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Comment by airlocksoftware | Hacker News Reader

Location tracking requires specific permission from the user, not as part of installation. I think you're a bit out of date.

https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/deve...

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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.

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.

There's two issues here:

1) Using visible WiFi networks to determine location sends data to Google to use their geolocation database. Your suggestion here does stop this (assuming you meant to DE-select "always high accuracy" and instead select "device only" which uses the GPS without sending any data offboard.)

2) Google pushes the use of Google Play location services API over Android's location services system API. These services don't work unless you grant Google Play Services permission to use your location. Since Google Play Services also needs network access, you effectively have to grant Google access to your location in order to use any location services whatsoever in any application.

It's the second point to which I was referring in my post above.

That is the same with iOS, but iOS doesn't even give you the option of disabling AGPS. Google Location Services' AGPS is anonymized, exactly like iOS's implementation.

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.

Yeah, I've been on LineageOS since it was CyanogenMod, haven't yet needed Google Play for my (admittedly simplistic) requirements but it's good to know that microg is coming along so nicely in case I get stuck.

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.

Apple doesn't even give you the option of disabling its AGPS implementation, so in that respect, you are worse off.

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".

Even on older phones, you can turn location services off, which I do at all times unless I'm actively navigating.

This doesn’t actually help on android as google can still determine location by scanning local WiFi network info.

But it doesn't. Google Location Services is what gives permission to use Google's AGPS service. Meanwhile, on iOS, there is no way to disable that at all.

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