[General Topics] JackDSRS:
Beyond the usual location, camera, microphone, etc. privacy issues, there's the issue of trackers. Play Store likes to obfuscate the number, purpose, and frequency. Some are legitamite bug reporting, but do they give you an option to opt-out? Nova let's you.

Don't know what trackers are? Um...think of a guy hiding in your phone telling anyone willing to pay for it, your name, email address, where you live, hobbies, gender preferences, kind of porn you watch (no, seriously, for AI suggestions), and where you stash your cookies so the kids can't find them. He pretty much negates all the permissions you denied earlier. Your mom doesn't know as much about you. And trackers suck bandwidth and battery life.

Even registering or subscribing to an app with existing trackers doesn't stop the tracking attempts. The trackers are still in the core code. Even some Github apps have been found to have trackers in them. Those don't qualify for F-Droid distribution though.

And its not necessarily the number of trackers an app has, but the number of attempts those trackers make. As an example, some apps only fire off a tracker when they're first installed to keep a record of number of installations. But as a specific example, Popup Factory 2, which allows you to start ANY app in a pop up window, generates an astonishing 300 tracking attempts per minute, and hit over a mind-boggling 4,000 attempts in way less than an hour with only 2 trackers. Even the Facebook app doesn't hit a fraction of this, and it has 8 trackers.

In 2019, a report was released and submitted to Google listing 17,000 apps with trackers. Yale and Exodus currently only have a sampling of 400 of these but can do on demand analysis, but NOT on paid programs. ClassyShark can enumerate them, while DuckDuckGo can intercept, block, identify, and frighteningly tell you what each is known to collect.

I'm going to pick the first of each of these most current versions of these BEST ANDROID APPS as of today, PAID versions, to disclose privacy concerns, good and bad. These are known trackers but source data may not be current and there may be more. I skipped over any Google apps because obviously they're going to have their own tracker's and your entire life at a minimum. I AM lising Microsoft because not only do they have their own trackers, but they add others. Verifiable Source: Yale/Exodus Privacy. Not tested with ClassyShark or DuckDuckGo. Always a minimum of 1 when Google is named: Google CrashLytics, Google AdMob or Google Firebase Analytics).

File Manager Plus: 3 trackers, all Google based

Storage Space: 3 trackers, all Google based

ZUGate: No trackers

FolderSync Pro: 4 trackers, Google, Sentry

SSH Server: 7 trackers, Google, Vungle, Yandex, AppMetrica, AdColony

ZArchiver: No known trackers

F-Stop Gallery Pro: 3 trackers

VLC for Android: No known trackers

PlayerPro Music Player (Pro): 7 trackers, Google, Mintegral, Inmobi, IAB Open Measurement, Pangle

Collage Maker I Photo Editor: 3 trackers, Google

Microsoft Edge: AI browser: 5 trackers, Adjust, Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) Core, OpenTelemetry (0penCensus, OpenTracing), Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Analytics, Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes

Proton VPN: 1 tracker, Sentry

DuckDuckGo Private Browser: No known trackers

Microsoft OneNote: 3 trackers, HockeyApp, OpenTelemetry (0penCensus, OpenTracing), Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes

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Okay, this next one is troublesome...CLIPBOARD.

First, Clypto is no longer available on Play.

Clipt-C/P is pretty exclusionary. No Yale listing. It's not compatible with ANY of our 2 tablets, 2 phones all using Android 10/11/13) nor and emulator, so I can't pull an Exodus report or even install it to run DuckDuck or ClassyShark to analyze it. It DOES rely on Google Drive AND Microsoft Edge, so I think that should tell you enough.

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Weather & Widget - Weawow: No known trackers

Data Usage Manager & Monitor: 2 trackers, Google

Your Calendar Widget: 4 trackers, Google, OpenTelemetry (Open Census, OpenTracing), ACRA

Microsoft Outlook: 5 trackers, AppNexus, Facebook Ads, OpenTelemet.y (Open Census, OpenTracing), Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Analytics, Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes

OneDrive: 2 trackers, OpenTelemetry (Open Census, OpenTracing), Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes

SMS Organizer: 2 trackers, Google, Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes

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ALL YOUTUBE CATEGORIES: What the heck? None of these are Play Store.

Let's look at some known privacy issues anyway. In general, they can be prevented, but not always. Regardless of the downloading, watching, or listening app, if you have logged into YouTube to find or direct these videos to the app, you've left history that you've watched it on YouTube, and therefore Google. They don't even need trackers in that case. Some content, classified as adult or paid content, requires you to sign in before downloading. Technically, your ISP can also monitor the downloads for DMCA compliance. And the app itself, not accessed through the browser, will leave a data in the Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/files folder. If signed in, unless purposely turned off, YouTube will maintain a history of your searches and accessed videos, via app or browser, and by default, Google will too. You'll have to turn these off in BOTH YouTube's and Google's privacy settings. I use two accounts for specific types of video recommendations, with history and access left on, and no account logged off access for anonymous searches and watches. I avoid the official Chrome and YouTube apps like the plague, disabling them with Hail.

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As it's security related, I'm going to jump to AppLock - Fingerprint: 5 trackers, Google, Facebook Ads, Cauly, Pangle

BubbleUPnP for DLNA/Chromecast: 2 trackers, Google, ACRA

Microsoft 365 (Office) : 8 trackers, Google, HockeyApp, AppNexus, Facebook Ads, OpenTelemetry (Open Census, OpenTracing), Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Analytics, Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes, IAB Open Measurement

Nova Launcher: 2 trackers, Branch, Bugsnag

MacroDroid: 6 trackers, Google, AltBeacon, Hug Sourcekit, Pollfish

1DM+: Browser & Video Download: 16 (!!) trackers, Google, Mintegral, Amazon Advertisement, Inmobi, Tapjoy, Fyber, Criteo, Sentry, Appodeal, AppLovin (MAX and SparkLabs), Smaato, IAB Open Measurement, BidMachine, Pangle, Appodeal Stack

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KEYBOARDS

FlorisBoard is F-Droid. F-Droid version has no trackers.

OpenBoard is no longer available on Play.

- May I suggest Unexpected Keyboard from Github or F-Droid (say no to Play version)

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Shelter: From F-Droid. No trackers.

Link to Windows: 3 trackers, Google, OpenTelemetry (Open Census, OpenTracing), Microsoft Visual Studio App Center Crashes

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WATCH FACES

Get stuffed. I can't afford one. Buy me one and maybe I'll care.

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TORRENTS:

This is my own. Fail to use a VPN at your own peril. See carefully selected pic (suitable for framing or being made into a flag because I forgot to resize it).

Yeah, this took hours. Hate the post, respect the idiot's efforts.

You can research more into trackers and even what even each of these do on your own. I have any number of apps with trackers installed, but I'm religious about using tracker blockers, even in email (DuckDuck's email system).

Mom's dead. Nobody else needs to know more than her.

Jack