I've switched to Tuta Mail from Germany. It doesn't even need Google Push on Android.

Chrome => Firefox, LibreWolf, Brave.

Maps => Organic Maps.

Gmail, Calendar, Drive => Proton.

Pixel OS => GrapheneOS.

Meanwhile, it's becoming more and more fun to find alternatives to Google, and there are so many good alternatives that are even more minimalistic than Google's advertised minimalist products.

like building my own streaming service on linux but for youtube videos. because i dont wanna support google

I need help finding a private and secure laptop. It has to be configured when I buy it and easy to use, I'm not a hacker or a power user. I'm not totally ignorant either I can do basic set ups.

It has to be google/microsoft/apple/intel/nvidia free.

I was thinking of a laptop with an installed linux mint OS and Ryzen CPU and GPU. Would it be a good choice to have better privacy and security online?

I occasionally have to use Google Gemini for work on my desktop but try to limit any personal information I give it. (It's a paid tier)

Recently I've had a few situations were I could have saved a lot of time if I used it on my phone. Today I went to install it on iOS but before I did, I read the privacy section and .... Wow.

I understand this is a degoogle group and the general consensus will be avoid anything Google but if I did want to use it on my phone, would it automatically get access to all that data or could I heavily restrict it to basically only work off the prompts I give it?

I have really liked using Google Messages because I can use it in a browser on my desktop PC (Linux, Windows) and of course on my Android phone. Is there anything that compares, that is free? I know of Pulse, but they want a lot of money to be able to use it on a PC. Any other free alternatives that work both on an Android phone AND on a PC?

I am on Linux and I haven't used chrome in a good while but my brother wanted to use chrome on my computer so I installed it for him, the next day I open the computer and I see that chrome has made itself the default browser and pinned itself to the taskbar/panel on MY account... TWICE. my brother couldn't do it because he doesn't have my password and wouldn't know how to do it either, so I uninstalled chrome and installed ungoogled chromium for him. If any other browser behaved like that everyone would call it malware

I have a Pixel 10 Pro running GrapheneOS, but I would prefer not to use Google Play Services, even sandboxed.

I’m looking for a keyboard that works as well as Gboard. I’ve tried all the usual recommendations for open source Android keyboards, and they all fall short. They have lots of great extra features, but the big problem is the typing experience. From Heliboard to Floris Board and the default AOSP keyboard that comes built into GOS, they all have atrocious touch targets.

They feel so bad to type on compared to Gboard, hell even compared to the iOS keyboard which is widely hated for being bad but it feels like I could write a novel on it compared to these open source alternatives.

Any recs for open source keyboards that have properly functional adaptive touch targets? Or is this just a fool’s errand? If Aurora Store wasn’t broken again I’d probably use Gboard with network permissions disabled but it’s apparently nonfunctional again.

Is anyone aware of a privacy friendly Find Hub alternative that I can connect a GPS tracker to. One of those little black circle devices that only report GPS location and havea little speaker? Self-hosted is an option, as well.

Hi, I’ll tell you about the serious privacy risks of Siri AI (Agentic AI)

There’s no doubt that Gemini intelligence, Muse or dots will steal the private data, but Apple’s Siri AI is also not safe at all. Which people surprisingly doesn’t know how dangerous it is.

I uploaded References on the comment.

1. The fundamental problem of Siri (Agentic) AI
2. Problems of Apple’s Private cloud compute (PCC)
3. There's many reason to not trust Apple for privacy now

1.The fundamental problem of Siri (agentic) AI

The most fundamental problem of Agentic AI is that it’s not E2EE.

I think many people will know, but anyway I’ll explain about it shortly for the people who don’t know.

How the public can know if Google or Meta try to steal the private data?
Normal people don’t do anything specifically. But there are some good tech geeks who install special programs and voluntarily monitor the data. So, the public can eventually know if google or meta try to steal the private data, while they don’t do anything.

But those good tech geeks can only monitor the data until it is sent to the server. After the data is transfered to the server (cloud), there's no way to know what companies would do with it.

So, to ensure that the data is safe, there needs E2EE.
E2EE is encrypt the data, and only user’s device has the decryption key, not sending the key to the server.

Therefore, although the private data is sent to the company’s server, still it is safe because that data is just dummy files of random numbers without the decryption key.
The server only receive dummy files of random numbers, and just send them back when users request to download those files.

