I agree with that. This is about iodéOS and therefore a custom ROM, which was created with the primary goal of maintaining the greatest possible privacy.
Who wants to have the greatest possible privacy, must decide for themselves whether they want to go this very uncomfortable and elaborate way and can live with some restrictions. This is truly not always an easy path. Especially depending on how hard you take this path. The disadvantages due to good privacy usually have nothing to do with the chosen custom ROM per se, but occur equally with all custom ROM’s. Those who opt for privacy will certainly choose iodéOS, CalyxOS, /e/, DivestOS or LineageOS. Depending on own priorities. If you can’t live with restrictions, a privacy-friendly custom ROM doesn’t make sense and you are probably best suited with the stock ROM.
All apps are only suggestions and can be uninstalled with just one tap. Only the apps microG and iodé-blocker are important to mention. The fact that iodéOS comes with microG has the advantage that you can decide for yourself whether you need a “Google Play fake” (IP address goes to Google!) or uninstall it. Thus, both interests are helped. Those who need it because they can’t do without every Google app and those who would rather not even have microG on the device. And the iodé-blocker is the heart of iodéOS. It is both a firewall and an adblocker. To test or evaluate iodéOS for itself, there is no sense in looking at any exchangeable apps that have not been developed by iodé. The operating system itself, which you as a user can’t or can’t easily change, is the important and interesting thing. One example: Does iodéOS still use supl.google.com for A-GPS? No, but supl.vodafone.com.
Thoughts on what disadvantages privacy generally brings are indeed better placed in a NEW topic and are surely interesting to discuss as well. Like, for example, that there is unfortunately no privacy-friendly solution for navigating with good live traffic. In THIS topic it is more suitable to talk about the core aspects of iodéOS, how iodéOS has implemented privacy or what other features it has specially.
That didn’t sound to me like Google had anything to do with it. Do you think Vodafone exchanges information with Google? Would it be possible to create a possibility in the Android settings that you as a user can define SUPL_HOST yourself? I myself would then want to enter localhost. I would prefer that than Vodafone. How do Graphene, Calyx, Divest and /e/ solve this problem?
Not only does the latest version of SUPL go beyond the initial purposes of A-GPS (geofencing, billing applications), the above data is being logged by Google without permission, potentially before you even put a SIM card in your phone. For that reason, we wanted to avoid using Google servers for SUPL data when using GPS. To solve this, we replaced GPS SUPL_HOST=supl.google.com with supl.vodafone.com (Vodafone) in the following files:
Is this just window dressing and Google still gets just as much data as if supl.google.com was still set?
What do you mean by that? Is it about “Advanced Mobile Location” (AML), which is implemented by Android with Emergency Location Service (ELS)? This would not work anyway, since Google Play Services are mandatory for this.
The discussion about A-GPS and supl.vodafone.com now continues in a new topic, since this obviously is more of a general problem for all privacy-friendly custom ROMs:
