[General Questions and Answers] unclefab:
Sigh, you don't seem to understand so I will try a last time.

1-Google, Facebook and their little friends suck people's personal data, and hand it over to who you know. The main purpose not being to fight terrorism but to know what people do, knowledge is power.

You and others say that it doesn't matter if one has nothing to hide.

That would be the case in a perfect world but we don't live in such a world, there are opinions that can be deemed subversive and put one in jail.

For example if this technology had been available during the Mac Arthy's infamous era many US communists would have been spotted thanks to their Google or Facebook account, their web browsing etc. and would have ended up in jail (note that even without the technology they got quite a lot of them, spying on people is a long tradition in the U.S.).

I'm not a communist but I don't see why people should be forbidden to think what they want as long as they do so peacefully, and why they should go to jail because of their political opinions.

Oh yes, at this time it was subversive to be a communist in the U.S., nice example of a "democracy".

During the Bush era this technology wasn't available either, otherwise more so called bad americans/terrorists/muslims would have enjoyed U.S. jail. Nevertheless what happened in the States at this time was unworthy of a democracy, and actually scared me when I visited the country because I understood that I had to be very careful never to mention my opinions, specially with my thick french accent and my passport full of stamps from Bush dubbed axis of evil countries. I felt very relieved when I eventually crossed onto Mexico:).

Subversion is a matter of what governments decide is subversive, and one can be "subversive" even if one is a peaceful cool guy like me.

For example all the whistle blowers like the ones who gave infos to wikileaks, or the one who recently revealed nsa's spying on people, are considered traitors and highly subversive, whereas for me they deserve a medal.

If governments decide tomorrow that it's subversive to visit wikileaks, or that it's subversive to be against capitalism and globalisation here we are.

And when I see the direction our nice western "democrats" follow I rather prevent than cure and organise my safe browsing from now.

Impossible to be anonymous on the web, said many people? Nope, it's possible, I will talk about it later.

2-Mind you, but the U.S. is not the only country in the world:) In countries like Iran, China or Syria it's very important to surf safely if one is a human rights activist or a political opponent. Cuz it's not about the nsa our the fbi anymore but about the local secret services and the local interpretation of what is subversion.

But there's more. Even in "democratic" countries one can be subversive. Not very long ago in Bangladesh they caught a local atheist blogger and now people demand him to be executed, one can't be an atheist in Bangladesh. Last year in Indonesia a local guy stated on his Facebook account that God doesn't exist. One hour later an angry mob stormed his office, destroyed it and severely beat the guy. The police arrived and... arrested the guy for blasphemy. There are atheists in Indonesia but they do all they can to stay anonymous even on their Facebook page.

In Thailand if you write anything bad about the king you are in deep ****, it's a crime against the monarchy to do so.

In undemocratic Myanmar it's the military junta, in Saudi Arabia it's the king, in Qatar or Bahrain it's the emirs, I have many other examples but I think, or let's say I hope, that you understood what I meant.

It's not only about Google knowing that one goes surf here and there, it's about "subversion" and its consequences. And depending where you live remember that not only Google or the government can spy you, it's actually rather easy for anyone with a bit of computer knowledge to know where you are, to hack your accounts etc.

Now, how to protect oneself?

First, root your device, you can't do anything without root.

Then follow the instructions I gave in page 1 and 2 to mod your apps and block the abusive perms. Remove as many system apps as you can and replace them with less invasive apps. Use Tor Orbot to securise your connection, and a firewall like AF+. Forget about apps like the official Facebook, Google or Yahoo apps, just log in to their websites from your browser (it's less convenient but it's safer since browsers can be easily secured). Forget about Google or Bing searching engine, use duckduckgo instead (ducky doesn't spy on you:)). Turn off your sync, your 3G, your Bluetooth, your GPS and your wi-fi when not in use. If you don't need GPS remove its files, the same with Bluetooth (to transfer files use fast file transfer app). Last but not least, live differently. Unless for professional reasons you don't need to be connected 24 hours a day and you don't need to get notifications for everything, remember that there's a real world outside of the internet bubble.

On my gadgets only my browsers can go on the internet, and they can't access neither my location nor my imei, neither my contacts nor my sms.

When I check my internet traffic I see that, apart from my browsers, the kernel, the root, the android system, the settings and the wlan test can access internet (with respectively 264, 183, 40, 40 and 40 bytes of data use since the start of my cession more than one hour ago). That's the only "leakage" I have, I wonder what it is but that's not much anyway and it shouldn't be my imei or my location since I've blocked the perms.

You think that I'm paranoid and a soon to be psychiatric hospital patient?

Yeah, sure, we'll talk about it again in 10 years, don't forget that the first iPhone got launched less than six years ago....