It’s the only way that can guarantee the data is safe, after it is transfered to the server . (And what Icloud supports.) Whenever the private data is processed on the server, it’s not E2EE. And there’s no way to know what companies will do with them after that.

And Agentic AI fundamentally can’t be E2EE, because the data is processed on the tech companies server. To process the data, first the server has to decrypt it.

In fact, These AI agent things are even worse than Conventional ways of collecting the private data.
Conventional ways collected the data that users sent to the server. Like clicks of button to buy something, or which site they clicked, and visited.

But these AI agent things directly collect the private data from the user’s device, and arbitarily send the data that it thinks it's relevant to the user’s query. In the name of to give the better answer.

Furthermore, Apple doesn’t give users the option to turn off Apple intelligence from IOS 27

There’s option to turn off Siri AI, but It’s just turning off conventional voice Siri. If users search keywords on the search bar, Apple intelligence will automatically analyze the query, and send the data from user’s device that it thinks it is relevant to the query.

Apple claims that Agentic AI is too deeply integrated to the os so can’t turn off, but Apple provided options to turn off AI until ios 26. Apple intelligence and IOS was separated from the start, so they could keep develop them seperately if they wanted. This doesn’t make sense.

1. Problems of Apple’s Private cloud compute (PCC)

But Apple try to justify that their Siri AI is safe by suggesting the concept called PCC.
Apple suggests numerous security measures to give the feeling that it’s protected multiple times, so it would be safe. But each of them has a loop hole, and none of them are actually meaningful in terms of privacy.

First, Apple claims that Apple intelligence (or PCC) is safe because their server is audited by E&Y.

But that audit, E&Y only examine the system called “Private cloud compute provisioning system. “

Possible weakness of Apple PCC, or Apple intelligence is not the subject to this audit

"Our examination was not conducted for the purpose of evaluating Apple’s cybersecurity risk management program. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion or any other form of assurance on its cybersecurity risk management program."

"Our examination was not conducted for the purpose of evaluating the performance or integrity of Apple’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) services. Accordingly, we do not express an opinion or any other
form of assurance on the performance or integrity of Apple’s AI services."

-SOC 3 Audit report

OK.. Then what E&Y actually do?

what E&Y do is just checking that Apple followed the guidelines (PCC provisioning system) that they made themselves., without skipping something.
Not they actively plan and conduct the examination to find possible security weakness. which is not meaningful as the audit.

“What is the subject matter of the SOC 3 reports? The reports address the Apple Private Cloud Compute Provisioning System, specifically the processes used for the provisioning, ongoing verification, and protection of information within compute nodes, and the related policies, procedures, and control activities. “ https://support.apple.com/guide/certifications/apple-private-cloud-compute-soc-3-audit-apc95a31b9d8/web

Does Apple PCC provisioning system has a loophole that can be exploited? Does Apple PCC (private cloud compute ) has a loophole that can be exploited? Does Apple intelligence (siri) has a loophole that can be exploited? are all not the subjects to this audit.

Only “Apple did all the measures that they wrote on the checklist ” is the subject to Audit.

So, This audit is not that meaningful.
Erase Apple’s claim that they regularly audit their server.
That Audit is not about the safety, privacy.

Second, Apple claims that they prevent their maintainence employees (SRE) from access to the private data. They can access to very limited logs, and do the maintainence with them.

But prevent employees from access to the private data is In fact also essential to prevent them from becoming a whistle blower.
Edward snowden was the case that happened because an employee found out that he can aceess to thousands of the private data of random people.

Of course I’m not saying that maintainence employee can see the private data is safer and better. What I mean is whether maintainence employee can see the data or not, both are not safe at all.

Servers that decrypt and process the private data almost operate unmanned, but this doesn’t mean it is safe. It means that even if Apple copy or share the data in those servers, but nobody can know. None of them can see what happens in those servers, where the private data is decrypted and processed.

( And As you’ll know, Google provides the cloud server for Apple intelligence. Apple insisted that the private data is transfered to google cloud, but decryption and process of the data is only done by PCC. However, there’s no way to find out that is true. The fact is PCC is connected to google cloud. )

If maintainence employees can see the data, they might abuse them. But if maintainence employees can’t see the data (server), even if the company programmed to share or transfer the data to elsewhere, nobody can know.

