Just for the lol’s, the image was generated by Gemini.
I became concerned when Google Mail was scanning emails. I went ahead and paid for the full suite of Proton Apps (<– Referral link) and moved my main email address from Gmail to Proton for medical and financial accounts. That was many years ago and it wasn’t so much as I didn’t trust Google but more of security of sensitive personal information.
Then things go weird this year. I’m on a group social Zoom video chat weekly. My Zoom account is my Google ID. Couple of months ago a friend was talking about an obscure 60’s progressive rock band I never heard of before. As we were talking I bring up YouTube to search for said band and didn’t have to since it was at the top of my feed. This last week on the call some was talking about a Brazilian tobacco rope as I was doom scrolling YouTube shorts and 3 videos later, there was a video of how Brazilian rope tobacco is made. Clearly, Zoom is transcribing the chat and sending the info to their partner, Google, and Google is using that information to change my YouTube feed. The privacy implications of that is upsetting.
Last week I am on the phone with financial services company setting up a new account. The broker asked for my social security number and in a loud voice my phone transmitted to me, “This is likely a scam phone call”.
Ok that is it, done. I have Pixel 9a and installed GrapheneOS. The instructions were pretty easy on their website and I am a EndeavourOS Linux user, so nothing scary for me. After installation I immediately install Proton Apps for Mail, Contacts, Pass, VPN, Calendar and Drive. I also loaded up F-Droid store and added the repo for Futo Apps and installed FUTO Keyboard and FUTO Voice as well as Immich.
I host Immich and have been using that for years as a replacement Google Photos site. It works great and initially I went this route so I didn’t have to subscribe to Google One to get more disk space. It happens when you have grand kids and take a zillion pictures.
I never trusted any messenger apps other than Signal. However, you have to install the Android Signal app via Google Play store. There is an alternative fork of Signal called Molly and can be installed via using GrapheneOS App store to install Accrescent and from that app to install Molly.
For Google Maps replacement I use OsmAnd and you basically download the state data you use/care about. It works great and works offline as well.
So what about Google Apps? Well, GrapheneOS sandboxes Google Apps and you can install them and use Google Play Store. I still have a handful of utility apps for network devices and security cameras. Initially I downloaded all the common apps. Only ones that didn’t work is my banking app, which is not a deal breaker and Google Wallet NFC payments does not work but the Wallet does. Again not a deal breaker. Banking I can just go to the website and really don’t need the app. NFC payments I will just you my card.
And thus I realized I don’t need a lot of these apps. News apps, just use the browser. Weather app such as Windy can be used in the browser. Walgreens, don’t need the app, just use the browser. The majority was like this and all I ended up was utilities installed from Google Play Store for controlling my Wi-Fi access point, security cameras, ear buds. Even Google Notes that I use to get the grocery list from my wife I can just do on the web browser.
Music, I host Jellyfin server. I did that years ago because I got tired of paying for a subscription for music. There is a Jellyfin app on F-Droid. Apps on F-Droid do not use Google Play Services.
Finally I use Open Camera instead of the stock ASOP camera that GrapheneOS installs.
All an all I am happy with my choice and I feel I gained a little more privacy back. As for Zoom and sending data to Google, I made a new account with a throwaway email on Tuta. I use that email for anything social which is basically Zoom and Discord, which is the extent of my social media presence. I nuked Zuck apps, Facebook, Instagram, etc a long time ago along with Twitter years ago. In the last year, I deleted my LinkedIn account because scammers were using information from there to launch spear phishing attacks against me.
