cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38798523
I don’t use apps like whatsapp or skype because they sell my data and don’t trust them.
I was hoping for a foss alternative to talk to my parents, regular folk who need something easy to set up on their android devices, ideally through fdroid.
I don’t want to reveal a real phone number because I don’t want ads from nobody.
I don’t need to see my parent’s faces, I just need to talk to them and maybe send files and lines of text.
FYI I recently have been looking into this and from what I’m told by Lemmyers it’s actually basically pointless to use encrypted messaging on normal Android because Google has full and complete access to the entire device.
Might as well use whatever app is convenient and assume it’s public or message from Linux
There’s no guarantee google will scrape and store encrypted messages, plus by not using an encrypted messenger you’re opening up your conversations to everyone else, not just potentially google.
you can mostly get rid of google and oem bloats nowadays, even without root
This is just bad advice.
By not using an encrypted messenger, you’re opening your messages up to being read by many more intermediaries than Google. Google isnt the only adversary that could exploit your messaging data, and it would be a hell of a lot easier for them and any other tech/ad/data company to access your info if it isnt encrypted in transit.
GrapheneOS with a pixel device, de googled. Google Play store can be left out or sand boxed in.