So, this can’t be the basis for claiming that Apple intelligence is safe.

Apple advertises this as “even Apple can’t see your data”, but to be exact it’s only Apple employees that can’t see the private data. Not Apple. Apple may share or copy the private data since there’s no ways to check that share or copy happened from outside. It’s a complete black box.

Apple originally used this “even Apple can’t see your data” to describe E2EE, but Apple is using the same expression in completely different context.
By using the same expression, it gives the feeling (misunderstanding) to public that it is also protected the same way as Apple always did (E2EE, like icloud), but In fact they are used in completely different context after 2025.

Recent “Apple can’t see your data” means they prevent their employees from accessing it, so it’s safe. Not from Apple. But as I said, It’s not safe at all unlike E2EE.

Third, Apple claims they provide the same AI model that they run on their AI server to third party organizations.

However, there’s no way to prove that the model which Apple provided to third party organizations is same to the one that they run on their AI server.

The only way to find out that those two models are same is asking a same question and see if the answers are the same. But as Apple wrote like an exemption clause, because computing environment and the data between Apple’s server and test organization’s computer are different, So answers might be different even if they were asked the same question.

And that is right, but anyway if the answers are different, there’s no guarantee that the AI model Apple provided to third parties is the same one that they actually run on their server.

The purpose for this measure is asking the same question and see if answers are same, but at the point that answers can be different, it is meaningless.

Plus, Apple added that the model they provided is modified to run on the test organization’s computer.

Lastly, Apple claims that their on-device AI only sends the private data to the server when querys are complicated.

But the tasks that AI thinks complicated, and human thinks complicated are different.
The Boundary between the data that is sent to the server and not is vague, and users can mistakenly leak the important data.

In fact, that would be the purpose for this on-device concept. (Pure on-device is safe, but All the major AI agents are not pure on-device.) Make it vague between the data that smartphone will send or not. Sending all the data would be too obvious. so they randomly send the data.

But that is decided by AI, so humans can’t guess which data would be sent. Completely lose the sense of which data would be transfered to the tech company.

(​*The private data that Agentic AI sends to the server is encrypted that even user's can't read, so users can't know which data agentic AI sent to the Apple server.)

In case of LLM, The data users chose to send is leaked to the service provider. But these AI agents, Users can’t choose which information to send.

- Security experts were not aware of this?

Of course security concerns about PCC were suggested by many experts years ago. I just organized them. But security experts didn't take it seriously before, because the data that would be leaked to Apple was limited to questions that users chose to ask to Apple intelligence (LLM)

Users may upload pdf files, spreadsheets, or ask questions, but all those files or keywords are what users chose to send to Apple intelligence (LLM). If users don't want to provide that data to Apple, they could do it by simply not upload files, or ask a question.

In short, even It’s not E2EE, but there was one firewall for privacy. Users can choose to not send the private data if they don’t want Apple to get it.
(In addition, Apple intelligence was least used one among the major LLMs.)

But when Not E2EE is combined with Agentic AI that directly search user’s phone and send the data inside of it, it becomes a serious threat. Because Agentic AI sends the data by it’s own decision that it thinks it’s relevant to the query.

In addition, Apple also took away the option to turn off agentic AI this year.
So, what only remains is just Apple intelligence is not E2EE.

Apple had high reputation for privacy, but that’s because they voluntarily provided options like E2EE or Ask Apps not to Track, not simply they just promised.

There's many reason to not trust Apple for privacy now.

1. Blackrock and Vanguard are largest stakeholders of Apple.

Apple claimed that most of their margin comes from hardwares, and they won't use user's private data to make money. I think they did until now.
But companies that has control over Apple, Blackrock and Vanguard are not hardware companies. They own more stocks of Google, Microsoft, Nvidia than Apple.

Their interests are not same to Apple, and It is more beneficial for them to force Apple to share the private data to raise operating profits, and stock prices of those companies.

2) And Tim cook resigned CEO. Although I don’t like him, but anyway at least he was serious about privacy.

It looks like Tim cook was an obstacle to them. (only in case of privacy). But now Tim cook resigned, and This happened in just 6 month after John ternus became the CEO.

-Apple Home camera.

-Apple home tablet that has a camera and mic and meant to be set in the living room.
*Apple could release that home gadgets at anytime. why Apple didn't release them 4 years ago? Definitely not because of technology issue.

-Always hearing Apple watch.

