At the moment I am thinking about getting a new phone in the foreseeable future. I was long time using android, but switched to iOS 5 years ago because of the longer update period. Now also some android devices offer a longer update support of about 5 years. Now I am thinking about switching back to android.
But i am wondering: is there any big difference from a privacy perspective between iOS and android? I know you can go for custom roms on android that are focused on privacy which i also used in the past, but i am not planning on doing this in the future. So it would come down to stock android vs stock iOS. Any advice there or is all lost anyway?
Just for FDroid and the open source programs alone I would stick with android. Watching YouTube without ads, my own browser with an adblocker…
Stock Android versus stock iOS, stock iOS is more hardened, more secure. But it’s a more restrictive walled garden. So it depends what your criteria of privacy is. If you have an iCloud account, and you enable end to end encryption, and you trust Apple then it’s better than stock Android.
Watching YouTube without ads, my own browser with an adblocker…
Both are well possible on an iPhone.
Do tell…
My understanding is iOS requires all browsers to use web kit.
And there is no open source repository on iOS, so how are you watching YouTube without ads?
how are you watching YouTube without ads?
My controversial way (probably will be downvoted) is with Premium to support content creators i enjoy.
But to answer your question; My understanding is Brave Browser (despite WebKit) and AdGuard with Safari also removes ads.
Well, I’d say to support content creators directly if they provide such option rather than through YouTube ads or YouTube Premium. I think that even donating 1$ one time is more that channel would have earned from like thousand of your views.
CPM on tech, finance, and health (a lot of what I watch) is often $5-10. And apparently google pays creators even more than that rate for premium viewers.
Even so, direct payment is likely to be more profitable to creators than just watching ads or having premium.
But even as a technical person, I’ve never really been interested in finding ways to block ads on my PC, MacBook, iPhone, Android (when I had one), and Roku/AppleTV. And potentially having to keep up with the apparently changing landscape of YouTube adblocker a for each. Sounds like a pain in the ass. I’d rather just pay for family premium, and easily share the benefits with my mom, sister, & wife without having to offer technical support for their ad blocking.
Yeah, in my case it’s really easy, just like the other commenter said. Some time ago I’ve been configuring new laptop for my mom. I just installed Firefox with uBlock Origin with default settings and I don’t think she has ever seen YouTube ads.
Safari on iOS supports extensions out of the box. You can just install adguard or something else and won‘t have any ads.
There are also third party browsers, which yes, use WebKit, but also can block ads.
Check out the Fairphone 4/5 running /e/OS. To get a “stock” phone that comes degoogled and ready to use, no tinkering required, you can buy a phone directly from the makers of /e/OS/: Murena
/e/os is often multiple versions behind for their forked apps, including vulnerabilities. Not a good choice from what ive seen. A dev for divestos cataloged the problems iirc
The announcement of the Fairphone 5 was the starting point of my doubts to just get the next iPhone :D. First android phone with a really long promised update duration that I am aware of. Thanks for the tip with eos, will check it out.
Fairphone 3 with /e/ is still a viable option if you don’t have the budget for the 4/5!
Android is primarily sponsored and advertised by Google, which is basically the world’s largest advertising company that also happens to have an IT department.
iOS is exclusively sponsored and advertised by Apple, which is basically a large IT company that makes most of its money with rather expensive hardware.
One of those is a wiser choice if you care about your privacy.
So hoping apple is not selling my data, because they make enough money with their hardware sales?
This is at least a big difference in the business models of the two companies. Thanks for the input!
What I struggle a little to understand: How does the add business of google affect my privacy? Is not google also collecting the data for internal use only? If they would sell the data, everybody could also target adds like they do. As I understand it they sell add placement and allow the buyer to target a specific group of people, but without selling the data they used to create the profiles. Or am I mixing something up?
So hoping apple is not selling my data, because they make enough money with their hardware sales?
More or less, yes. Because they don’t need the money.
How does the add business of google affect my privacy?
Google’s whole business model is selling your private data. Or which product did you buy from them?
Because they don’t need the money.
Until investors start throwing a fit when number doesn’t go up every year for all eternity.
Make no mistake: your data is just as sellable by Apple as anyone else.
You understood capitalism
People really like to crap on apple for reasons justified and not. But when it comes to privacy there’s a pretty clear difference in the track records for Google and Apple. Here are some articles that might be worth a read in helping you decide. Really what it boils down to is what matters most to you. Apple may have the better privacy record, but it also locks you into a garden with very high walls. Google/android architecture may be a lot more versatile and provide more hardware options and customizability, but they will harvest and sell every scrap of data they can get their hands on.
https://9to5mac.com/2022/08/25/apple-collect-less-data-than-other-companies/
https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/iphone-vs-android
The big issues with iPhone I have are overly complicated, overly expensive, walled garden, and so locked down you cannot remote control, and cannot install your own software from your own sources. Researchers cannot even easily reaseach security issues and they do have them.
So with all that, iPhone is a no for me. On the other hand probably more secure. It is also not from an Ad company which is good.
Whether Apple or Google collects/abuse more data, I’m not sure.
But I prefer iOS’s design for app security. iOS apps are more restricted than Android apps in general, and when iOS apps require permissions they prompt clearly.
Most Android apps seem to have excessive permissions by default. The Play Store is a mess and the “Data safety” section is worse than useless, with scammers self-declaring the apps as “no data collected”.
You’ve used android. You’ve used iOS. Time to get a Linux phone. I’d suggest PinePhone.
Edit - Take a look at this post Open Source sub-lemmy.
100% supporting pine phone, but its not ready for a daily driver replacement
Good for testing/shits and giggles. Not for daily driver
Probably depends largely on how you plan to use it. Android gives you the ability to download FOSS apps from F-Droid (or Obtainium, …). Being unable to do this because of iOS would be a huge minus for me in both usability and privacy/security. If you never plan to use that though, it becomes a lot closer.
If you want the best stock experience, I recommend getting a Google Pixel. It gets fast updates, has 5 years of support and is one of the most secure devices you can get hardware-wise. You also have the option of installing GrapheneOS on it (which is very quick and easy through the web installer), which is likely the best OS for privacy and security. It also gives you the option of using Google Services in a sandbox, which probably doesn’t even feel much different from using stock google android.