I hear many people say that the Google Pixel is good for privacy, but is it?
I’m asking this because I find it weird, of all the companies, Google having the most “privacy”.
I hear many people say that the Google Pixel is good for privacy, but is it?
I’m asking this because I find it weird, of all the companies, Google having the most “privacy”.
There are different aspects.
As has been said, the first one is that with a Pixel, the company manufacturing the phone and providing the OS including all standard apps is just Google. As all parties involved will try to spy on you (generally), having just one involved beats multiple. If you’re using Android, Google will usually be involved anyways, so a pixel is the only device where it’s just Google instead of Google + another party. You get the stock Android experience, without anything forced on top.
Also, Pixels are relatively cheap, come with long update support and quick security updates. Generally, Google is one of the better companies when it comes to security. From the hardware side, Pixels are some of the most secure devices.
I don’t know whether iOS on an iPhone or Android on a Pixel is more private out of the box. From what I know, the difference isn’t too big. However, Android is more secure, as evidenced by higher exploit prices for Android than for iOS.
And Android, especially on a Pixel, gives the user a lot more options to make the phone more private. Not only can you install F-Droid, Accrescent or Obtainium — you can also just completely get rid of Google by opting for an AOSP custom ROM. The best option for privacy, security and usability here is GrapheneOS, which only works on Pixel because they’re the only devices meeting their security standards.
So Pixels at worst are a cheap, long supported, secure Android device with less parties spying on you. At best, they can be fully degoogled, alternatively almost degoogled with great usability (Sandboxed Google Play), extremely secure devices. No matter how much privacy/security you want to achieve and how much resources you want to put into that, for everyone from “I have nothing to hide” to Edward Snowden, Pixels are a great choice. In my opinion, the best.
Wouldn’t say they’re cheap though. Maybe compared to flagships, but def not to phones most people can afford.
Commenting from my GrapheneOS Pix6, I actively prefer GOS to stock, and get a sense of disdain or my soul sighing every time I pick up my stock rom Pix6 now.
I bought my girlfriend a Pixel 6A as birthday gift last year and whenever I use it I’m blown away by how smooth and fun everything feels on GOS. Every other Android I use feels so sluggish, blown up and hard to use in comparison
I was explaining today to a close friend that I (anecdotally) have noticed a significant reduction in battery usage on my GOS pix 6.
The whole device feels snappier, more responsive, and I can certainly attest that I got 9+hrs out of this thing at max brightness playing terraria. Can’t say the same for stock rom in the same conditions, while I don’t have the technical knowledge to prove it (and I’m happy to be proven wrong) I’m convinced the majority of my stock rom Pix’s battery is eaten by proprietary software phoning home.
With that said, unless I go out of my way to disable certain privacy aspects of this phone or implement spmit-tunneling on the VPN it’s set to go through, unfortunately many sites/apps break. For these instances I generally use the stock pix. (Eg. Gov services/KDE Connect).
Hey, which app do you house to get emails? I don’t think there is a thunderbird port for Android, is there?
Will I be able to use such an app with Google emails without play services being installed on the device?
K-9 Mail for Android has merged with Mozilla and will eventually be renamed to Thunderbird. Its UI has seen a lot of improvement these past couple of years, and the backend has always been reliable for IMAP (including push notifications).
Thanks. I’ll take a look. Apologies for the late response
Sorry for the delayed response here, however I primarily use a proton address, and I currently have a redirect in place for my Gmail to the proton. My intention is to close the Gmail all together, however that’s not yet possible as I will likely miss important emails in the process, I am (as discovering) updating my email addresses for each service as it becomes known so as to avoid such occurrences.
As it stands, I have GPS on another user profile to add to the security provided by GOS sandboxing, not that I don’t trust GOS devs, I don’t trust GPS not to sneak in somehow.
I hope this answers your query, do dm me if need be for further explanation.
Edit: I cannot speak further as to email clients, as I have yet to perform further experimentation. I do intend to get to it soon, though if you beat me to it, do message me to let me know how you went and what you’d do differently.
Edit pt2.: I have checked, both my pix6’s were from a close batch and manufactured the same month, I suspect due to this battery degradation is not applicable.
Apologies for the late response.
Could you explain more about how you’re using GPS whilst it is maintained in a different profile? How does GPS interact across profiles (which I assume is a prerequisite to use Google’s email addresses on one’s mobile)?
that could be attributed to market share.
I get a lot of use out of Google wallet. Can that be sandboxed on graphene?
Google wallet is one of the few apps that don’t work on GrapheneOS.
Most banking apps actually do work