Doesn't Android pretty much have all that already?

> Encryption of specific secrets for each app

Not sure what you mean by this, but apps are already sandboxed and can't access each other's data. What specific threat are you trying to protect against?

> Fine grained control of what information is shared with apps

Already exists.

> Ability to selectively deny particular data (and have the app keep working, e.g by giving it an empty contacts list, fake phone ID, etc)

Already exists. Not with fake data though; you just deny the permission and the app has to deal with it.

> Ad and js blocking capable browser

There already are _several_ browsers on Android that do that. Unless you mean you want it in Chrome specifically?

> Why should installing e.g. the facebook app, allow it to track my position at all times?

It doesn't. That only occurs when you grant it the location permission.

Fine grained permission does not exist on Android. Bunch of permissions are grouped together* and the app gets all if I allow it.

This is the main reason I root my phone and use XPrivacy. After using XPrivacy, Android permission seems stupid. I can't go back to that.

* Bunch of permissions are grouped together into CATEGORIES and the app gets all if I allow that category.

Fine grained permissions do exist, your phone is simply not being updated to that version.

You can update permissions on types of notifications, location, storage, contacts etc. all independently of each other. O is great for that and I assume P will only be better.

There is not fine grained permissions. There is something that is better than it used to be, but fine grained is not what I'd call it. For instance, I believe the following should be possible for photos alone.

* Give an app access to only save, not read my photos * Give an app ability to read one specific photo (think upload a photo to facebook) * Take pictures without always having access to the camera.

That is fine grained.

All of those options exists and are implemented - apps can invoke OS photo picker which exposes a single photo. Apps can store photos to storage without requesting read access to other directories. Apps can request a photo intent which opens camera without exposing anything to them.

You just choose to use apps which instead request you give them permissions to whole photo storage.

That is by definition not fine grained permissions that I'm in control of. Of course apps can do that. But we know that will never be the default way of doing it. I want the OS to be in charge, not only asking the developers to play along nicely, because they will go where the money is.

Saying that I can just choose to use apps that do it "the right way" is the same as saying "you can just not use a smart phone". I can see the value in smart phones and in popular apps. What I'm asking for it a pragmatic choice where the OS puts me in charge, because it's not working to just ask the developers to play nicely.

I believe the API for that actually exists, it's just that no app uses it because the UI/UX for that is messy. It's much easier to just requests access to all files.

It does not. You have to explore XPrivacy to know what fine grained looks like. I can not explain. Also Android does not show all the permissions that XPrivacy can.

Location tracking requires specific permission from the user, not as part of installation. I think you're a bit out of date.

https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/deve...

And this is a perfect example of the bait-and-switch: Location now goes through Google's location services, so you're not saying "FindMyKeysApp may use my GPS location", you're saying "FindMyKeysApp AND GOOGLE may use my GPS location."

For most apps (unless I'm wrong?) there's no way to let the app use my location without it going through Google's location services and sending data back to the Borg Cube.

You could use microg, then nothing goes to Google. https://lineage.microg.org – This together with yalp gives you a good experience and keeps you private.

Yeah, I've been on LineageOS since it was CyanogenMod, haven't yet needed Google Play for my (admittedly simplistic) requirements but it's good to know that microg is coming along so nicely in case I get stuck.

go to settings, gps mode, select "always high accuracy"

presto - no google - only actual GPS signals used. But good luck - you'll see just how terrible GPS is indoors and in urban canyons. Without wifi and BLE augmentation it truly sucks.

There's two issues here:

1) Using visible WiFi networks to determine location sends data to Google to use their geolocation database. Your suggestion here does stop this (assuming you meant to DE-select "always high accuracy" and instead select "device only" which uses the GPS without sending any data offboard.)

2) Google pushes the use of Google Play location services API over Android's location services system API. These services don't work unless you grant Google Play Services permission to use your location. Since Google Play Services also needs network access, you effectively have to grant Google access to your location in order to use any location services whatsoever in any application.

It's the second point to which I was referring in my post above.

That is the same with iOS, but iOS doesn't even give you the option of disabling AGPS. Google Location Services' AGPS is anonymized, exactly like iOS's implementation.

I recently switched to iOS for this reason. Yes there are permissions - but Android still periodically activated location services despite my settings.

Googles insistence on capturing as much data as possible about me is just creepy. I disabled voice search, location history, and everything else I could. Switching to DuckDuckGo made a big difference, but still the data gets swallowed up.

I know that Apple is only slightly better - but I’ll take whatever privacy I can get.

Apple doesn't even give you the option of disabling its AGPS implementation, so in that respect, you are worse off.

It was said in another thread, Apple's financial interests align better with their users -- Google keep insisting on stalking their own users. I'm so happy I don't have a Gmail account.

If you enable location just once (e.g. to check in to a location) it has that permission until you laboriously find the control in per app settings, and apps can use your location any time from then on, including in the background.

I think commenter was pointing that an Android app can fetch location even from the background (albeit w/ limits on frequency due to power consumption). It just needs to get that one Location permission from the user.

iOS has a fine-grained permission setting for this - you can decide whether to allow the app to access location or not when it's not in foreground, i.e "While Using the App".

Even on older phones, you can turn location services off, which I do at all times unless I'm actively navigating.

This doesn’t actually help on android as google can still determine location by scanning local WiFi network info.

