Android has never been known as the most privacy-focused mobile operating system ; after all, it's owned by Google, and a Google account is absolutely necessary to use it. While it's true that this is a necessary payment, we shouldn't treat our privacy as a game.
Google uses all the data it collects from us to target not only its advertising, but also to improve its services and offer us better suggestions and recommendations. That's why you may have heard that Google, or other applications, listens to us, which is not true, but we have previously performed a search, there we have the reason.
In recent years, Google has finally gotten serious and is focusing its efforts on reducing the privacy invasion that many of the applications we have installed on our devices traditionally commit.
Thanks to this, apps that require certain permissions have to justify to Google that they are necessary to use its services, otherwise they will not pass the review tests and will not be available on the Play Store.
Like this example, there are many other instances of privacy breaches on Android. If you want to prevent your data from circulating freely without your knowledge, the best thing you can do is put some obstacles in its way using the tips for improving privacy on Android that we'll show you below.
Read app permissions when installing
The apps and games that we can download for free through the Play Store include advertising, advertising that is targeted through the different data they obtain from our smartphone both when we are using the app/game and when we are not.
To give an example so we understand, a game like billiards doesn't require the location of our device at any time , nor does it require access to our images, contacts, memory card, or any other data to function.
The data that is collected is used to personalize the ads that are shown, because otherwise, ads will continue to be shown but they will not be personalized , so they will not get our attention and possible click.
To check what permissions apps have for our location, contacts, photo album, and so on, we need to go to Settings – Apps – App permissions and check, one by one, the apps authorized in each of the sections: location, contacts, calendar, etc.
Do not enter your phone number in any application
Unless it is strictly necessary to enter our phone number to activate two-factor authentication (currently an email is sufficient), we should not enter our phone number in every application that requests it, especially if it is the Facebook and Instagram applications, since these will be automatically associated with our WhatsApp account and we will give more data than they need from us.
Use the web versions
The Facebook app (the ultimate villain of internet privacy) for Android, like the iOS version, requires a large number of permissions to offer all the functions it provides, functions that are associated with collecting our data on a massive scale, data that it uses, like Google, to target the advertising shown on its platforms.
If we use the web version, the amount of data it collects will be minimal, especially if we log out as soon as the connection ends (very important) or use the incognito browsing offered by the main browsers.
Furthermore, we'll extend our smartphone's battery life since it won't be running in the background continuously collecting data. The same applies to Instagram, but since we can't upload images via the web, it's not the best option to prevent constant tracking, although we can limit its use to uploading images only by disabling background activity.
Disable localization
If you're a privacy freak, the first thing you should do is turn off your smartphone's location services to prevent Google from knowing where you are at all times, how long you stay in each place, and so on.
However, it can become a nuisance if you regularly use apps to navigate with your mobile phone, as it absolutely requires the device's location to show your location.
In this case, we can disable location permissions for Google services and use alternative browsers to Google Maps, such as Sygic, TomTom…
Furthermore, all the images and videos you take with your smartphone do not record the location where they were taken , so you won't be able to search by place when you need to.
Encrypt the data
By default, all Android devices encrypt all the data inside them , so that it is only accessible when the device is unlocked, meaning that the data stored inside can never be accessed by brute force.
If your device is not protected by a password , pattern, fingerprint, or facial recognition system, it will not encrypt all the information inside. If this is the case, you should add a lock system to your device as soon as possible.
There is life beyond the Google search engine
But it's the best of them all. Besides Google, we have Bing, Microsoft's search engine, which also stores our search data (for the same purpose as Facebook and Google). Other quite interesting solutions that don't record our browsing data are DuckDuckGo and Ecosia.
This search engine not only doesn't record our browsing data, but it also plants trees with the revenue generated from the advertising it displays in search results—ads targeted according to the search terms we use. This search engine's financial records are public , so we can check at any time what they do with the money they earn from advertising revenue.
Don't use Chrome
Every time you use Chrome as your browser, Google associates your browsing data with your account , since it's integrated into Android and you don't need to log in to the app. If you want to stop it from recording your data, the solution is to use incognito mode or use another browser like Firefox or Vivaldi.
Vivaldi is a browser focused on our privacy , to the point that it does not store any of our browsing data in the application, so that websites that want to access that content cannot do so to show prices or products that we have previously searched for on the internet with that browser.
Alternatives to the Play Store
Unlike Apple, where the App Store is the only option for installing applications, Android offers a large number of interesting alternatives , although not all are valid, especially if they are repositories of pirated applications, which often include spyware, malware, and other harmful software. Some perfectly valid repositories include:
Aptoide
The apps available on Aptoide are the same as those found on the Play Store, so you'll find not only free apps but also paid ones . You can also find many apps not available on the Play Store, apps that bypass some of Google's restrictive guidelines that don't affect user security and often don't make much sense from the user's point of view.
F-Droid
If you like open-source software, F-Droid is the app store you're looking for. It's one of the least intrusive and most secure currently available for the Android ecosystem, although you shouldn't expect to find the most popular apps from the Play Store, but rather free open-source apps that aren't available on the Play Store.
APKMirror
Another repository we have at our disposal to download and install applications on our smartphone without Google noticing is APKMirror , where we can find, just like in Aptoide, the same applications as in the Play Store.
What's the point of using it? In this store, we can find geographically limited apps, such as updates that are only available in one country.
In addition, there is an Android app available in the form of a store, so there is no need to use the web version , a web version that they should really polish, since its operation today is very poor, to put it mildly.
Samsung Galaxy Store
As you might guess, the Samsung Galaxy Store is the exclusive app store for Samsung devices . It offers some apps that aren't available on the Play Store, such as Fortnite (which has been unavailable since being removed by both Apple and Google for bypassing their payment gateways). It also features exclusive apps that Samsung offers to all users of its devices.
Huawei AppGallery
The app store that Huawei was forced to create after the US government's ban is called Huawei App Gallery, an application where we will find practically no American applications (because of the ban) but most of the applications created by European developers.