HACKER Q&A
📣 deepburner

How to use a smartphone in a privacy conscious manner?


I'm on a quest to decouple my online/digital presence from my actual person as much as possible.

I've started using Qubes OS on an old Dell laptop for my daily computation needs. Email is a lost cause since most of my traffic will pass through google/MS at one point. Started using password managers and throwaways etc but I still haven't figured out a sane way of reaping the benefits of having a smartphone without compromising my security/privacy.

I was thinking of Apple despite their business practices but I have soured on them with the last debate and probably it wasn't a very good idea from the start anyways due to lack of control on the hardware. Have alternative OSs (Calyx, Sailfish, Lineage or mobile linux distros) for android hardware reached maturity? Is it even possible to have closed source hardware not spy on you? Is my best bet buying a nokia 3310 and just listening to music on an mp3 player?

Let me know what solutions you use to keep your privacy.


  👤 BillSims Accepted Answer ✓
At one end of the spectrum you might read "Extreme Privacy: What It Takes to Disappear" by Michael Bazzell 3rd ed. or even an older edition might be enough.

👤 sandwichbop
Depends on what you want to do with your phone. The first elephant in the room is your phone plan, I use Tracfone for my phone since it's no contract and pay as you go, you can buy service minutes from the store without ever putting your name on your unlocked device.

Next best thing I started doing was using my phone less, as if I didn't have a phone. I mostly only use it for text messages and nothing else. I don't answer phone calls, I do everything via email on another device. I sometimes even leave home without my phone on me. Basically offloading the privacy issues to other devices like your laptop/desktop as much as you can since it's so much easier to control things like location access compared to a phone. But you may not way to do this, it depends on what features you want while which you can forgone on a phone.


👤 account-5
Pixel 4 to 5 with GrapheneOS, signal, and VoIP for phone numbers. FDroid for apps and at a pinch Aurora market ( installable from FDroid) for play apps. Don't really have a solution for SMS currently.