Google continues to build its massive surveillance empire under the sinister guise of “privacy.” In its latest iteration on #Android, Google
lets you opt into their “Ad Topics,” which roughly translated means, “Let Google be the gatekeeper of all your data.” (1/4)

What happens is that Google opts you out of third parties grabbing up your data, but it doesn’t opt #Google out of it. So by opting into their Ad Topics on #Android, you allow Google to get your data & no one else, essentially crowning it king ofthe #bigdata monopoly. (2/4)

So first, here’s how to opt-out:

➡️ Go to Settings ➡️ Security & Privacy ➡️ Privacy ➡️ Ads ➡️ Ads privacy ➡️ Ad topics ➡️ Toggle the switch next to “Allow ad topics.”

That's a lot of effort, simply to opt out of giving your data away for free. (3/4)

Proton offers a whole ecosystem of services – #ProtonMail, @protonvpn,
#ProtonPass &
#ProtonDrive – that allow you to put your privacy first. It's the exact opposite of Google.

Read more about how #Google thinks your data belongs to it instead of you: https://proton.me/blog/google-privacy-washing-android (4/4)

@maleandroids Thanks for your support, we'll add your +1 to those feature requests!

@protonmail I just wish you guys wouldn’t treat us customers who’ve completely opted out of Google by going with iPhones/iPads like second class citizens! All your apps come out much later on iOS and are less feature full.

@protonmail
did i take a pre-emptive leap, and switched to linux phone. not android in this case. there are few models available.

days go by, i really start to think that android is lost cause in case of user control and privacy. android includes aosp ones in this case.

ios is totally controlled by apple.

@protonmail @protonvpn I think I will quite like my switch to Proton Mail... once you stop spamming me. Six emails in five days advertising your own services. I know already, get off it.

@zenheathen Hi there, that doesn't sound right and sorry for the inconvenience, we'll share that with the team.

@protonmail interesting, would it be accurate to say this is similar to the Brave Browser ad model in that the your device now has a local service that knows about your interests and makes requests for ads without sharing your direct identifier and info but with the major difference of the data still being shared with Google and you are not paid (via crypto)?

@protonmail @protonvpn The hardest part with moving to Proton Mail would be changing the email address on all of my online accounts, but at this rate Gmail will be completely unusable so I’m preparing to make the jump

@samv Hi Sam, if you use Easy Switch and setup email forwarding, you can switch emails over time: https://proton.me/easyswitch

Let us know if we can help with anything!

@raoulmillais yeah, running into the Apple citadel will surely make your escape from their surveillance much easier, comfortable even
@protonmail

@protonmail @protonvpn

@protonmail @protonvpn Didn't you miss some part of your ecosystem?

@tizian Hi! If you're referring to Proton Calendar, we haven't mentioned it because it cannot be used if you don't have a Proton Mail account, while the others can.

@tizian @protonmail @protonvpn

I'm still hoping for a ProtonVPS and ProtonCDN to get added to the list as well!

@raoulmillais Hi! Note that we release new features as soon as they are ready, and sometimes this means releasing them at different times on different platforms. For example, the iOS Proton Mail app is much more advanced than its Android counterpart at the moment, while the opposite is true for the Proton Calendar apps.

@dicendistance@norcal.social @protonmail @protonvpn Oh, awesome. I'll look for that. Thanks.

@dicendistance@norcal.social @protonmail @protonvpn Available in the Settings on the Android app? I can't find anything.

@zenheathen Hi! Could you clarify what it is you are looking for?

@protonmail @protonvpn

You also have a #protoncalendar which I like. 😉

@knille Indeed we do: https://proton.me/calendar

@protonmail don't you still rely on google for push notifications as well as to provide your app (no fdroid)? If google is bad for privacy, yet you as a service require their use... are you really a privacy service?

@ail While we rely on Google Play Store services for push notifications, they are end-to-end encrypted. To stay private when using Proton Mail on an Android phone, we recommend trying some of these tips: https://proton.me/blog/android-privacy. We are planning to develop a service that will allow us to push the notifications ourselves so that even de-Googled phones may receive push notifications.

@protonmail I didn’t realise I could just forward my Gmail messages through to Proton automatically, that would make the switch a lot easier than I initially expected. Seems like a really good feature.

Would I be able to easily tell which emails were coming from Gmail and which were being sent directly to my Proton address? Or would they all appear the same?

Also, is it exclusive to the paid plans or can I use it for free?

@samv You have the option to label all of the messages incoming from a certain address (in this case the forwarding address) so you can easily differentiate them from your other messages. You can also set up a filter so they're redirected in a custom folder instead of the Inbox.

Easy Switch is available on the free plan as well.

@protonmail unfortunately, I think you've been "working on" a google-free mail app for the past 6 years. I'm pretty sure it predates VPN, but somehow still hasn't happened. So your "plan to do it" is a meaningless and empty promise to me.

My main point is, you can't really criticize google for being bad for privacy, while google is quite literally the foundation of any of your apps. So much so, that you consider the mail app without google too broken to release on f-droid. Google being a privacy concern isn't new. You've literally been relying on and using google for your services for years. Put your money where your mouth is and stop depending on google in your code.

@ail This is a false statement - Google is not the foundation of our apps. You can use Proton Mail on a de-Googled phone (many of our users are), and you can download the Proton Mail app as an APK file here: https://protonapps.com/protonmail-android.

@protonmail That's great, this basically leaves me no choice but to move to Proton Mail...

I will make sure to get around to it soon enough. I would much rather support Proton than Google or Microsoft, so i'll probably move to a paid plan at some point. Thank you for making such a good service!

@samv 💜 Let us know if you have any further questions!

@protonmail Someone said there was a setting to turn off marketing emails from ProtonMail.

@zenheathen Yes! Log into your account at account.proton.me and navigate to the Email subscriptions section of the Dashboard settings tab. There you can choose which kind of promotional emails you would (not) like to receive.