectrum you’re just wasting whatever data-allowance you’re paying for. At the malicious-end you could be contacting malicious-servers (ad-networks are obtusely not in this category, but should be).