Ask HN: Best privacy preserving alternatives to Apple products? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Best privacy preserving alternatives to Apple products?

109 pointsEngineering-MD62 comments

After latest apple content scanning privacy debarcle, I will likely migrate away from apple. They have destroyed my trust such that I can’t tolerate the uncertainty they may change their minds later or introduce a hash inspection function secretly.

Which leaves the question: where to go? What is the best alternative to apple products?My current working suggestions, but would greatly appreciate others weighing in.

Phone: Pixel with graphene OS Laptop: System 76 laptop or X1 carbon Watch: Garmin variety of some description Cloud storage: probably nextcloud self hosted

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Don't ditch your phone. Divide and compartment its functions. I went to Europe without a phone once. Things were fine but there was a layer of friction over everything. When does that restaurant/shop open, how to get reservation, buy tickets in advanced. The airline had a strike, I had to go through the concierge to find out if I needed rebooking for the flight home, it was up in the air the day I departed.

I had with me a Garmin with a memstick of the local map. Sadly I'd given it away, I wish I had kept it. I also had with me a non-wifi little camera that could shoot videos. I used the Garmin for direction and map. When I got home I unpacked the camera memsticks. Things were mostly fine.

What's the best alt to Apple product is the wrong question. Apple, or anyone else, has such leverage because it bundled so many functions important to you, convenience is the scaling factor. Maps and navigation on phone is great, iPhone camera is awesome, sharing grocery lists and docs is very handy. Put them all together and Apple becomes dangerous to privacy.

I'm still muddling through, trying to think about this and how I will change my tech using habit.

My napkin plan:

* Ditch Apple products. I was going to upgrade my iPad and MacBook, that's not going to happen.

* Switch to an Android phone, install only minimal apps and minimal cloud services. I need MFA for work, banking, and a few apps for travel. Photos, of course, but I can manage manually offloading those. As few apps as possible.

* Ditch my Apple Watch, get a cheap dedicated running watch for maps/GPS. I had one before, it was quite enough. The Apple Watch is lovely, but not essential.

* Ditch Google Mail except for my one online purchasing account.

* Switch to another mail providef, maybe Fastmail, to segregate and distribute my email paths. I'm a heavy calendar user..

* Switch to NAS and a backup NAS for file storage.

* Keep my Windows machine for photo and video editing, but stop using OneDrive and Google Drive. Migrate back to Linux (need to figure out a desktop machine that has some decent hardware power management support) for my personal ecosystem. Do more on the desktop, and do less on mobile.

* I'll keep my FireTV for TV watching, and if I can't watch shows on a Linux laptop, so be it.

* Minimize the use of integrated platforms (Apple iCloud, Google, cloud services). I've been out of the FB world for years, it'll take a bit more work to de-Apple and mini-G my life.

I need some tech in my life to create and to make a living. But the whole "online life" thing will be getting scaled back. Tech for consumption and delight will be very much less so.

I don't know how else to resist (yet). I've been in the Linux, privacy and encryption thing for decades, and it feels like an anachronism in the current political and social climate. I'm at an age where I can upscale my analog life and not think too hard about how that complicates my future. My son, who'll enter college next year, has already sworn off a phone and social media. Not sure how long he can live without a phone, but for however long he wants to live without one and wrestle with the discomforts out society will create because of it, he can adapt without have to un-wind the tech that has already encroached in his life.

Android user here: 90 % of Android devices have all the stuff you think you avoided by switching preinstalled and running in the background. Either because it's in the Google contract to use Play Services or because the manufacturer uses proprietary solutions they want to push. And they certainly aren't always removable

I understand that. I don't think I can cut it off entirely, but I'm going to segregate my usage of the platforms as much as I can. My personal cloud archive won't be on my phone, that's one thing I can do.

I may not be able to take down the beast, but I'll try not to feed it much more than crumbs.

I don't see why you switched to Android then in the first place, because only iCloud uploads will be scanned on iOS. Also I can't think of a single manufacturer with better privacy practices than Apple except for custom ROMs.

Isn't the obvious choice to use custom ROMs then?

For now… I think it’s easy to imagine what v5 of this tech can do, what additional databases come into scope over time. The potential of abuse by governments, and the principle of on device scanning. Cloud scanning doesn’t bother me as much… but this feels like a step too far. Some things are reasonable, this doesn’t seem so.

These days things are much better thanks to Treble. Device-independent ROMs are a reality. You can easily flash pure AOSP on any modern phone.

While that's in theory, reality is much more harsh. Treble implementations vary greatly between OEMs. For example, Samsung phones don't have mobile data working because of proprietary RIL used by Samsung. Also, Treble compatibility often breaks on newer versions of Android, especially for Pixels (which is quite ironic). Treble is really meant to make the job easier for OEMs and ROM devs to continue supporting a device. The GSI is really meant as a way to certify Treble.

