Google ships a ton of free software with Android, but you're still paying for it with your data when you use it. The company can create an incredibly detailed profile of your life thanks to everything you share with it while browsing the web from your phone. While it's impossible to get rid of all that tracking completely if you don't want to use a custom ROM or switch to iOS, there are a few things you can do to reduce your exposure right now.
Opt out of Google's personalizations
To hinder Google from following you around the web, head to your Google Account's activity controls and disable all or some of the options presented there. To get there, you need to either visit myaccount.google.com or follow these steps on your phone:
- Go to Settings ⇾ Privacy ⇾ Activity controls.
- If prompted, select your primary Google account.
- Turn off Web & App Activity. Note that Google results might become just a little less personalized when you do this.
- Turn off Location History. This will prevent Google from tracking where you're going. It will also stop Google Maps' Your Timeline from populating with your recent trips and movements.
- Turn off YouTube History. This will stop Google from personalizing your recommendations and giving you the option to jump back into content you were watching.
- Turn off Ad personalization by tapping Go to Ad Settings and toggling the option off. This will give you less relevant ads, but they should not follow you around the web as much as they would normally do.
If you prefer a less aggressive approach, you can also limit how long Google can store data on you. To do that, select the Choose an auto-delete option entry under each corresponding sub point.
To delete older data already collected, head to myactivity.google.com. On that website, open the hamburger menu by tapping the three bars in the top left corner and choose Delete activity by... Then you can select which activity you'd like to remove.
Location tracking
Google has long improved some of Android's notoriously bad privacy practices of old. These days, it prevents both third-party and first-party apps from polling your location in the background at all times, limiting their location access to only while in use by default.
To limit which apps have access to your location, head to Settings ⇾ Privacy ⇾ Permissions manager ⇾ Location. Depending on your handset, the path to these settings might differ slightly. You can alternatively search for "Location" in your system settings to get to the section.
In the location permissions manager, you'll find a list of all apps installed on your phone. You can individually set location tracking limits for each by choosing a tier: Allowed all the time, allowed only while in use, or denied. While most apps don't ever absolutely need your location, some of them offer added benefits when they have background access. That's the case for navigation apps and weather widgets that update to display the conditions at your current location.
On some older Android versions, you'll have to choose between always allowing and always forbidding location access, with no only in use option. You should carefully assess which apps you trust and check what you really gain from sharing your location with an application. In a hotel booking app, for example, you probably won't search for accommodations in your current vicinity and most likely won't need to give it access to your location. Other apps allow you to set your address manually, too, like weather apps or food delivery services. They offer the same functionality with the minor inconvenience of typing in your address.
Turn off backups
To prevent backups from being saved to Google's servers, head to Settings ⇾ System ⇾ Backup. There, you can toggle off Back up to Google Drive.
However, when you do this, none of your precious data like your contacts' numbers or SMS chats will be automatically restored when you lose or break your phone, so be cautious about saving this data somewhere else. You'll also need to manually sign back into apps you've used on your old phone, you'll lose custom device settings including Wi-Fi passwords, and your photos and videos won't be backed up. Assess carefully whether having some peace of mind regarding this data is worth a privacy trade-off or not.
You can consider switching to a privately hosted server using ownCloud or similar open source solutions to sync your files and backup your data instead.
Use third-party software when possible
If you don't want to get tracked by Google, consider using third-party software over Google's pre-installed apps as much as possible. There are tons of email providers, cloud storage solutions, note-taking apps, and navigation systems out there that don't rely on Google software, like Microsoft Outlook, Dropbox, Bundled Notes or Evernote, and OsmAnd (based on OpenStreetMap, an open-source Google Maps alternative). If you want to go all in on privacy, you should consider going for open-source replacements only. That's no guarantee that your data is safe, but the services' code is mostly peer-controlled and often not in the hands of one single company. Here are some great open-source alternatives for common Google apps.
Some Google apps can even be safely deactivated by tapping and holding their icons in the app drawer or home screen, tapping the (i) button, and choosing Disable. Be careful with this, though, as a few like Google Search are necessary to keep your phone up and running. Something like YouTube Music or Google TV should be safe to disable, though.
Use a browser other than Chrome
From left to right: Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Samsung Internet
If you're concerned about Google Chrome's tracking mechanisms, consider switching to another trusted browser that keeps your privacy intact. I'd argue Firefox and Firefox Focus are the best choices since they rely on a browser engine not created by Google. Many other third-party browsers use Google Chrome's rendering engine, which is not good for the health of the web. If you're not satisfied with Firefox, you might still want to try Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet, or Vivaldi.
You can make any of these your default browser by long-pressing their icon on your home screen, hitting the (i) icon, and choosing the default browser option there. If you use the Google app, you'll notice that it still opens links in a custom Chrome tab. To make the search engine use your preferred third-party browser instead, open the Google app, hit your profile picture in the top right corner, then Settings ⇾ General and deselect Open web pages in the app.
