Hello everyone. I have a separate profile for my proprietary apps on GOS, yet some of these apps don’t work, so I’m thinking I need to enable Google Play Services.

Was wondering if this could hugely compromise my privacy, and if I could uninstall GPS later on. Thank you!

Yes. Only ‘how much’ can be limited.

@bernard@lemmy.film
link
fedilink
39
edit-2
10M

Grapheneos.org explains how the sandboxed GPS minimizes what it can collect. The highly promiscuous standard implementation of GPS has massive access to your device with limited and uncertain abilities to restrain what it can collect. All apps in Graphene are treated as hostile with fire grained firewall abilities. The sandboxed GPS from Graphene is implemented as any other app and only needs network access to deliver notification.

I created an anonymous Google account and only give it network access until the day some of the apps I need. Google only knows that someone from an IP address is getting notifications for those apps that use it. Once these apps switch to unified push or web sockets to deliver notifications, I will remove GPS.

Atemu
link
fedilink
410M

Note that your Google account is pseudonymous, not anonymous. It’s still an account related to your person, just without your real name attached. That’s a step up from a clear-name Google account but nowhere near private.

Google can mine an insane amount of data out of just when you are online and/or using their services.

Great explanation!

If all you’re only using GPS for notifications why login at all?

You can skip logon to just get notifications. Since Aurora store was rate limited, I started installing from GPS.

Cam
link
fedilink
1110M

Using goolag play services will always decreace your privacy.

👁️👄👁️
cake
link
fedilink
510M

Yes, but if you’re not Edward Snowden then you will be fine. You can uninstall/disable it at any time.

I don’t understand the “Edward Snowden” part honestly.

👁️👄👁️
cake
link
fedilink
7
edit-2
10M

because next to nobody has such a high threat model that requires complete anonymity

it’s very different from being anti-corporate and trying to get yourself off of centralized services

most threat models aren’t high enough to warrant worrying about it.

Create a post

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

  • Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
  • Don’t promote proprietary software
  • Try to keep things on topic
  • If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
  • Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
  • Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

  • 0 users online
  • 57 users / day
  • 383 users / week
  • 1.5K users / month
  • 5.7K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 2.44K Posts
  • 57.6K Comments
  • Modlog