-Agentic AI, that personal context thing. randomly send the data by AI’s decision, and to paralyze prior E2EE promise.

-Advertisement based on approximate location and keywords on Apple maps, keyword based App recommendation on App store, but approximate location is enough to specify users.

-Automatically makes a personal extension for users that may modify scripts of the webpage, which allows websites can fingerprint you.

-AI that is connected to google cloud.

-Apple ver Grammarly. (Grammarly share the user data to other company)

-Apple ver Todoist. (Todoist share the user data to other company)

-How about send your health data to other company? things.

The conclusion.

Don't buy Apple home blah blahs.
Don't use "always hearing" on Apple watch
Don't use any siri feature, plus turn all the Apple intelligence related options off.
Don’t use IOS search bar.

1. Lastly, the deal between Apple and Google for using Gemini intelligence is extremely cheap.

Apple only pays Google $1 billion annually to use a custom Gemini AI model.
It's not the small money, but compared to the size of Apple, it is extremely cheap. Google pays Apple $20 billion annually just to set their search engine as the basic search engine for Safari.

Lastly,this is my X account. I didn’t write this to advertise this one. Just I feel need for channel to bust the AI scam. Anyway, if you don’t mind, subscribe this one. it would be appreciated.
https://x.com/kitcat1137

If you’re an expert on google I could really use some advice please!!

For years, I have been using Google Drive to write and store drafts of a book I want to publish someday. I do NOT use any kind of AI to write ANYTHING. I don’t need generative AI to do something I have always loved and spent a lot of my life practicing. But I must also admit that I am not well informed about how any AI actually works, what the risks are, etc. 

Obviously, Google Drive has recently introduced all these free AI features. I had never touched it before. But one day I opened a PDF version of one of my chapters and I automatically got an AI generated summary of the chapter’s storyline, characters, etc. 

Well, I got a bit curious and I asked the AI a few questions (the kind of questions I would ask a beta reader or a book club or something) about the characters, motivations, core conflicts etc. I suppose I wanted to see whether the themes I was trying to convey were getting across. I also used it on a few other documents related to the story to ask it similar questions. 

That was back in June, and ever since, I’ve been totally paranoid that I could be accused of using AI to write my book. I’m concerned that Google probably has a record of these conversations and somebody could 

a. use my ideas (not that I’m conceited enough to think anyone would really care to steal my fantasy book)

b. bring it up someday in a hypothetical future where I actually publish it, and claim Google has some kind of intellectual property rights to my work since the summaries I generated will have influenced my thinking, and 

c. view the unfinished drafts of my story that I allowed the AI to scan through. This one bothers me the most because some of these drafts contain violence or references to sexuality that I may choose not include in the final draft depending on if I want the book to be marketed for a younger audience. I’m concerned about these drafts  being released to the public somehow, it would be a bit gross. 

I know that I’m probably being overly paranoid. I know that it is unlikely anyone will ever care about these old drafts, or care to claim rights to my writing, I’m certainly no genius sitting on some future publishing phenomenon. Its just that I feel that I have betrayed my own moral code and integrity as a writer, and I am having a ton of anxiety and dread about it. I love this specific story so much and have dedicated so much time to it, and I hate that I let AI touch it in the first place. I think I was just feeling desperate for some kind of feedback.

I have never used Gemini in google drive since. I don't use drive at all anymore really, I have actually downloaded all files related to this particular story and permanently deleted them from Google Drive. (Now I work on the story using LibreOffice.) I have also gone in and manually deleted all my conversations with Gemini, but I am not convinced that there isn’t a record of them on the other side. 

I’ve been trying to educate myself better about the risks and ethics of AI recently. It seems to me that there’s currently so much uncertainty of what the copyright policy will be on writers using AI, and a lot of distrust that that a company’s statements on privacy can actually be trusted.

If anyone here has any advice on how I can truly ensure Google doesn’t have a record of my files, drafts, or chat history I would be extremely grateful (I posted this here hoping this community might have some expertise). Or even just some insight into how Google might use my data so I know what I might be dealing with in the future. 

Thank you!

since google services are hated for hoarding your data, cant you just disable the internet from it? i was thinking about using Gboard for a bit because heliboard's autocorrect is terrible. cant i just disable internet access to gboard so it works locally?

Is it legit or are there better legit ones there?