Installing a custom, privacy conscious rom on an Android phone is generally easier.

For the pictures I recommand using syncthing. Works very well, and if configured to upload only on wifi it won't kill your data plan.

You'll need custom OS on Android as well. LineageOS (many android phones) or GrapheneOS (only Pixel phones).

I've been wrestling with this and I don't think it matters. Fascism is here. There is no escape.

Eventually anything that connects to a network will be crippled to the point of uselessness unless you submit to constant monitoring. If you try to avoid it you will be guilty until proven innocent by default.

By eventually I mean in 2-3 years.

I’m basically with you. Even if i switch to Linux I have to trust the company behind the distro to act in good faith, I have to trust Cryptomator to encrypt my files without backdoors, I have to trust Mozilla to securely save my passwords and so on. On the other hand I don’t want Apple to scan my own files on my own machines. Like… wtf…

> I have to trust Mozilla to securely save my passwords and so on

You don't.

Pass, CLI tool from Wireguard's Donenfeld, Bitwarden gets good reviews, etc.

Why would you save passwords in a browser when there are FOSS utilities like keepass?

Technically, you don't. The beauty of FOSS software is that you don't need to trust the author. I know that auditing the source code of something as large as a Linux Distro may be prohibitively difficult for one person to do alone. Groups of people do audit them though, and they have found nefarious things in the past, in the case of Google.

I’m less pessimistic. I see a similar trend but think it will take longer and there will likely be push back, at least in the west. It will become a political issue and then will depend on how the argument plays out with the public. Start early to help set the agenda for pro privacy.

Why? Today in only one day we get "law enforcement" installing pre-crime spyware on your apple device. In addition to congress enacting more crypto currency laws.

What's the best option for running a totally offline computer? There's like a thousand Linux distros floating around and not one focused on allowing for maintaining and installing software on a 100% offline computer.

Don’t plug it in or connect to wifi. That mitigates most threats, and probably some usefulness. But depends on your use case.

I just mean, let's say I want to install some package, and there's like 200 dependancies and still more packages to update. How do I get that one package I really want installed?

You go get those 200 dependencies. It's not easy but not that hard either, just time consuming.

Reminds me of trying to get software onto air gapped systems at my past job. I'd have to request each package along with all dependencies.

It will likely take a lot longer than that. Most in the public ( or even in Tech ) wont care much about this scanning. And Apple's performance will be so good they will write this off as a small beep in their history. It will then take another few years of "good intention" before anything really happen. So I say this is going to take a good 5 to 10 years.

There are 2 phones that are pretty interesting.

One is the Librem 5. I think it's $700 maybe?

The other is the Pine phone. I believe it's closer to $250.

Now from what I can tell these are both terrible phones. Really just terrible electronic devices. But they are devices that can connect to modern cell phone infrastructure and are fully open source.

At least the Librem is. Not sure about the hardware on the pinephone. Librem is OSS down to the firmware. Wild.

Not sure if I'm ready to make the jump just yet but a completely hackable phone is super appealing to me.

Circling back to your original question, both companies seem to be shooting for the privacy angle with the phones.

I've actually been seeing a lot of companies popping up lately in the privacy / open source space. It's pretty exciting.

Yes there's a bunch of simultaneous developments coming together that will have powerful second order impacts and beyond.

+ OSS phones

+ blockchain/crypto

+ Tor

+ E2E encryption

Mobile OS:

Sailfish OS - https://sailfishos.org/ is the most polished non-android and non-ios alternative currently available in the mobile OS space. You can buy a Sailfish OS license to install it on some specific devices - https://shop.jolla.com/ ... (note though that app support is lacking unless you wish to use Android apps, and that bugs in the OS are fixed slow. End-of-Life cycles are also not clear and specific (support lasts roughly 5-6 years, often highly dependent on the device supported).

Mobile Phone:

- Sony Open Devices (quality hardware, with AOSP, unlocked bootloaders and flashing tools that allow you to install whatever supported mobile OS you want) - https://developer.sony.com/develop/open-devices/.

- Pine Phone - https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ .

- FairPhone - https://www.fairphone.com/en/ .

Desktop OS:

FreeBSD or Linux is good enough for most needs.

Desktop:

Assemble your own with AMD tech.

Laptop: https://frame.work/ is increasingly attractive as a highly repairable and customizable device.

I agree with randomhodler84. Get rid of your phone.

However, there might be singular reasons to have one. For example, Stripe will only allow you to be a client if you have a mobile phone, and I have run into this with other companies as well.

If you absolutely need one, there is a very inexpensive way of doing this. Don't buy an expensive phone for "privacy" (who knows if they are actually hackproof?)

