And this is a perfect example of the bait-and-switch: Location now goes through Google's location services, so you're not saying "FindMyKeysApp may use my GPS location", you're saying "FindMyKeysApp AND GOOGLE may use my GPS location."
For most apps (unless I'm wrong?) there's no way to let the app use my location without it going through Google's location services and sending data back to the Borg Cube.
You could use microg, then nothing goes to Google. https://lineage.microg.org – This together with yalp gives you a good experience and keeps you private.
go to settings, gps mode, select "always high accuracy"
presto - no google - only actual GPS signals used. But good luck - you'll see just how terrible GPS is indoors and in urban canyons. Without wifi and BLE augmentation it truly sucks.
I recently switched to iOS for this reason. Yes there are permissions - but Android still periodically activated location services despite my settings.
Googles insistence on capturing as much data as possible about me is just creepy. I disabled voice search, location history, and everything else I could. Switching to DuckDuckGo made a big difference, but still the data gets swallowed up.
I know that Apple is only slightly better - but I’ll take whatever privacy I can get.
It was said in another thread, Apple's financial interests align better with their users -- Google keep insisting on stalking their own users. I'm so happy I don't have a Gmail account.
If you enable location just once (e.g. to check in to a location) it has that permission until you laboriously find the control in per app settings, and apps can use your location any time from then on, including in the background.
I think commenter was pointing that an Android app can fetch location even from the background (albeit w/ limits on frequency due to power consumption). It just needs to get that one Location permission from the user.
iOS has a fine-grained permission setting for this - you can decide whether to allow the app to access location or not when it's not in foreground, i.e "While Using the App".
taneq|7 years ago
For most apps (unless I'm wrong?) there's no way to let the app use my location without it going through Google's location services and sending data back to the Borg Cube.
Lunatic666|7 years ago
dmitrygr|7 years ago
presto - no google - only actual GPS signals used. But good luck - you'll see just how terrible GPS is indoors and in urban canyons. Without wifi and BLE augmentation it truly sucks.
convivialdingo|7 years ago
Googles insistence on capturing as much data as possible about me is just creepy. I disabled voice search, location history, and everything else I could. Switching to DuckDuckGo made a big difference, but still the data gets swallowed up.
I know that Apple is only slightly better - but I’ll take whatever privacy I can get.
lern_too_spel|7 years ago
toxik|7 years ago
angry_octet|7 years ago
balladeer|7 years ago
iOS has a fine-grained permission setting for this - you can decide whether to allow the app to access location or not when it's not in foreground, i.e "While Using the App".
ams6110|7 years ago
givinguflac|7 years ago