cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/31024070
Making the jump from Samsung to iPhone soon, mainly for privacy reasons. Want to cut Google out as much as possible while I’m at it.
What I’m planning so far:
- Mailbox.org instead of Gmail
- DuckDuckGo for search, would prefer something even better
- Safari with all the privacy stuff turned on
Where I’m stuck:
What about YouTube? Just use the web version?
Google Drive alternatives that actually work well?
Best way to store photos that aren’t big greedy corps?
Questions:
Any must-have privacy apps once I get the iPhone?
Settings I should change immediately out of the box?
Services I’m forgetting that are probably feeding Google my data?
Congratulations!
I de-googled a few years ago but rushed through the process and went to the whole Proton ecosystem. Your plan sounds great. This is my setup:
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BROWSER/SEARCH: I have both Firefox browsers, Startpage, Brave and DuckDuckGo (which is my default browser and use their Email Protection ).
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You can customize your browsers and add more search engines like Mojeek, Ecosia, Disroot , etc.
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YouTube ALTERNATIVE: Peertube is a good alternative to YT. They also have an app for iPhone.
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DuckDuckGo has Duck Player that will open in a new window without the ads! So, yes. If you prefer to stay with YouTube, use DuckDuckGo browser and enable the Duck Player in Settings.
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STORAGE: I use Ente Photo Storage for iOS. Currently, their Forever Free account is 10 GB (which you already use).
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Filen is also an option (downloaded it 2 weeks ago but haven’t used it yet); their free account is 10 GB and boasts Zero knowledge technology.
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I also use Proton Drive. It was glitchy at first but they’ve fixed and improved it. That’s another reason why I recommend using more than one of anything (backup your backup). Try their products first so you can decide if you want to subscribe to the whole ecosystem or just part of it.
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You can connect external storage devices to iPhone, depending on the model.
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Consider an EHD (if you haven’t already) in addition to cloud services. They’re great for storing photos, videos and music.
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Box and Dropbox are what I use for non-confidential files (recipes, ebooks, mp3s, blank forms, no PII, photos of not-people).
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iDrive is another backup service that has an iOS app.
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iCloud! Perfect if you’re just starting out with Apple or have one device. Pay attention to your storage! Make sure you have enough room for iOS updates.
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MAIL: I’ve heard many positive feedback from my friends about Posteo and Mailbox.org. Tuta, Proton and Mailfence are also good alternatives.
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Disroot emails are stored unencrypted in their servers so you’ll have to do that yourself .
PRIVACY (not sure what you mean but consider these:
- VPN! Mullvad, Proton (or both) Why? You need a back up VPN just in case there’s a glitch or a website is blocking certain VPN servers.
- Ghostery if you plan on using Safari. Safari has Profiles so you can create one for school, work, etc.
- AdGuard app is another option for use with Safari.
- Bitwarden or Proton Pass if you plan to use a password manager (which is highly recommended). Passwords is another Apple stock app which works well with Safari.
- Ente has 2FA but I’ve never used it before
- TURN OFF LOCATION unless you’re using Maps to go somewhere. You can turn it on/off as needed and add a location to your photos later. Unnecessarily running location services can drain your battery faster.
- As long as you don’t use google anymore and download their apps, you’ll be fine. Don’t forget to delete your accounts.
- At your earliest convenience, please read Apple Support’s iCloud data security overview regarding E2EE. Disregard if you’re in the UK.
OTHER:
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Before downloading an app, scroll down to the App Privacy and see what information they hoard from your phone. You can decide for yourself if it’s worth it.
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I love the stock apps (biased opinion), they’re easy to use and work well together.
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Most of the products I’ve recommended above are cross-platform in case you want to go back to android or if you’re in a cross-platform household.
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If you have a choice, use an app instead of a browser because it’s a better experience, sometimes it’s faster and some apps are available for use offline.
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@Corduroy_Pillows_Making_Headlines started a de-google group, the original post has a link to a PDF file with a schedule and recommendation on how to migrate your data. You might find it useful to your transition. Good luck!
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You can setup e2ee in icloud
Congrats on your decision to replace Google spyware with Apple spyware.
That’s funny, if I truly wanted zero spyware, I’d go with a Fairphone running /e/OS. But even then, I’d still need certain government apps to function as a citizen. Since I prefer Apple over Google and I’m not ready to go full privacy-hardened, I’d rather find a balance between convenience and privacy protection.
Problem is that Apple has always been even more about lock-in and user tracking than Google, though Google has been catching up on that front quite a bit. But at least Android has some open source components to allow knowing what’s tracking you. Problem is the manufacturers then add another layer of tracking and lock-in if you use phones from manufacturers like Samsung. So you may or may not be reducing the number of companies tracking you by moving from Samsung to Apple, but you’re increasing the amount of data that can be captured and linked to you and preventing yourself from using privacy apps that might be able to block some of that since iOS has much more strict control over what the user can do with their device at the OS level and forces developers to use their tracking systems in a lot of cases for things like error handling. So overall, moving to Apple is increasing your exposure to tracking, even if reducing the number of companies who have the info for free, of course they all sell all that info, so that’s not really an advantage.
A year ago I would have suggested getting a Pixel phone and installing GrapheneOS, but it looks like Google is moving to kill off alternative OSes on Pixels, so not sure what’s the best bet at this point.
But Apple has always been of the mindset of controlling user experience and security over configurability and privacy which many prefer since they want it to “just work”.
Remember, security, privacy, and usability always have to be balanced. For example, if you want a chat app that is both secure and private, then the app servers have no information to make things more usable, like how do you share your hardware address for communication to go to if there are no user IDs for privacy. You have to do that outside the app, thus less usable. So if you see an app that is very secure and usable, it likely is not very private. Signal is a good example on the chat application side since it uses a phone number which is then linked to lots of personal info, but it has very secure messages and is very easy to find your friends on it (usable).
Apple generally prioritizes user usability and user security with the detriment of user privacy and developer usability and privacy.
Why don’t you use /e/os or another custom rom? all android apps work perfectly fine on custom rom’s it shouldn’t really be any different from Samsung except there is less spyware.
Also you can just stick with samsung and just turn off as much telemetry as possible, there is a much better ecosystem of foss apps on android + the ability to use third party repositories like f-droid, obtanium and accresent.
I said in my post that I dont like google, dont like the ui or ux of anything related to google.
I don’t like the ux on Samsung either, and I kind of got stuck with this phone a bit back by my own fault.
I don’t think ios is a better solution for privacy or anything related to that, I just prefer iOS and I wanted to see what my options are when I make the switch, I apologize if I offend anyone for mentioning iOS.
The reason for not using a custom rom on my Samsung is because alot of people have been telling me to stick to stock OS on Samsung, its the recommended thing to do for security if I remember correctly (got told this by a guy in the grapheneOS community)
Ok, I understand now, and that’s totally fair. I didn’t really realize that’s what you meant in your post.
When you replace one evil with another evil of the same kind, your situation hasn’t become any better. Also, it is quite ironic that you say ‘balance’ for that.
How is it ironic, I want to find a balance with privacy and convenience.
What people have told me earlier, is that it’s a bunch of sacrificing to have better privacy.
I’ve tried graphenOS on a pixel, not using and having google track you means you lose the convenience of really good gps accuracy. For me using only Mozillas location service resulted in slow and inaccurate GPS, could probably have tried to tinker more with it but it had problems even under roofs to get a lock on my location.
That doesn’t work for me when my phone is a tool. That’s an example of a sacrifice I don’t feel like making in my life right now, I also need to use some microsoft and google products for what I’m studying for, which means I cant get rid of privacy invasive stuff altogether, which is why im asking here to see what my options are so I can put something together that works for me
Google Drive alternatives that actually work well?
This is a big pain point of the iPhone. You can use Proton or other providers, but you will be stuck with iCloud for your backups.
The issue with the iPhone is that you need to trust Apple. They have a decent reputation (obviously someone will immediately say “nooo, it’s baaad!!1”), and it has a good trade-off security/usability, but it’s just like a top quality over-the-counter medicine. If you want the real stuff, there will be side effects (on features).
I never get people saying that apple is actively spying on you without giving a real evidence, when that is not where their profit lies. Honestly, it comes off as being paranoid.
Apple has an history of resisting surveillance and that’s true. However, it’s subject to regulations, they lower security in some countries (see UK), it’s based in the US which is definitely not encouraging, and… it may just end becoming like Google in the span of a few years.
That said, I prefer Apple to most of the other brands.
I hear you, I do trust Apple more than Google. I know Apple is more closed down when it comes to freedom and features, so I could use icloud, there is a little guide to iOS privacy here, also talking about iCloud
I do trust Apple more than Google
You shouldn’t. Neither of them give a sh*t about you.
You’ve made it impossible by doing that. Good luck.
You mean its more possible on Samsung?
Yes because of adb. You can’t remove the Apple tracking on an iPhone and its equally as bad.
I dont wanna mess with the security of my device, and in my experience, getting rid of Googles tracking entirely is kind of inconvenient,
in my country people can look you up and know where you live, but they most probably cant hack your gps and find you, maybe the government can but im not hiding from the government.
But the point of my post is looking for what options there are to limit the data im feeding to big corps like google, i cant degoogle completely unfortunately
I’m telling you that you can. You can even remove the play store from an android device and all Google Services and it will still function. Look at AOSP ROMs for your phone. But as you said, you have an iPhone now. Good luck.
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instead of google search: https://search.brave.com/
photos: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ente-photos/id1542026904
iphone settings: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/os/ios-overview/
I actually use Ente Auth, so it would be interesting to use Ente Photos, but iCloud could also be a good alternative
