I just started caring about my own privacy. What apps should i get rid of, why and what can i replace it with?

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Joke: The first app to get rid of is iOS.
(I’ve been making iPhone apps for a decade, let me rant!)
- not even a joke for me, i can't imagine being without F-Droid!
- Go on…..
  Please rant away, this is a safe space.
- welp 💀

@prousername here’s a good starting place: https://www.privacytools.io
- @k3ym0 @prousername 👆

One thing I don’t see any one mention in the comments, is that you should start paying attention to the “Data linked to you” section in the appstore. As an example here’s WhatsApp and Signal:

Granted that does mean you are relying on the developer and Apple to not be deceptive, but it’s better than nothing and a good place to start.

I'd start small, a lot of people would tell you to do some drastic changes to you life, but, like every other thing you have in life, start small, or you'll might fail.
I'd suggest starting here.
- Other awesome FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) lists for your other OSes (computer/tablet).
  
  I think you should think about moving to more FOSS-friendly OSes, but in time, down the line, not this instant. Maybe the next devices you'll own, or when you feel ready, comfortable, with privacy; anyway, GL!
  E: wording

I see a lot of people in here shitting on iOS and not Google. Stock Android is worse than iOS for privacy. Unless you’re going to run a degoogled Android, don’t bother getting rid of iOS. But degoogled Android is the best option, if you can.
- Stock iOS may be better for privacy than google on a OS level. But so many of the best Foss and open source app alternatives are android only. Like iOS can't even run real Firefox. Much less things like newpipe.
  
  Yes, that’s why degloogled Android is best. It doesn’t matter if you use privacy centric apps if your OS is spying on you.
- This. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
  I tend to think you can secure yourself some of the gains without rooting your phone, but it's a lot of twiddling and an ecosystem swap.
  I loathe apple, but if you're not ready to dive in, your home devices are where I would start. Routers, modems, home PCs, learn how to set up encryption and redirection to put things behind. Ditch your roomba.
  Edit; I did not mean to talk down, sounds like your on that train. Android is linux and adb is awesome (sometimes).
  Keepassdx/xc and syncthing have been awesome, rise up has a decent free VPN client for public use in fdroid.
- Well, not anymore... Ehm icloud scanning
- Not really. On Android you can do much to achieve much more privacy. On iOS you can nearly do nothing. The options provided by Apple to restrict data usage are not doing their jobs according to privacy analysis by Kuketz thus resulting in a Apple marketing campaign based on lies that most believe and are convinced of

Adding to what others here have already said, I'd definitely download Signal and see if you can get any people to move from WhatsApp/Telegram/whatever to Signal.
I don't know much about iOS apps, but you could look into more privacy focused YouTube clients, and possibly 2FA clients too (although that's a bit of a controversial topic on iOS AFAIK).
I saw you mention in another comment that you use Amazon Alexa for smart home appliances. Depending on interest in selfhosting / time / motivation to move away from Amazon, you could look into using Home Assistant instead. It even has a Lemmy community: !homeassistant@lemmy.world.

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/

Swap ChatGPT for a shortcut to duckduckgo.com/chat ;) I know that DDG isn't ideal compared to stuff like SearX but at least it doesn't require being signed in for making prompts.
- Thank you for sharing this! :)
- I use searx more then the fluffy DuckDuck that can't go anywhere.
- And if you use Llama, then your queries are not sent to OpenAI.

Not an app, but one thing I can recommend that is pretty much "for free" is to turn on iCloud Advanced Data Protection, that gets you end-to-end encryption for pretty much all iCloud storage (photos and so on).
Everything else I would recommend is probably not going to happen (such as deleting Discord) or of questionable benefits (such as using the web version of Discord instead of what is probably the app) :^)
- I recommend disabling iCloud

Depends, do you trust Apple with your privacy? And how about Amazon, do you trust them?
- Well, all my home appliences rely on Alexa. I do trust amazon as i had no issues with it.
  About apple, i did opt out from diagnostic data sharing, filled my icloud drive and disabled find my iphone. Tho to be honest, i had this iphone for 2 years now and havent found a reason to switch yet. (iPhone 12)
  
  You should not trust Amazon. Multiple Ring privacy failures, including giving video footage to police without consent, Amazon employees watching Ring video footage without consent, then there's stuff like Sidewalk that uses your home network as part of a mesh network, collection of biometric days via palm readers at Whole Foods for checkout, which they then use for their Amazon One service that they sell to businesses to verify age and identity, the whole "AI powered" Just Walk Out tech in physical Amazon stores that turned out to be not AI at all but a bunch of Indian subcontractors watching video cameras, etc, etc, etc...
  
  I would say Alexa is a big one:
  https://time.com/5568815/amazon-workers-listen-to-alexa/

Don't use Discord. That is a major vector for attack. Seen it happen myself.
Even Sandboxed Google Play has problems.
I don't think there is any equivalent of Graphene for Mac hardware. With Pegasus and Predator software around, phones are very hard to secure.
Rely on tor browser and torrifying where you can with Orbot (Guardian Project).
Instead of Telegram, how about Signal and Briar? We just heard about how Telegram's executive got hit and may now have to bow to pressure. Signal has kept its design integrity as far as we know.
Minimal apps are better than many to reduce attack surface. Maybe try accessing some of those services on other devices instead of on your personal tracking device.

Delete speedtest.net, YouTube, YouTube kids and ChatGPT and use either web apps or favorite them in your browser, as Firefox for iOS is really bad compared to other platforms I would recommend you to use brave instead as it comes included with an adblocker which works really well. Also do you need all of iOS’s bloat ? Do have an Apple Watch ? Do you have an Apple TV+ subscription ? Do you use HomeKit for smart home devices and so on.
- Well ever since i got this iphone, i didnt really bother removing all the bloat. Thanks for the recommendation though!

@prousername I wrote a blog article specifically for this! Perhaps you will find it helpful: https://controlaltdelete.technology/articles/easy-practical-privacy-tips-for-everyone.html

Take inspiration from https://alternativeto.net/platform/iphone/?license=opensource

How mich privacy do you want?
Much? Don't use Apple. It is worse than Android. Google Android is bad as well but you can make substantial changes. Beste would be a custom ROM but that's an extreme change and way
You don't want to change iOS? You have to get rid of many Apple apps but I guess, it's not possible.
So remaining: AppleTV, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, defenitely Discord!, WhatsApp, YouTube, Telegram, definitely HuawaiHealth.
Some of the others I don't know but I'm sure they should be avoided as well. Use Websites with blockers in browser instead of apps.
That is the least to do or accept beging heavily tracked
- I use Huawei Health to sync my Workout Data from my watch to my Phone. I don't really know if i can get rid of it, as its the app my watch works with. (Huawei Watch GT 4)

The main problem is iOS sorry. Because most of privacy apps are only available on android...

Stage one: get off the internet.
Stage two: ???
Stage three: Profit

40 comments