this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
50 points (100.0% liked)

Buy European

5595 readers
395 users here now

Overview:

The community to discuss buying European goods and services.

Matrix Chat

Rules:

  • Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. No direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments.

  • Do not use this community to promote Nationalism/Euronationalism. This community is for discussing European products/services and news related to that. For other topics the following might be of interest:

  • Include a disclaimer at the bottom of the post if you're affiliated with the recommendation.

  • No russian suggestions.

Feddit.uk's instance rules apply:

  • No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or xenophobia
  • No incitement of violence or promotion of violent ideologies
  • No harassment, dogpiling or doxxing of other users
  • Do not share intentionally false or misleading information
  • Do not spam or abuse network features.
  • Alt accounts are permitted, but all accounts must list each other in their bios.
  • No generative AI content

Benefits of Buying Local:

local investment, job creation, innovation, increased competition, more redundancy.

European Instances

Lemmy:

Matrix:

Related Communities:

Buy Local:

Continents:

European:

Buying and Selling:

Boycott:

Countries:

Companies:

Stop Publisher Kill Switch in Games Practice:

Banner credits: BYTEAlliance

founded 3 months ago
MODERATORS
maam@feddit.uk
alex@jlai.lu
circledot@feddit.org
Argyle13@lemmy.world
Sunshine@feddit.is
Sunshine@lemmy.ca
buyeuropean@lemmy.ca
buyeuropean@feddit.org
lazycog@feddit.uk
50
7 simple things I always do on Android to protect my privacy [and reduce being monetized by Google et al.] (www.zdnet.com)
submitted 3 days ago by klu9@lemmy.ca to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Until you get a chance to leave behind Google's Android operating system completely, here's an article I saw with a few fairly simple things you can do that will reduce (although not eliminate) the ability of Google and others to scrape your data and monetize you.

I already do step 1 (Firefox etc). But looking at step 5, for example, my phone had all those ad options set to "on".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 days ago (11 children)

The first thing(s) do:

  • Install adguard with system-wide ad & tracker filters enabled; change my DNS to a private service that also features DNS-based ad and tracker blocking.
  • Disable any google features: syncing, backup, uninstall/disable all google apps, etc.; replace with FOSS or privacy-friendly alternatives.
  • after that, it's the process of replacing the browser, keyboard, etc.
[โ€“] blackbeards_bounty@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Which adguard? Needs root?

[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Adguard for android (paid). It runs as a local VPN and cleans up everything, including most ads in apps.

You can find cheap lifetime licenses for sale. I've been using it for many, many years.

[โ€“] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

or instead of using a Russian service, you can try Swedish Mullvad's DNS servers. it's free to use and doesn't require installing an app https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls#android

[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Just an FYI:

"AdGuard servers are located in Frankfurt, Germany, and the apps do not communicate to any servers in Russia. This was a deliberate decision to keep our servers (as well as the company itself) in a different jurisdiction. Even among AdGuard DNS servers, which are supposed to be located all over the world, we don't have any in Russia. With how things are developing, we may soon have no office there either, or have a considerably smaller one. To reiterate:

  • AdGuard apps do not connect to any servers in Russia.
  • AdGuard DNS has no servers in Russia.
  • AdGuard VPN also has no servers in Russia. The one that's said to be in Moscow actually uses some IP address magic to present itself so, but is actually located in the Netherlands.

Secondly, we do not condone what's going on in Ukraine and we have expressed our opinion on this earlier. Filters maintainers, support team members, QA, developers โ€” the war has changed lives of many people that are very important to AdGuard as a company and to me personally. Our only desire is for it to stop as soon as possible." SOURCE

The Adguard team has been among the most trustworthy in the privacy space, and their self-hosted, and local-first services shouldn't be casually cast aside so quickly.

[โ€“] jherazob@beehaw.org 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can you do ad and tracking blocking using their VPN thing? And can you turn off the VPN part leaving just the blocking going?

[โ€“] noodlejetski@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago

yes and yes. you don't the VPN app to use their DNS servers.

[โ€“] Cyber@feddit.uk 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Alternative is TrackerControl - again a local VPN, but aimed at blocking trackers (which could then include ads)

Find it on FDroid: https://trackercontrol.org/

[โ€“] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago

Yes, that's a great FOSS alternative.

The only reason why I don't use trackercontrol is that I can't use it at the same time as an actual VPN. And since I already paid for AdGuard, it's on all my devices. ๐Ÿคญ

load more comments (9 replies)