I’ve been talking to some of my friends lately and we’ve become so disappointed with the big Tech companies. The social media companies cancel anyone who expresses an opinion other than that of the mainstream media and companies like Google and Facebook have the ability to track your every step – even if you have location tracking turned off.
It’s been a crazy turn of events. At the turn of the century, we were enamored with Google. They offered an array of free software that made life so simple (e.g., Google maps/directions). The company’s motto of “Do No Evil” earned fans the world over. But things have clearly changed. They’ve constructed a web of applications that we’ve all been caught in. And, like flies caught in spider web, we’ll all eventually have the life sucked out of us.
Over the years, the company seemed to co-opt the Android movement and made it difficult to separate from their ecosystem (gmail, youtube, etc.). Then, they scrapped the Do no Evil pledge.
We started to look for alternatives but realized that iPhone and Google’s version of Android owns over 99% of the market now and there is no alternative inexpensive out-of-the-box solution for the average consumer.
That’s when we found GrapheneOS. It’s a privacy-focused operating system that uses the Android operating system – but a version that is walled off from Google and their applications. It’s so secure that Edward Snowden endorses it.
I have to admit, when researching GrapheneOS, I was a little concerned. There are a limited number of cell phones that work with the OS – and all of them are made by Google! Having said that, my further reading suggests that the Operating System controls the phone – and not the hardware. If anything would transfer data to Google, it would be the apps (more on this later). They chose to develop on the Pixel line of phones because they have advanced security features. I bought mine on eBay for $250.
The installation of the OS was easy and, just 1 hour later, I was up and running!
The big trick in all of this is to install apps that will not interact with Google. I installed F-droid, a Google Play substitute that offers applications that were developed for Android – and not Google’s version of Android. This means that no data will be sent back to the Tech Titan – unless you install an application that does this.
I’ve just started to install applications and I’ll give you an update later. But I found a free and secure email service call Tutanota that is not connected to gmail at all.
Let me know if you have any questions, email me here.