For these unique cases, you get an inexpensive Android phone that you can remove the battery from, and you store the phone in a Faraday bag: (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=faraday+bags). Faraday bags completely block any connection with any electromagnetic signals: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage). Test the Faraday bag and see if it works by trying to call your mobile device while it is in the bag from another phone. And see if you can call another phone from your device while it is in the Faraday bag (call and then quickly put the bag into the back, or just dial the number and put it in the bag and hit where the send button should be).

You only take out the mobile phone in rare instances where you need to absolutely have it, when required to get financial or banking services or whatever you need in those very rare instances.

But other than that, you take out the battery, put it in the Faraday bag, and put it somewhere out of reach, just leave it in one spot, and when you have to use it, use it in the same spot, so that the big companies only see you in one place.

By the way, I see the tracking of your every movement as WAY more egregious, because that does it every second of your life. And then selling your every movement too others. Searching your phone is nasty too. But for me, emails are way rarer than tracking my every move, every second of the day. So I don't have a mobile phone. I just use my VOIP, and if someone wants to reach me, they leave a SMS or voice mail, just like in the olden days. I am not on instant beck and call to no man or woman. You don't like it, you say? Fine, adios. Not my problem.

You have a company and won't hire someone without a mobile phone? Just fine with me, guess I'm not working for you, then. I don't care if you give me a free phone - rejected.

Throw your consumer device in the lake. It’s time to ditch your phone. This turn in corporate policy means there will be no escape from the watchful eye from here on. The automated censorship will only grow deeper, and complex. Expect a global standard of “non-offense”, all states are now forcing their sensibilities on your device. Go deep into foss, and remove as many closed components from your life. I wish pinephone was actually useful, but I have grave fears that there will never be decent open hardware in the phone space.

2020/2021 the year that never ends and our technology burns away the last traces of privacy.

Realistically?

None. Apple was never actually the privacy protector it advertised itself to be, but it's still miles ahead of the Android ecosystem (and I say this as a dedicated Galaxy user for the past decade).

Your choice is basically which company you trust more: Apple, or Google. They're both bad for privacy in different ways.

This has been repeated elsewhere but Hacker News seems to miss the point: Apple protects you fairly well from privacy in terms of advertising and corporate targeting.

Apple cannot save you from a nation state actor. Arguably no company can.

I truly believe they're only doing that because they want to get into the ads business themselves, not out of the goodness of their hearts.

It'll be at most 2-3 years before we get a big flashy announcement for "privacy respecting" ads from Apple. I'll eat my hat if that doesn't happen.

Apple App Store ads already exist. They track if you click and ad and download the app. They just cut FB off from the ability to track if you clicked their ad and downloaded an app. Coincidence?

I feel like the criticism for Apple here is a bit misplaced. Sure, they would be misleading consumers by touting end-end encryption when scanning has now moved to the user's device, but isn't the whole point of this to be compliant with the real villain here, the USDOJ?

What's obvious is Apple believes it can do this. Why? Have they already done it and were shocked at what they found? That would be some story.

I'll keep my Apple devices but will break up with iCloud - backups were already off, photos is turning off, and drive will be emptied. I've wanted to explore owning a Synology NAS for several years - probably its own can of worms and not bulletproof but at least I'll own the device, can set my own encryption keys, and am not outsourcing storage.

I've been invested in using Protonmail and Tresorit, both tout E2EE storage and being domiciled in Switzerland is a nice plus.

Maybe I'll even take my handheld Fujifilm camera out more. Having sharp photos taken with real optics and not muddled by tons of algorithms sounds refreshing.

I really do enjoy the Apple ecosystem - hardware and software quality are nice, integration between products excellent, seems to last pretty long relative to other tech brands I've owned. I'm just taking an approach over owning where things go off my devices.

I also thought about just disabling iCloud, but if they start scanning your local files it maybe won't even matter if you use iCloud or not in the future.

I don’t sync anything to iCloud but occasionally in the past it has turned itself on again (?!) maybe keep an eye out.. I haven’t investigated, it could be when it does updates.

I think keeping things un-bundled is the best way to go, for the time being.

  Non-smart phone for calls and texts.
  Laptop for programs, web browsing, etc.
  DSLR for photos and videos
  Road atlas (a paper one) for getting places.
  GPS is nice, but I don't actually need one, for now.

DSLR is pointless today. Any new mirrorless is good enough.

I'd buy a non-smart phone with a decent camera and SD photo storage in a heartbeat!

If you don’t want to go all out you can always just skip iCloud. You can quite easily synchronise your photos, Callander and so on with other platforms.

I’m currently on an office365 business plan though not for privacy reasons, but since it came with a terra byte of OneDrive storage I put my pictures there and not into iCloud as I didn’t see a reason to play two cloud platforms a monthly storage fee. Works just fine, and it also worked just fine when I was using g-suite and not office365 ans I imagine it’ll work just fine if you set up your own storage as well.

