Comment by rahen
2 months ago
These discussions seem to come up frequently lately. Both /e/OS and Lineage with microG provide good enough privacy for those who can't afford high-end smartphones like the Google Pixels.
The ranking would probably be:
- Pixel on GrapheneOS
- Any Android smartphone on Lineage or /e/OS
- iPhone on recent iOS (the best choice for technically illiterate people)
People concerned with privacy should avoid stock Android phones. Additionally, software only goes so far in protecting privacy. Some hygiene is also required, especially with iOS, where everything is sent to iCloud by default and E2E encryption is either not enabled by default or not available at all in some countries.
When it comes to hardware, nothing really compares to the Titan and T2 chips found in Pixels and iPhones though.
>- Pixel on GrapheneOS
>- Any Android smartphone on Lineage or /e/OS
None of those operating systems does anything for tracking/advertising SDKs in apps, which is most of where the data leaks are coming from, not google/apple. Moreover unless you're willing to go no proprietary apps (ie. most apps people actually use), you'll need google play services, which means google can still collect data on you.
Those distributions either use neutered Google Play Services through a stub reimplementation (microG), or rely on sandboxing (GOS).
Either way, Google can only collect limited data on those distributions, and you have control over them. Concerning tracking applications, yes, some hygiene and good practices are necessary, the OS can only go so far.
A true depiction of someone who has no clue what he's talking about. Google play services are the major source of telemetry exfiltration from major android devices. It runs as a highly privileged process which can collect data in extremely intricate manner and is the main reason google sells it's gapps bundle to scamsung and other chinese phone manufacturers.
> go no proprietary apps (ie. most apps people actually use)
That is the whole point of my argument. You either make sacrifices and improve your privacy or be stubborn and refuse to improvise which a lot of people still do. If privacy were that convenient, we wouldn't be talking about it. It's not by default and never will be