[Wmsi]

Hi,

I would be very interested to hear your tips for making the Priv (and Android in general) as secure and private as possible. How do you choose to lock your phone, do you let Google Now access your location? Which apps have you locked down? Etc.

Thanks

[tickerguy]

Here 'ya go as pertains to security (note: privacy is a different matter, and is MOSTLY about what apps you load.)

This is my article and is in the context of the recent Apple flap, but it definitely pertains to Android devices as well including the Priv (which I own and use as my "daily")

Note that on the Priv you CANNOT use a picture password if you want unit-off protection.

https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231158

[Wmsi]

Ok I had aquick scan of that article. How do you set Android to require pin on boot? I thought it did this anyway?

[tickerguy]

When you set the PIN it will ask if you want it on or not.

You can't change the setting without resetting the PIN. If it's set, when you boot the phone it will appear to start booting, demand the PIN (and not leave that screen; the Priv will start "clicking" at you if you don't enter it in a minute or so but it will not proceed) and only boot the rest of the way once you've entered the password/PIN.

[Wmsi]

ANy other tips? Do people turn off Google Now as it tracks your every location?

[tickerguy]

Privacy and security are two different things. I do not use Google Now, nor do I route email, contacts and calendars through Google -- I have my own infrastructure for that which is connected through ActiveSync using TLS and a privately-issued certificate validated with a private CA.

Unfortunately until M ships if you turn on location ANY app that wants it can grab it immediately, and will, until you turn it off. So as soon as you want to do something like use a GPS-enabled app (e.g. maps, or even a local map-store one such as CoPilot) EVERY shopping and similar-related app on your device will start collecting and sending your location home to Momma. M will allow you to stop this on an app-by-app basis, but with Android 5.x to prevent it you need to decompile the app in question, remove the permission flag from the manifest, then repack and re-sign it, and doing that permanently removes the capability -- and that may cause the app to blow up. That's a royal pain in the tush and nobody does it for that reason.

[ajwan]

Do your battery life, your info, and your phone's operating speed and avoid using Chrome where possible.

Check out this gem of a browser I found the other day:

"If you spend much of your smartphone-screen time on the Web, one of the easiest ways to make your battery last longer may surprise you: Install an ad blocker. Much of the debate around using this kind of software, which is designed mainly to prevent certain kinds of ads from loading while you�re browsing websites, focuses on revenue (for publishers) and annoyance (for readers). But ads, just like any other form of online content, use resources: Your phone must download the ad images and video and then display them (often running browser scripts too), and these tasks use energy."

"We ran an automated Wi-Fi Web-browsing session in Safari on an iPhone 6s, cycling through a set list of websites for two hours with no ad blockers; then we ran the same test with the 1Blocker ad blocker installed. Without the ad blocker, the test used 18 percent of the phone�s battery, but with the ad blocker, it used only 9 percent�so viewing ads doubled the impact of Web browsing on the phone�s battery! We ran a similar test on a 2015 Moto X Pure using the Ghostery Privacy Browser and got results that were even more dramatic: With no ad blocker, a two-hour browsing session in Chrome used 22 percent of the phone�s battery, whereas the Ghostery ad-blocking browser (which uses the same browser engine as Chrome) consumed only 8 percent."

https://www.ghostery.com/

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...droid.ghostery

The browser comes with an on-board counter. I was shocked at the number of blocks and how much faster pages loaded up as a result. Good thing is that it will conveniently (albeit crudely) import your bookmarks from at least Chrome (perhaps others). I think Ghostery (love the icon) is worth a shake for us private types.

Ironically, I wouldn't have known about Ghostery or the article had I not enabled Google to analyze my browsing history and spit out recommendations through Google Now. Go figure!

Cheers.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[bluetroll]

I use Google Now for hands free in the car

I'm not sure of any other way to initiate phone calls through Bluetooth?

I've come across the voice dailer, but that just sucks so bad.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[tickerguy]

Voice recognition is local on the Priv (does not go out over the network) and works quite well; I use it to reply to messages and such when typing would be unsafe or inconvenient.

Turn off the "Ok Google" thing; you should still be able to call voice recognition from your car's interface, and you can go into the configuration for the Google app and shut off access to everything except the dialer.

That SHOULD prevent it from being able to be called except by explicit action, and since the voice recognition is local (not using the network) it's *reasonably* secure. Not perfectly so, and yes, I'm sure there is telemetry sent back to momma, but it's a hell of a lot better than having the thing listening to you all the time.