Google’s ‘Secret’ Update Scans All Your Photos
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Is there any indication that Apple is truly more secure and privacy conscious over Android? Im kinda tired of Google and their oversteps.
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I have 5 kids. I'm almost certain my photo library of 15 years has a few completely innocent pictures where a naked infant/toddler might be present. I do not have the time to search 10,000+ pics for material that could be taken completely out of context and reported to authorities without my knowledge.
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The Graphene devs say it's a local only service.
Open source would be better (and I can easily see open source alternatives being made if you're not locked into a Google Android-based phone), but the idea is sound and I can deny network privileges to the app with Graphene so it doesn't matter if it does decide to one day try to phone home... so I'll give it a shot.
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It's a web wrapper that points to a non-Google software repo.
The non-Google software repo is the important part, the interface can be bad as long as it can install software.
I use Obtanium too, but fDroid is my first stop when I need an app. Google's Play store is a last resort.
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Graphene could easily allow for open source solutions to emulate the SafetyCore interface. Like how it handles Google's location services.
There's plenty of open source libraries and models for running local AI, seems like this is something that could be easily replicated in the FOSS world.
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i have system updates disabled and still found this piece of shit installed.
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Wow that's actually genius thank you
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God I wish I could completely deny internet access to some of my apps on stock android. It's obvious why they don't allow it though.
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You can, if you root your phone. Unless it is not a thing anymore.
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Even with the latest update from Samsung, I am not seeing this app. My OnePlus did get it with the February update and I had to remove it.
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For true privacy you'll want something like GrapheneOS on a Pixel, with no Google apps or anything. Some other ROM with no gApps as a second choice.
Other than that, Apple SEEMS to be mildly better. I'll give you an example: Apple pulls encryption feature from UK over government spying demands
While it's a bad thing that they pull the encryption feature, it's a good sign - they either aren't willing or able to add a backdoor for the UK security services. Then there was this case. If the article is to be believed, they started working on security as of iOS 8 so they could no longer comply with government requests. Today we're on iOS 18.
Apple claims their advertising ID is anonymized so third party apps don't know who you are. That said, they still have the advertising ID service so Apple themselves do know a whoooooole lot about you - but this is the same with Google.
Then regarding photo scanning - Apple received a LOT of backlash for their proposed photo scanning feature. But it was going to be only on-device scans on photos that were going to be uploaded to iCloud (so disabling iCloud would disable it too) and it was only going to report you if you had a LOT of child pornography on your phone - otherwise it was, supposedly, going to do absolutely nothing about the photos. It wasn't even supposed to be a categorization model, just a "Does this match known CSAM?" filter. Google and Microsoft had already implemented something similar, except they didn't scan your shit on-device.
At the end of the day, Apple might be a bit more private, but it's a wash. It's not transparent and neither is Google. I like using their devices. Sometimes I miss the freedom of custom ROMs, but my damn banking apps stopped working on Lineage and I couldn't be arsed to start using the banks' mobile websites again like I'd done in the past. So I moved to iOS, as Oneplus had completely botched their Android experience in the meantime while I'd been using Lineage so I was kinda pissed at what I had considered one of the last remaining decent Android manufacturers (Sonys are overpriced and I will never own a Samsung, I hate them, I didn't like my Huawei or Xiaomi much either).
So if you want to run custom ROMs, get a Pixel or something. If not, Apple is as good a choice as Android. A couple of years ago it was the better choice even, as you'd get longer software support, but now the others have started catching up due to all the consumer outrage.
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Apparently I'm a beta tester? How, what? Thanks for the link!
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I have used Waydroid, mainly with FOSS apps, and although it has some rough edges, it does often work for just having one or two Android apps functionality.
Linux on mobile as a whole isn't daily driver ready yet in my opinion. I've only tried pmOS on a OP6, but that seems to be a leading project on a well-supported phone (compared to the rest).
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Thanks for the detailed reply dude. This is so thorough.
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Thanks for posting, I just uninstalled
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Is there some good Chromium browser with hardware video decoder support and a working adblocker, that is not Brave? Or which Firefox fork is recommended?
