So, a bookmarks list basically.

Prediction: you’ll never actually read most of what ends up on this to-read list.

ITT: lots of generic VPN advice by people who have no experience with the specific problem.

Variants of this exact question seem to be asked at the rate of about 3 per week.

Same situation. But notifications is pretty easy to solve. Just set them to go to some private email.

As for accessing the app privately, also easy enough: don’t use the app, use the web interface on a private browser profile.

That’s not possible on mobile without user-agent spoofing the browser to make it appear like a desktop. But then if it’s only messages “every now and then”, that should not be problem. Just keep to desktop, your quality of life has improved already! That is just my own experience, of course.

Absolutely fair.

Interested in the answer too! Of course, you could get the same result from a 5-buck VPS with zero maintenance and rock-solid reliability (my solution). But sure, 5 bucks is 5 bucks. And also, encryption is optional if it’s your own device.

As you and others have said, privacy is just much harder on mobile than on desktop. Mobile hardware and software is generally closed-source and locked down. On a tiny screen web apps are also at a genuine UX disadvantage to native apps, which offer much weaker privacy protection.

The pragmatic not-quite solution is to do roughly what you’re doing already. NB: maps are actually pretty easy - many people find that OsmAnd and Organic Maps are superior to the corporate options.

But the optimal solution is to move some of your computing back to desktop, i.e. probably to a laptop. This way you get more control over the hardware and software. And it’s already some kind of privacy win just because the thing is not in your pocket all day. It’s really not that hard and you might even find you appreciate the change! I did.

IMO the big sticking points are the messengers and transport tools - these are where you get genuine convenience from corporate spyware in your pocket. For all the rest, I’m not convinced, personally. For mapping and fitness etc, there are F-Droid apps which work great offline. For everything else including banking, just do it in your web browser while seated comfortably at home. As far as I know, no bank except Revolut insists that you use its app. If you want to do NFC payments, that may require a locked-down OS but not an app and it can be done in airplane mode (I do it regularly).

There are ways to get better privacy on mobile but nothing approaches the benefits of just using your mobile less and your laptop more.

Yup, messaging was the original killer app for mobile computing and nothing has changed. Just being able to arrange a rendezvous while out and about, hard to deny that this one was progress. Added to that are a couple of newer use cases like ride-hailing and payments (tho this latter doesn’t actually require a connection). But most applications are not better on a tiny screen on a street corner IMO, and the fact that several billion people seem to disagree is more explained by social media and addiction than anything else!

I’m not a luddite, I do actually have the thing in my pocket and use it too. But as you say, the point is balance and moderation.

Yes of course. But it requires a Pixel. A bit of a pact with the devil if you ask me.

GrapheneOS and LineageOS (I once used CyanogenMod) and Replicant and so on are great. But even better, I argue, is to migrate one’s computing back to the desktop. I know this is not a not a winning argument, I’m used to getting eyerolled when I suggest it, but my personal experience is that it’s not just feasible but better. So I’m sticking to my guns! But everyone should find their own path to privacy.

Well done! Make sure to tell some of that to people you meet in person too. Everyone here is a convert already.

So, my story begins with a Suse Linux CD back in 2004. I’d been on crappy Windows XP just like everyone else, a cracked version that was not updated, and it naturally got infected with a trojan. Took me 2 weeks to clear the thing out. But the worst thing about that experience was something deeper: it made me feel violated and helpless. My computer had been broken into because I didn’t understand how it worked and I didn’t really control it. Something had to change, I wanted to take back control. I’d heard about Linux so I ordered the CD from the Suse website and received it in the mail! And I never looked back. Now I use Ubuntu but that hardly matters. Back then it was blood and tears for me to get Linux working properly, but these days it’s easy peasy, anyone can do it.

That same year, I installed the cool new browser Firefox. Even before its 1.0 release it was the best option on Linux. And there too I never looked back. Except for a 6-month flirtation with Chrome when it was first released. Sorry.

Around a decade ago I tried Ubuntu Touch on a phone. Unfortunately it was unusable and even today it’s not much better. So Android it remains for now, alas. My approach to mobile is just to use it as little as possible, i.e. camera and music and podcasts and that’s about it. The thing stays mostly in airplane mode and has nothing installed except a few F-Droid apps. Everything else I do from my laptop, either using web apps or in standalone apps. Including communication. This is where I am most radical. It means there’s lots of stuff I don’t have access to on the go. Most people will not even consider this to be an option, but just remember that this is the way everybody lived until basically yesterday. If you want to, you really can decide not to be glued 24-7 to a little screen. Personally I consider it a quality-of-life improvement.

Using the desktop is IMO the single best route to better privacy. A corporate OS on a mobile device with lots of sensors which follows you around everywhere - this is always going to be a privacy minefield. A desktop web browser is the app platform where you have the most control.

Oh FFS. Please stop abusing the word “Nazi” for every tiny transgression against 2025-era US progressive biases. Why do Americans do this - do you not learn anything at school? Words have meanings. Whatever the reason, to compare someone who isn’t “fighting for a more just and equal society” to a “Nazi” just makes you look like a know-nothing ignoramus. It discredits whatever you have to say.

Response to the predictable justifications. Are you all aware that Putin calls democratic Ukraine “Nazi” for exactly the reasons you’re all calling Trump one - namely, that it’s a big powerful word? Yes, I’m aware of Trump’s provocations and impulses. In other times Trump would probably have been more Mussolini than Berlusconi (i.e. a fascist). But “Nazi” is on a whole other level: it implies an apocalyptic, totalitarian, genocidal subversion of what most people consider civilization. This was actually a thing and it bears almost no connection to Trump’s brand of chaotic reactionary populism. If you know anything about history then you should know this already. To insinuate that Trumpism is Nazism is insulting to intelligence.

You could even try next going to back cloud.

DeltaChat is an E2EE messaging app that runs over email infrastructure. But it’s a clever fix more than a real solution.

In theory, as I understand it, the anointed future solution to this whole conundrum is still Matrix.

Not an American hmm? It shows!

Well it’s either true or it’s not. Did you bother looking it up to check?

Sorry but I won’t participate in this juvenile trivializing of the word “Nazi”. Yes, I know that’s become almost a meaningless slur at this point, but personally I just will not take seriously anybody who throws it around like this. Perhaps because I’m European. Perhaps because I studied history. It’s not serious.

Fair enough. But this whole drama is still completely substance-free. The air of US-style thought-policing bothers me.

This is all over the place.

My comment concerns the post above. OP cites a tweet and states a falsehood about it. No, “Proton” did not “take the stance” of anything in that tweet. Yes, Andy Yen is the CEO. Yes, that tweet is in his name and not in the name of Proton. I was not responding to other things that you’ve seen elsewhere.

Now, as for those other things elsewhere, I stick by the substance of my point. Sure, it’s more of a problem that dumb things are being said in the name of Proton rather than just it’s CEO. But look at the detail of those things. There is nothing scandalous. People are getting their underwear in a twist about extremely common opinions being expressed on Twitter. Personally I don’t care if a CEO voted a different way to me, or even if a whole board did. This should not have any bearing on Proton’s product or what makes it better than others. This is just another typically American culture-war drama. It’s boring.

If you’ve got an argument, make it.