But it doesn't. Google Location Services is what gives permission to use Google's AGPS service. Meanwhile, on iOS, there is no way to disable that at all.

Denying / delivering fake data is #1 on my wishlist. Wechat (and pretty much all apps from China) needs to have absolutely minimum permissions. Currently I have to put them on a separate phone...

It was hard (and in some cases it still is) but I have started to just not the use apps and services that need blanket permissions. Like I didn't have TrueCaller on my phone until I moved to iOS where it surprisingly works w/o Contact permission. The last time I had checked it would simply refuse to work on Android w/o Contact permission. And I didn't give Uber location permission till it started to ask for "While Using the App" permission. Until then I used to manually enter the address.

Similarly, I have decided not to use many Dropbox apps that need R/W permission to entire Dropbox instead of any one folder that I can choose.

I think we kind of need to show these apps and services their place, so to speak.

xprivacy is the single reason I continue to root my phone :|

> Fine grained control of what information is shared with apps.

No, they won't willingly destroy a major revenue source.

I don't understand this request? Apps are sandboxed, and there's relatively granular permission control now. What is this referencing specifically?

this applies only to installed apps from the store, not system apps like googles or oem apps. you cant disable background activity of any apps. dont want an always listening ai helper from google? too bad for you.

Just turn it off. There's a literal setting for that and it directly asks you to enable it when you set up your phone for the first time.

Please stop spreading FUD :(

Just don't use them. Unlike in iOS, you can replace all those apps with other apps that you prefer. No rooting or jailbreaking required. If you don't like Google Assistant, you can use Alexa or Cortana or something entirely different. If you don't like Siri on iOS, tough luck.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/7/17328758/amazon-alexa-defa...

Not true these days. If you want to use location, the app has to use Google Location Services. No matter what the final app is.

No need for Google Location Services unless you want to access Google's location data. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/location/pac...

You as a developer, yes. But you as a user have no choice if the developer has decided to use Google Location Services.

As a user, you just simply never opt in to using Google Location Services, something that is not even possible on iOS.

This is simply not true. LocationManager API works well still.

Could you please tell me how I am supposed to disable this app? https://i.k8r.eu/q-NmHw Or this? https://i.k8r.eu/3K7idw

I can’t even disable this Google bloatware on a stock phone (Nexus 5X)

You can't disable the only launcher on your phone. Just install another launcher, set that launcher as your default, and the end result is exactly what you would want (no Google launcher running). This is not possible at all on iOS.

Also, you've once again conflated "stock" with Google phone. If you use more precise terminology, you won't be so confused.

I have a different launcher installed, and in use. I backported the changes Google did in their launcher to Launcher3, built that, installed it, and am using it.

Yet I can still not disable these Google apps.

EDIT: Screenshot https://i.k8r.eu/4ZLdMA

And by installing a different launcher, the Google apps never run, which is the effect you wanted to achieve. You gain nothing by disabling the apps after that.

If you were able to disable the apps and then uninstall the the new launcher, your phone would be unusable until you did a factory reset from recovery.

Incorrect. The Google apps are still used and running, e.g. for hotword detection even when the launcher is changed. And even with hotword detection off.

And they take up space in my launcher.

Not on the Pixel. On my Pixel, I can disable the Google app and if I use a different launcher, the Pixel launcher won't run at all. So they're getting more customizable over time.

Root, remove, unroot.

you ideally want something like Xprivacy, which is unfortunately no longer supported

Install something like Netguard (same dev behind Xprivacy) -- which functions as a firewall (vpn) b/w apps and the internet. Turn on logging. Watch all the apps you have installed phoning home and services like graph.facebook.com every few moments.

XPrivacyLua is the successor of XPrivacy. https://github.com/M66B/XPrivacyLua

Another good point -- it sucks stupid amounts of data and radio power. People are always puzzled by how quickly they go through their data, some advertising systems can suck ~500MB/month of cellular data. Some telcos have specifically started showing usage graphs identifying traffic as advertising, but it can be hard to see which app or web page is the culprit.

Is it unreasonable to hope that the default configuration used by 99% of users won't shout your personal data all over the internet?

No it's not and the default configuration doesn't do that at all.

>Encryption of specific secrets for each app.

you mean something like ios keychain? what does this do that can't be achieved using disk encryption + sandbox?

>Ad and js blocking capable browser.

firefox for android

To clarify, Firefox for Android has full extension support, so you can install NoScript, uBlock, and what have you just as you would on a desktop browser.

> you mean something like ios keychain? what does this do that can't be achieved using disk encryption + sandbox?

Because once the phone is booted and unlocked by the user there is no further protection. Do you keep your phone turned off?

Also the lack of device pairing means it is usually easy to dump the encrypted image and crack the pass code quite quickly.

https://blog.elcomsoft.com/2017/10/ios-vs-android-physical-d...

> firefox for android

I find it quite slow, slower than chrome downloading all the ads. But it is an option I guess. It won't get wider uptake though, the default platform browser is the main game.

Google is partly an advertisement company. Google is not going to allow an ad-blocking browser to be included by default in stock Android images.

Ublock has been fantastic on Firefox for me, even though Firefox isn't as good as Chrome.

The Facebook Web site still works fine.

On desktop maybe, on mobile it has been deliberately crippled. Can't share photos/posts via messenger for example, can't save photos either. Best you can do is screen cap, crop, resend. Using the website also means you are logged in, so you get tracked all over the web.