[General Questions and Answers] GalaxyA325G:
Why do so many people (including myself, at first) confuse Google's Firebase (cloud API) with Google Services Google Firebase App Indexing (on-device search results)?

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Firebase (cloud related):

<ttps://firebase.google.com/firebase-and-gcp>

"Firebase and Google Cloud share three products: Cloud Firestore,​

Cloud Functions, and Cloud Storage. These are the same products​

that exist in Google Cloud, simply exposed for client-side​

developers via Firebase. You can access the same data from the​

server SDKs (Google Cloud) and the client SDKs (Firebase),​

so your frontend and backend teams can work in concert."​

Google Services Firebase App Indexing (on-device search related):

<ttps://medium.com/android-news/firebase-app-indexing-for-personal-content-getting-personal-content-into-search-c52bfe45b3ac>

"A note about privacy: The personal content index only exists​

on the user's device. None of the user's personal content is​

uploaded to Google servers and it only remains on the device​

while the app is installed. However, aggregated statistics​

about apps' usage of App Indexing and other system health​

information may be uploaded to Google servers."​

Notice that the words "ON THE DEVICE" is supposed to make you feel

safer; however the caveat is that Google samples statistics frequently (about once or twice a month in my experience) of this extremely detailed private data (e.g., every map location you ever searched for and every contact you've ever contacted and every app you've ever opened up, etc.)

means, as far as I can tell, it doesn't matter one bit if an application has no Internet access... because Google does.

The main unanswered question is how to tell if any given app has

Google Services Firebase App Indexing incorporated into it, so that we know to delete those apps, unless they're essential apps.

An example is I uninstalled Windy the instant I realized that it used Google Services Google Firebase App Indexing:

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And I uninstalled googlequicksearch, Google TV, T-Mobile and YouTube from my unrootable Samsung because they all used Google Services Firebase App Indexing (replacing them with apps that did not use Google Services Firebase App Indexing such as NewPipe).

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The problem with Google Services Firebase App Indexing databases (which you can only see if you enable Developer options) is they contain extremely personal information about your activities, such as what you use GasBuddy for (which is why I deleted Gas Buddy even as it's a useful app otherwise).

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In summary, almost nobody (least of all me) knows how to describe the difference between Firebase (the cloud Firebase) and Firebase App Indexing (the search Firebase) so this thread is asking for a better description.

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In addition, while the extremely private information stored on your device for Firebase App Indexing isn't directly uploaded to the Internet, Google clearly says they will (and do) upload statistics which we have no idea what they are (nor how frequently they're uploaded, nor to whom) - so another question is what happens to that extremely private data that is stored in the Firebase App Index on the cellphone (other than it's included in search results, presumably those run on the phone's data itself).

I barely know what Firebase (cloud) and Firebase App Indexing (search) do; but it's really sad if I know it better than anyone else - hence - I'm asking everyone else to pitch in so that we can tell, at a glance, which apps use Firebase App Indexing so that we can avoid them, on sight.