It’s a temporary solution until the inevitable scope creep has this looking at all data on your device.

It might be temporary but it gives some time for phones that are more respecting of individual privacy to develop and propagate. Maybe Librem and Pine will become better and ship more new/better phones before the inevitable occurs. Maybe a new manufacturer will enter the mix that respects user freedoms and privacy.

Another cloud storage solution:

https://icedrive.net

Everything encrypted before upload, cheap and has dedicated linux client.

Umbrel just launched the ability to host NextCloud services on a Raspberry Pi over Tor: http://getumbrel.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRfJMx1C7NQ

As long as you use no cloud services there’s no privacy issue right now. If you do use cloud services it doesn’t matter if you use Apple or not.

I thought about switching to Pop!_OS but how do you know System 76 is any more trustable than Apple? I mean it’s also an US company and they could basically inject anything into their distro.

You can verify the code yourself as open source. Also this is more about what Apple is saying it is doing, which I object to, and I feel is higher risk. But ultimately your point stands.

The problem is I never could verify the code of every Pop!_OS release - that’s why I'm a Mac user. I’d have to rely on other users to check if everything is okay. The good thing with Apple is that all eyes are put onto them and every minor step they’re doing is well commented around the world. The smaller the companies and projects, the quieter the voices if something turns bad.

While true, the benefit of open source is that the code is there and visible to all. Apple has closed source so cannot be easily inspected and so issues can go unnoticed despite so many eyes. With system76, as they have a business to defend (and real Bank accounts and identities tied to the businees), any intentional hole/spyware could have major legal ramifications.

I think for more major open source companies, the code is inspected sufficiently. I would trust smaller ones much less. System 76 is fairly major, and most software comes from other major sources so should be inspected fairly well.

You don't get to see the code.

That's like saying Microsoft in the 90s/2000 could do no wrong because all eyes were on them. Or enron...

But what would I do with the code? I can’t read it, I can’t verify it, I can’t guarantee that it’s harmless. What I, as a normal user can do, is to go to the Financial Times or maybe even The Verge where they tell me that Apple did something stupid.

You could do the same thing you do when you want services which you cannot perform yourself: pay for the service.

You could create a fund with like-minded people for the code to be reviewed. The benefit would be that for each subsequent release the cost would be much lower than for the initial one.

Is this really subtle attempt at sarcasm?

"I can't be bothered to verify Pop_OS so I'll trust macOS, which is IMPOSSIBLE for me to verify."

How is code written behind closed doors by a closed, for-profit company more trustworthy than open source code?

There is always the reasonable doubt, whether it's closed or open, but it's much easier to do nefarious or just _unspoken_ things when nobody except employees under NDAs have access to the source code.

The reason you trust Apple more than Pop_OS is simply because you've decided to have pretty much blind faith in their marketing content and PR speak. That's not to say Apple acts in bad faith necessarily, but blind trust in a blackbox doesn't make for great opsec.

Even if I switch macOS for open source alternatives I still have to rely on closed source software for important parts. And let’s be honest: It’s almost impossible to recreate Apple’s ecosystem with open source components. It’s even harder with iOS. I could switch to Android or sone obscure alternative operating software where I don’t even know if if’s still there next year.

So you are essentially saying "I give up"?

Tech really drilled in learned helplessness on the masses.

My problem is: Where do I put the line? When I install Linux, should I still use Spotify, Steam and Reddit? No, because none of them are open source? Can I still use Google services? YouTube, search, mail? No? DuckDuckGo? But how do I know they're not invading my privacy? Do I have to use an open source email provider? Is that even a thing? Should I install a VPN? Do I constantly have to use Tor? Do I need to live boot Tails from my USB stick so I my usage can't be tracked and buy a prepaid Nokia 3210 that I put into a metal bag when I don't use it? And even if I go all the way down the rabbit hole: How do I know that my hardware isn't compromised? And do I constantly have to revaluate my privacy choices because one component of them could be compromised? What kind of life would that be?

Personally, in order of preference I choose to go without, find a FOSS alternative or give in and install an app. That means I don't do too much with my phone. I run Lineage with microg, I don't use any google, apple or facebook services. I store my music on the device. I backup photos to pcloud. I will watch youtube in the browser. I have my banking app installed. I use SMS to message people, or matrix if I can.

It's not perfect by any means, but it's the best comprimise I've been able to come up with.

Yet your location is easily tracked because of GSM signal. Also banking app on phone is very questionable about privacy.

But hey, beeing free from big tech is very liberating. No distraction or social engineering through algorithm in feeds. But unfortunately you'll find out how hard it is to find what is going on around in your city, country... If you stay at home.

Nextcloud is so kludgey.

https://www.ycombinator.com/library/3V-toy-markets

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