this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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DeGoogle Yourself

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I am in need of a separate degoogled phone for some things that require high level of privacy (nothing illegal).

I have 2 phones that I can use. One of them is my business phone (it has my business number, apps, data and that sort of stuff) which is now running an OS with all the Google spyware because it's necessary for the apps to work. I can reinstall everything on the second phone and use the first one as the secure device since it supports everything I need. The problem is that it has some issues on vanilla ROMs that I don't really want to deal with and the reinstalling will take a lot of time.

The issue with the second phone is that it is rocking an old MTK chip and rooting instructions are let's say a bit beyond my ability to understand. I still want to use it without Google if possible though. So can I degoogle its stock ROM with ADB or something? And is it worth trying or there will still be some vulnerabilities?

EDIT: to clear some possible misunderstandings, the reason of why I need a separate secure phone is that I am forced to use a very invasive proprietary app that I'd prefer just keeping on a separate device instead of trying to limit its spyware abilities with firewalls and that kind of stuff. I don't trust the last solution much. Also I can't use it in a VM because I need it to always be accessible wherever I am and yk carrying a PC is not an option

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (2 children)

One thing you can do :

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Interesting, I was using https://rethinkdns.com/ until now, I guess NetGuard is a more straightforward approach to blocking?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Up to you. Netguard does need a local VPN connection on the phone to work, so if you would need some VPN app to run there's a problem. Netguard blocks network access per app (with choice for enabling/disabling WiFi and/or Mobile Data per app) which I think is cool. And it is an open source app available via F-Droid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Rethink is very similar: uses a VPN connection too, and allows blocking per app, is available on F-Droid

Anyway, the interface of Netguard seems a bit easier to use

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

You can use wireguard configuration with rethink DNS