And here’s the realistic explanation for why and why now:
"…Orin Kerr, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote on X on Wednesday that “from a public policy standpoint, that seems like a bummer.”
“Geofencing has solved a bunch of really major cases that were otherwise totally cold,” he wrote.
“And there are lots of ways of doing the legal process (including Google’s warrant policy, although that’s just one way) that are a lot more privacy protective than ordinary warrants. But I can see why this might be in Google’s business interest. If there isn’t a lot of economic value to Google in keeping the data, and having it means you need to get embroiled in privacy debates over what you do with it, better for Google to drop it.”
It’s a good thing! It never should have been allowed in the first place. But, Google didn’t give a fuck until it caused them enough hassle. Doing this is just a way to avoid something more expensive later, it isn’t a strong principled stand. And I’d bet small amounts that they’ll still have a way to use the data anyway. It won’t be some magic wand that means Google can’t make money off of it.
Sure. They won’t be able to access the data itself, but they’ll have already used the data as it was being generated to add metrics to your profile. So they don’t need it anymore if it’s already been utilized.
Liars always find a way to phrase things to misdirect.
Yes, they still can build a targeted profile per user, but no longer store a database of who was in an area that the police can issue a broad warrant to find out. So they get to have their cake and eat it too!
“Geofencing has solved a bunch of really major cases that were otherwise totally cold,” he wrote.
Citation needed. Solving a case for a police officer means finding a person who looks guilty, not that they’re actually guilty. Even if they’re convicted they could’ve just been convicted by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The apps you want to block entirely, you can go into Android settings for each of them individually, and turn off all their Mobile Data & WiFi access options.
Apps that you want to allow outside Proton VPN, you can add to the Split Tunneling list in Proton VPN. But you have to turn off the Block Without VPN option.
Yeah, I’ve seen this before but I just apparently don’t have that option. All I have is “Mobile Data” which appears to leak a little despite being turned off…
Idk but you could always just install gboard & not give network permissions. You’ll lose a little functionality like the ability to add gifs from the keyboard which obviously need internet to search/load.
For reliable results today it is essential to use several search engines. The one who crawls the web the longest is Google, it is therefore advisable to use search engines that use this engine, such as Whoogle or Startpage.
Even so, it is also necessary to use search engines with alternative engines, such as DDG (Bing), or search engines with several engines, such as Mojeek or MetaGer, which use their own crawlers, such as Groot or AstianGo.
Search engines that use AI are also now proliferating, but, although practical, so far none are truly privacy oriented, with one exception, the one that was the first to use this technique with AI, Andisearch, which uses its own language model, not logs, no ads, no tracking, anonymous.
You search, although more private than others, requires activating privacy in the settings, also questionable due to its other AI functionalities that it incorporates, apart from the registration requirement to use them.
or search engines with several engines, such as Mojeek or MetaGer
Just a flag, we don’t use several engines, all Mojeek is Mojeek, you might be conflating this with Search Choices. AstianGO seems to be inaccessible now, but it wasn’t an own-index search engine,
If you’re interested in that level of control, it’s time to look hard at GrapheneOS. “Internet” is a permission you can grant or deny for each app, under GrapheneOS.
But I’m not aware of a way to selectively direct phone traffic through Proton VPN, at the phone. Even on GrapheneOS.
Enough skill with an expensive router could do it, but only on your home network, or only while routing all of your phone traffic back to your home network via yet another VPN.
Edit: TIL, Proton VPN supports split tunneling. Sweet! Look under Settings - Advanced - Split Tunneling - then pick your apps to include/exclude.
Edit 2: TIL DivestOS also supports “Internet” as a per app Permission. Very cool.
You can route traffic through VPN on the phone, then just use split tunneling to exclude apps that should have regular network access without VPN. But you have to switch off “Block connections without VPN” in settings.
Oh hey, thanks! I never particularly wanted any of my apps to route around the VPN, but there the option it is under Advanced, when split tunneling is enabled. Could be handy. Thanks!
You can do this. But you need to use rethinkdns and download the configuration of the proton vpn wireguard server(s) you wanna reach. You can have internet blocked for individual apps, have some tunnel without VPN but DNS and firewall protection and some go through servers of proton (even per app to different servers). It’s a powerful tool. You won’t get the same protection as you would get with let’s say GrapheneOS but you are getting damn close to it if done right
Interesting idea, a DNS filter won’t do much for traffic pointed at a specific IP though. Curious how that would set the system wide DNS without being a root level app.
Rethinkdns is probably your best bet! Right now they are missing an important feature where It takes wireguard’s DNS configuration into account, making it obsolete for those who have private dns in a local environnement with an upstream dns !
It can’t be used with ProtonVPN (I assume) but I use NoRoot Firewall for exactly this purpose. It works by setting up a VPN and letting you enable / disable network access for each app, including system apps. It can also block on just WiFi or just cell data or both or neither. It blocks all apps by default until you configure their access. You can also setup more advanced rules for all apps or just some apps. For instance, you can set it where an app can contact AppCompany.com but not Google.com
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