It seems like a good idea at first glance but it’s actually useless amd may potentially be harmful. The “developer” proudly advertises browser finger fingerprint spoofing as one of the features and also recommends using it alongside a vpn, which means that if there is no lower level surveilance the traffic won’t poison your advertiser profile, it will just be a literal random noise, on the other hand if there is os-level surveilance (as is the case for stock android) it will ignore this random noise. Either way it’s useless and the only outcome it acheives is making you solve captchas every time you want to actually use google, because you get flagged as a bot. But that’s just technicals, the actual issue is that it’s actually just an ai slop, which becomes obvious looking at the readme file, also the “dev” admitted to using ai (which is still underplaying it’s role) on github. So if you are serious about privacy and safety the first step to take would be to not install random slop on your device and give it your credentials (as is necessary for some of it’s “functionalities”)
“every time you want to actually use google”
i think you’re lost, buddy.
lol
Some are locked into their services through work
Try being a land survey professional without using Google Earth.
I get it, but not everyone can free themselves of using their systems because they are tied professionally
well, if the point is to “poison google’s data collection” by obfuscating your real traffic with random noise then I’d assume you still want to use google
This warms my millennial engineer heart
What I mostly wander is if this is better then trying to disappear. In my current state, I assume that my interaction with google, meta and friends is limited mostly to the occasional cookie that slips through, yet gets deleted, or apps with trackers I kinda need to have.
What are y’alls thoughts
These programs are a waste of your time and resources. It is useless network spam who’s only outcome is to accelerate web-admins to move towards stricter filters to protect their computer resources from such spam.
The concept is wildly broken, because its perception of surveillance is incorrect. It puts too large an emphasis on web-traffic. This isn’t the 90s anymore.
I genuinely want to know what is going on in the author’s head. This is a program for Google’s Android–Google’s Android. It is their operating-system and where a lot of signals are captured. Google sees that you’ve downloaded Fauxx, even if you install it from a third-party (i.e. not from Google’s PlayStore™). They know what time your alarms are set for. They intercept every text message, every phone-call, every e-mail, every notification. If you have Bluetooth™ or other wireless protocols enabled they know what other wireless-signals are around you. They know when you’re driving, when you’re idle, when you’re at work and when you’re asleep.
Clicking on random links isn’t fooling anybody. Sophisticated algorithms look for trends, not one offs ‘hey, this user clicked on an ad for a product sold by Y’. Regardless of how much you think you’re spamming the network Google has access to millions of controls: people the same age, gender, ethnicity and whatever else, to compare against. People who are diligently populating databases with correct data.
I read the f-droid page–before anyone points to the spoofing of location data as some kind of protection–let me put real emphasis on: this isn’t the 90s. This is sophisticated mass-surveillance in 2026 that only increases in sophistication as time goes on. Users purchase increasingly sophisticated mobile-computers that are awake 24/7/365 scanning for an increasing list of wireless protocols which means more data for Google. More sophisticated patterns and algorithms to work alongside and with their national-defense contractors.
Google thinks you’re in the population that might commit political-violence. The NSA, CIA, FBI et al have been notified and now there’s human-eyes on you too, not just the surveillance of unthinking machines. Good fun.
Google doesn’t need a GPS signal to know where you are, where you live and where you work. They have access to a live map of global wifi-access points, cell-towers, Bluetooth™ beacons and a host of other signals. That map is updated daily by all the drones who go though life using their Google Android mobile-computer. Try as one might, this is a collective problem. On one hand it is Google’s mass-surveillance program, but they can only do what they do because everyone else is a snitch for them. A willing snitch. A snitch that believes there is no other way, but to be a snitch. Just try and convince someone not to use Google’s products.
Regardless, for privacy this is a pointless piece of software. You’ll just make Google richer. Those websites and ads clicked on were already paid for. Whether they represent your actual interests or not is besides the point. The transaction already happened and you just made Google minusculely richer. The correct thing to do is to block ad-networks from your network so they never even get loaded.
If you want to protect yourself from Google’s mass-surveillance systems don’t use Google. Use a GNU/Linux mobile-computer or GrapheneOS. To combat the effects of mass-surveillance (that is, the surveillance of you by the masses who do use Google’s products) get political. It seems absurd and a threat to national security that the domestic economy is held ransom by Google and Apple.
I’ll preempt the criticism of GrapheneOS by juveniles who barely have two brain-cells. GrapheneOS only works on Google branded mobile-computers. Ergo buying a Google product would make Google even richer than randomly clicking on Google’s ads, which go for what? $0.0006c USD?
Google’s product isn’t the hardware. It’s subsidized and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sold near cost (anyone who actually has information about this I’d be genuinely interested in reading). It’s not even made by Google. It’s made by the same factories that makes Apple’s mobile-computers and a host of other retailers’ devices. Don’t get hung up on the branding. Turning off a spigot for Google’s mass-surveillance system is infinitely more powerful than continuing to contribute to it, but with additional ‘noise’ that doesn’t even register.
Outside the domain of privacy I don’t like this idea of spamming networks or loading completely random garbage. At the most benign-end of the spectrum you’re just wasting whatever data-allowance you’re paying for. At the malicious-end you could be contacting malicious-servers (ad-networks are obtusely not in this category, but should be).
I use TOR for everything. Google can eat my shit and gargle my piss.
This seems AWESOME!! I want to download it but… My only question is, won’t it like eat up all my data and wreck my battery life?
EDIT: Downloaded it anyways! So it turns out you can set how much activity per hour it does, which seems good enough.
Screenshots show it has “wifi only” setting. Maybe it could do with a “Only when charging” setting too.
Ooh, that’d be perfect!!
Wow, if they could port the core to a headless service this would be an instant get for a nas.
Maybe I gotta try running waydroid headlessly
Didn’t know of it. Awesome in theory, and Tremendousness of success is directly proportional to how many would use it.
But… I’m no webdev, but won’t sites notice the fake? Like mouse movement, scrolling. Those were data I’d be scanning for said fakes and disregard them.
see, something i always wonder about with this type of tool is whether or not they are able to algorithmically discard it as fake data.
maybe they can do that by, say, your entry points? other data that can’t be spammed (ie your identity and verification)? your previous data they already trained on?
i think this approach is too good to be true, what do you guys think?
app says it usea personas to make it harder to filter. It makes the noise more consistent by like making the niise or whatevs in base of the persona’s interest and then switches after like a week.
Is there anything similiar for non-mobile?
Can’t find on the F-Droid app. If I click on the link on my smartphone, it says it cannot find it.
You have izzyondroid repo? Think it needs that
I found it. Thank you!