... or at least make Chrome less hungry for your data
If you'd like to stay with Chrome instead, there are still things you can do to enhance your privacy. Head to the browser's settings (three-dot menu ⇾ Settings ⇾ Search engine) and change the search engine to another provider — among the ones listed, DuckDuckGo.com is your best option concerning privacy. Its results often aren't as spot on as Google's, though — there's a reason why Google is the de-facto standard for search.
Another thing you can do in Settings is sign out of your Google account and turn off sync, though naturally, you'll lose out on cross-platform synchronization that way. Disabling Google's native password tool and switching to a third-party password manager will increase not only your privacy but also your security. Additionally, consider deactivating Google's payment methods and address autofill options.
To find more advanced options, scroll down in Chrome's settings. Under Privacy, turn off Access payment methods and Preload pages for faster browsing and searching. You can also remove your Chrome activity from Digital Wellbeing and turn on Do Not Track, though the latter is a little misleading. The option just sends out a plea to websites telling them you don't want to be tracked, but nothing forces the operators to comply. It could actually make it easier to identify you, as most people don't turn this on.
In Site settings, tap Cookies and choose Block third-party cookies. This should be enabled by default, but just double-check that it's the case. That way, you can stop some third-party tracking cookies from websites you've never even opened from following you around the web. Some features like saved sign-ins to the comment platform Disqus (which we use here on Android Police) could break along the way, though — you'll have to manually allow Disqus cookies to make comments function seamlessly on many sites again.
You should also turn off Lite Mode. While it does save some of your precious mobile data, it achieves that by sending unencrypted HTTP website queries through Google's servers (encrypted HTTPS websites aren't affected by Lite Mode in the first place).
Don't trust Incognito mode
Contrary to popular belief, any browser's incognito or private mode only goes so far when you want to stay low-profile online. Your ISP and public Wi-Fi providers might still be able to see which websites you visit. The same is true for some ad trackers that rely on a unique combination of your hardware, software, and IP address rather than cookies to track you across both incognito and regular mode. If you truly want to stay anonymous, consider trying the Firefox-based Tor Browser or one of many great trustworthy VPNs. Both route your encrypted queries through additional servers, obscuring your identity and location from other Wi-Fi users and your ISP.
Set up 2-factor protection for your accounts
While 2-factor authentication (2FA) won't keep Google from getting your data, it might prevent hackers from breaking into your account, which would be worse — they probably won't adhere to any privacy laws that Google has to mind. That's why you should activate 2FA for your Google account and any online account when possible.
For Google, head to your account's security settings, accessible on the web right here. Look for the 2-Step Verification entry and activate it. You'll then have to enter a second piece of information in addition to your password whenever you log in to a new device. You can choose trusted phones, authenticator apps, phone numbers, and backup codes to do that.
Many other services, like Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, password managers, and Slack also have 2FA options. They're available in these services' security settings.
Good practices
Other than these kill switches, there are some smaller things you can do to share less data with Google and third-party apps on your phone:
- Only turn on access to your location when you really need it. That will save you a little precious battery life, too. On most Android versions, you have a shortcut for that in your quick settings by swiping down the notification panel twice.
- Check which of your apps are device admins (Settings ⇾ Apps & notifications ⇾ Advanced ⇾ Special app access ⇾ Device admin apps). Find My Device and Google Pay are among those that usually get this permission by default, but if you don't use the payments app, you can deactivate it. (Just don't forget to reactivate it if you do decide to use the app).
- Check the permissions you've granted your apps under Settings ⇾ Privacy ⇾ Permission manager and deactivate those you don't need. And don't worry, when an app absolutely needs one to work properly, it'll nag you to activate it again, so it's pretty foolproof.
- Avoid using your Google account to log into third-party apps. Create individual new accounts instead, complete with their own unique passwords. It's best to use a good and trustworthy password manager to accomplish this.
- Last but not least, consider doing a security checkup. Google will walk you through unused logins and third-party apps with access to your account and ask you whether you still need them. That won't help you keep data away from Google, but at least your information isn't spread even further.
Custom ROM
One surefire way to avoid being tracked by Google altogether is installing a custom ROM without any Google apps on it. Despite Android's open-source nature, that's still difficult to pull off, though. Many apps rely on Google Play Services, which provide essentials like push notifications and location data. With a bit of tinkering, these are all issues that you can overcome, though.
However, just because custom ROMs are open source doesn't mean that someone went looking for malicious code in the source. You should stay away from obscure forks and you should absolutely preface any custom ROM installation with research. Google promises not to sell your data to third parties and would face severe consequences if it did because so many people, businesses, and governments rely on its services. An individual ROM developer distributing free software to a few people is much harder to keep in check and unfortunately doesn't have the same resources as Google to provide top-level security.
All in all, it's challenging to shut off tracking altogether. A good VPN will help obscure most of your internet traffic, but you probably shouldn't be using a smartphone in the first place if you're really paranoid. However, even when you want to profit from all the advantages internet-connected technology has brought us, you can make some choices that help you become less transparent on the internet, and that's at least something.
