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As someone who never sees ads on my phone or online, here is how: Ad blocker (uBlock Origin) in the browser. No social media apps on the phone. No other "free

As someone who never sees ads on my phone or online, here is how: Ad blocker (uBlock Origin) in the browser. No social media apps on the phone. No other "free" apps on the phone. Location services always disabled unless I'm actively using Maps navigation. Bluetooth always disabled. I pay for YouTube Premium to not see ads. If there is another app that I find useful, I pay for it to not see ads.

erhk 5y ago
Maybe you should pay for a navigation app too
- rusk 5y ago
  They paid for their phone which comes with Navigation as a feature. Debatable perhaps.
  - Guest42 5y ago
    I’d opt for a clear contractual agreement that could be entered and exited, or a paid alternative priced fairly. Same with the phone, one shouldn’t pay for a phone in cash (or payment plan) and continue to pay indefinitely with personal data. It could be worked out contractually that way a person knows what they are buying at time of purchase.
    - nicbou 5y ago
      Don't apps end up using Google Play services anyway?
walrus01 5y ago
It's kind of cute you think youtube and other google services aren't geolocating you (approximately) by the IP of the ISP you're on at any given time, and your pattern of life analysis using the internet at work vs home vs friends' wifi. And when your traffic shows up as coming from IP blocks belonging to your LTE mobile phone carrier vs a terrestrial ISP. If they have a data set from a hundred other people whose behavior you can't control, using android phones in a default configuration, in a residential /24 DHCP IP block belonging to some last-mile ISP, where those people do turn on location and GPS services, and you regularly show up with traffic from the same block, you're being correlated with your neighbours. Additionally lots of other people with fully-default android or ios location/advertising permissions are using other social media apps from the same netblocks that your traffic regularly appears from in a predictable daily wake/sleep pattern (facebook, instagram, twitter, reddit, tiktok, etc).
- est31 5y ago
  These correlation methods exist, and indeed reveal a lot about you, but they have precision limits. In rural areas, the ip block might be as large as an entire municipality, or even larger. If you turn on location services, Google knows which house you are in, and even where you are inside that house from the wifi networks you give them.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    I live in a suburb and my IP frequently locates me all over the place spanning multiple counties and millions of people. So it is only really useful to get region.
    - walrus01 5y ago
      Within the precision limits of what they'll publicly tell you from ARIN registration data for your ISP's netblocks and other geolocation services like maxmind, yes. But not in terms of what data they actually have access to for peoples' android phones in their homes, with full location services and GPS turned on, in IPs directly adjacent to you in the same last mile service segment. They don't share that.
- nicbou 5y ago
  This is probably the worst few words to start a comment with if you're hoping for polite discussion. Anyway, I follow similar practices (and actively monitor my privacy settings), and it's fine for the most part. The ads I get make zero sense. Companies on our side of the ocean also seem to thread more carefully, based on stories I read.
- TomSwirly 5y ago
  > It's kind of cute Like a lot of people, I stop reading at the first insult, because I know everything after that will be worthless.
  - K0balt 5y ago
    The insult was unnecessary and pointless, but in this case the info was solid.
jimbob45 5y ago
No free apps? What about if you need one for banking or health insurance or something else essential?
- Wingy 5y ago
  If I understand correctly, these are paid for by you or by taxes, not through an app download fee.
- acomjean 5y ago
  I think those apps are subsidized by your membership or accounts. They aren't services paid for by ads. But it might be better to use those in browsers with ad-blocking, though honestly I'm not sure
  - cle 5y ago
    That doesn't mean the apps aren't using analytics services that feed the data back to ad networks. Not only are these data useful for targeting ads to you later, they are useful for targeting to other people since they can be used to infer characteristics and behavior of similar people, which can then be used by advertisers for more precise targeting. There's an built-in conflict of interest with mobile platforms, both Google and Apple, who both run advertising networks that are incentivized to collect data on you to improve targeting, whether you look at ads or not. (It is helpful that Apple's core business is not advertising, though I still don't trust them.)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

erhk 5y ago

Maybe you should pay for a navigation app too

rusk 5y ago
They paid for their phone which comes with Navigation as a feature. Debatable perhaps.
- Guest42 5y ago
  I’d opt for a clear contractual agreement that could be entered and exited, or a paid alternative priced fairly. Same with the phone, one shouldn’t pay for a phone in cash (or payment plan) and continue to pay indefinitely with personal data. It could be worked out contractually that way a person knows what they are buying at time of purchase.
  - nicbou 5y ago
    Don't apps end up using Google Play services anyway?

walrus01 5y ago

It's kind of cute you think youtube and other google services aren't geolocating you (approximately) by the IP of the ISP you're on at any given time, and your pattern of life analysis using the internet at work vs home vs friends' wifi. And when your traffic shows up as coming from IP blocks belonging to your LTE mobile phone carrier vs a terrestrial ISP. If they have a data set from a hundred other people whose behavior you can't control, using android phones in a default configuration, in a residential /24 DHCP IP block belonging to some last-mile ISP, where those people do turn on location and GPS services, and you regularly show up with traffic from the same block, you're being correlated with your neighbours. Additionally lots of other people with fully-default android or ios location/advertising permissions are using other social media apps from the same netblocks that your traffic regularly appears from in a predictable daily wake/sleep pattern (facebook, instagram, twitter, reddit, tiktok, etc).

est31 5y ago
These correlation methods exist, and indeed reveal a lot about you, but they have precision limits. In rural areas, the ip block might be as large as an entire municipality, or even larger. If you turn on location services, Google knows which house you are in, and even where you are inside that house from the wifi networks you give them.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  I live in a suburb and my IP frequently locates me all over the place spanning multiple counties and millions of people. So it is only really useful to get region.
  - walrus01 5y ago
    Within the precision limits of what they'll publicly tell you from ARIN registration data for your ISP's netblocks and other geolocation services like maxmind, yes. But not in terms of what data they actually have access to for peoples' android phones in their homes, with full location services and GPS turned on, in IPs directly adjacent to you in the same last mile service segment. They don't share that.
nicbou 5y ago
This is probably the worst few words to start a comment with if you're hoping for polite discussion. Anyway, I follow similar practices (and actively monitor my privacy settings), and it's fine for the most part. The ads I get make zero sense. Companies on our side of the ocean also seem to thread more carefully, based on stories I read.
TomSwirly 5y ago
> It's kind of cute Like a lot of people, I stop reading at the first insult, because I know everything after that will be worthless.
- K0balt 5y ago
  The insult was unnecessary and pointless, but in this case the info was solid.

jimbob45 5y ago

No free apps? What about if you need one for banking or health insurance or something else essential?

Wingy 5y ago
If I understand correctly, these are paid for by you or by taxes, not through an app download fee.
acomjean 5y ago
I think those apps are subsidized by your membership or accounts. They aren't services paid for by ads. But it might be better to use those in browsers with ad-blocking, though honestly I'm not sure
- cle 5y ago
  That doesn't mean the apps aren't using analytics services that feed the data back to ad networks. Not only are these data useful for targeting ads to you later, they are useful for targeting to other people since they can be used to infer characteristics and behavior of similar people, which can then be used by advertisers for more precise targeting. There's an built-in conflict of interest with mobile platforms, both Google and Apple, who both run advertising networks that are incentivized to collect data on you to improve targeting, whether you look at ads or not. (It is helpful that Apple's core business is not advertising, though I still don't trust them.)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]