Well, that's not a GPS fix.
If you want a traceless position fix, use GPS Navstar / Glonass / Beidu / Galileo. Yes it takes longer from cold start, but that's the trade-off for privacy.
Of course I am not using contact tracing either in this case, but I certainly won't allow Google to trace my location.
> Google retains a detailed map of known Wi-Fi networks and access points. By knowing the exact location of these networks, and your proximity to them, its location services can gauge your location with roughly 30 feet of accuracy. [0]
[0] https://slate.com/technology/2018/06/how-google-uses-wi-fi-n...
30 feet sounds like cell tower triangulation.
Of course, the very fact that these permissions are bundled is the reason why it's feasible to keep such databases up-to-date, and why up-to-date databases provide a continuously stronger case why Bluetooth should be considered a type of location permission..
It would be totally possible to separate location permissions between "passive" location (e.g. triangulation through received GPS coordinates), and "active" location, e.g. inference of location through indirect measures and correlations with historical databases.
Afaik it's now a system-wide setting to disallow said correlations, but offering app developers more fine-grained control would be better for all of us. Why does, for example, my Sony Bluetooth headset need my location just for updating some firmware..
It's sad we got the the point the customers are afraid their devices are selling them this badly, because you can't even tell if your settings have the effect you think they should have.
OK the second thing was "but I can't do almost anything with it :D "
Google and the likes have made it very difficult for you to be even aware that was an option.
People just don't care enough, even among my fellow geeks I had to "battle" to get them to install Signal because I couldn't use WhatsApp anymore.
We are bombarded with news about revolting situations and at one point there's so much outrage one can take. So the Evil Big tech spying is very low on the list of most people especially since they don't see the damage.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vivaldibrowser/comments/a23071/how_...
Looking it up now they rewrote this part of the browser, and either moved it somewhere else or obfuscated it better.
Arguable worse than R, C, or Word.
"Gee, let's take the most frequently occurring letter in English usage, and bracket it with Web-significant non-text punctuation."
"e Foundation" will find them.
No idea on status/news.
He gives regular status updates and they seem to be making good progress. I played with /e/OS a long time ago when it first came out and found the microg integration to be excellent (have had trouble in the past getting LineageOS + microg to work...). I am planning to flash /e/OS onto a phone again soon to see the latest progress.
What about A-GPS MSA handling? [1]
[0] https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-GPS#Modes_of_operation
I actually feel so much better without all the google stuff, weird no?
I assume that even if Huawei’s Android sold in the West doesn't use Google Play Services, it still uses standard AOSP, and the issue is that Google geolocation (and some other use of Google servers) is hardcoded into AOSP.
And even if the OS isn't spying, the apps you install can spy, albeit less effectively.