Edit: my dilemma has been solved I'm using flow now, it's awesome. Though missing some features (I'll label ❌). If you wanna recommend more go ahead 👍

Og post: I've recently tried libretube, grayjay, morphe and namida.

Honestly all of them were amazing but they were each missing features I wanted.

Features Im looking for (edited):

★Group subscriptions (must have)

★fast playback

★skip sponsorship

★account sync(❌) / good recommendations

★remove ai content (❌kinda)

★custom home page

★downloads

★ability to comment (❌)

★nice ui

Bonus: customisable UI. I would really want it to match my nothing phone (this isn't important lol)

actually flow has this, you can change the colours.

Like, 15 years ago avoiding them was about monopoly/privacy/open source concerns (I believe?)

But now amazon sold ring cameras are used by ice agents to deport people, google provides infrastructure support to tsahal and their « where’s daddy ai, flock and palantir are enforcing panopticon stuff etc

I see posts about those from time to time but is there any comprehensive resource on that?

I did, and it was convulated as fuck. A detective from another state called me asking for help with his investigation and whether or not I could help him fill in some gaps. It turned out this girl in another state had the same name as me except she had my maiden name. In this case the victim gave the police the wrong email address, which was my email address and that email address had it forwarding address to my main Google account so they sought search warrants for both of those accounts.

EVIDENCE SOUGHT

For the Google/Gmail accounts and email address of : (my email address) between the dates of July 1, 2014, and July 22, 2015, the following items and information:

All subscriber information related to the above listed account, including but not limited to, full name, address, phone number, alternate/related email addresses, account numbers, and billing information.

All information related to the account creation of the above listed email addresses, including date and times that the addresses were created and the IP address of the creator at the time of the creation of the email addresses.

Login histories for the above listed email address, including dates and times that the address was accessed and the IP address in use each time the address was accessed.

Any and all stored content contained in the above listed email addresses and related Google Cloud, including, but not limited to, digital images, digital videos, document files, and/or any other electronic files.

Any and all email messages and/or content contained in the above listed email addresses, including all email, read or unread, in the Inbox, Sent Mail, Drafts, Junk E-Mail, Starred, Spam, Trash, and/or any other storage directory, default or user-created.

Any and all location currently stored in relation to the account. This includes any historical physical addresses, latitude and longitude data, estimated latitude and longitude location data, location history, or any other data captured and stored by Google by the listed Gmail user that would aid law enforcement in establishing historical location information related to the Gmail account use. This would include all information stored and maintained in the “My Activity” associated with the listed Gmail address.

Any and all stored communications conducted via voice, text, or video chat in Gmail. Google Drive, or Google Hangouts.

Any and all communications and content of any Google Plus accounts associated with the email address listed above.

Any and all audio files, transcripts, and/or history files stored in myactivity.google.com, including Voice & Audio, Assistant, Search, Chrome, Maps, Android, and Google Play Store.

Any and all stored content contained in the above listed email address’s related Google Photos infrastructure.

Any and all accounts associated by cookies

I haven't been in this sub right at long so maybe this is all like duh we already knew this, but it was freaky to me! The detective did apologize and said -

"I’m sorry that your information was collected. You have my word that the content of your emails will be secured so that no one will view it. If the court gives me to the okay to destroy the content, I will do so immediately."

EDIT - here's what it said after the sought evidence above part.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Google is an electronic service provider (ESP) based in Mountain View, CA. Google offers several electronic services, including Google Search, Google Photos, Google Posts, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google +, Google Drive, Google Cloud, Google Plus, Google Blogger, and Google Hangouts. All of these are free services to customers that allow for internet searching, communications, and data storage.

Anyone can create a Google account free of charge. When registering for an account, the user selects a specific unique username. This name is then used across all services offered by Google. Once registered, a user can create a user profile, add other users as “friends”, exchange messages (both email messages and instant messages), and store files, including documents, video, and pictures.

During the registration process, a user is required to provide basic information, such as name, email address, and/or phone number. Of this information, Google requires verification on at least one of them. This verification process consists of sending a message to either the phone number or email address provided and requiring that the person registering for the account respond to that message. As such, Google does maintain verified information for their account holders.

Also, as part of the registration process and through the course of normal usage, Google collects information on the account holder. This information includes items such as IP addresses, log in dates/times, type of browser or mobile device being utilized, and browsing history.