In recent years, the Internet has become something central in our lives and mobile phones have taken on an importance that no one could have thought about ten years ago.
Indeed, today, with the advent of smartphones, mobile phones have become real small computers and it is easy to have the world in the palm of your hand. However, as you can imagine, this is not done without consideration.
One of the problems that is often pointed out is that by dint of going through your cell phone all the time, some companies know everything about you. So, in this article, we will learn to leak as little data as possible about you in order to keep a minimum of private garden.
Stop your phone from tracking you by turning off location
Today, as you were told, mobile phones have become veritable small computers, but they are not the only machines that they have succeeded in supplanting, far from it. Remember for example GPS.
A real revolution twenty years ago, they no longer exist at all and smartphones have replaced them. However, to be able to guide you, these telephones must have a location system.
So, this system is very practical on Android to show you the way, but it also allows a whole bunch of applications to know exactly where you are and even sometimes to guess what you are doing.
Let's take a concrete example.
You usually go to the swimming pool for two hours every Wednesday afternoon. Just with your location, we are able to determine this and even according to the schedules, we can determine at what time you will go there.
To avoid this, there is a fairly simple way, it is simply to turn off location on your android phone. In this way, it no longer has access to the places from which you use it.
Prevent any data leakage by cutting Wifi and mobile data on Android
To send data about you, it does not happen automatically and it requires access for your Android mobile phone and more often than not, it will go through two things, mobile data or Wifi.
So, it would be harmful to deprive yourself of these two elements given that they have a central function in cell phones today, but do we need to activate them continuously?
Indeed we can quite imagine that when we do not necessarily need these mobile data, we just turn them off which will necessarily cut off your phone's contact with the internet. So you could save phone battery.
Get rid of personalized ads
We often hear that Google knows you even better than you know yourself and for this, it is based on an algorithm that will determine your interests in order to offer you what suits you best.
These data can be useful in the context of internet research, for example, where Google will be able to give you satisfaction more quickly, but as you can imagine, this is not the only application.
Indeed, for advertising also this Google algorithm will be put to use. Yes, as much as you advertise products that you are able tobuy according to your consumption habits rather than trying to sell you a good product.
Except that you may not want Google to have this information and for that, you will have to ask it not to redo personalized tracking at the advertising level.
For that, here is the procedure to follow.
- First of all, sign in to your google account using your credentials.
- Then click on the section data and privacy.
- At the section Ads settings click on Personalization some announcements.
- Finally, put the button "Ads personalization is enabled" sure off to turn it off.
Check the permissions granted to Android apps
Do not think that Google is the only application to use data without necessarily realizing it. It's simple, all applications will collect data about you when you use them.
Some data is not necessarily troublesome, such as location for GPS applications, but others are more troublesome.
Luckily, there's a way to manage permissions for every app you have on your phone.
For that, here is the procedure to follow.
- First, open the app Parameters.
- Then press Applications.
- Press Show all apps, then select your app.
- You will then have the list of applications, click on the one you want.
- Then adjust the denied and given permissions.
Beware of applications downloaded outside Android stores
Another fairly well-known way to spy on you is to make you download applications that are infected with viruses. It is for example very popular when releasing certain games which are listed in certain regions temporarily.
You then see it raining APK files allowing you to download the game forward, but sometimes, in addition to the game, you will download a virus that can potentially spy on you and have access to a whole bunch of things.
One of the ways to spot this is to see the authorizations requested during the installation, if these seem much too high, it is surely that there is a wolf and we advise you not to continue the download.
Hide the front camera
Finally, as prevention is better than cure, one of the things that you can be advised to do is to buy a cover for the front device of your Android phone. This way you prevent a hacker from having access to everything you do if he manages to get in.
It is a simple method of protection, but which has already proven on several occasions that it was clearly reliable and a small piece of post it can thus allow you to counter a hacking attempt.
There you go, you now know the main techniques to put in place if you ever want to protect yourself from data loss and live a hidden minimum. Be aware, however, that nothing is perfect.
Indeed, already, even doing everything that we have recommended to you, data from you will necessarily have been exchanged and if you do not want this to be the case, you must do without a mobile phone.
On top of all this, unfortunately, some phone brands have also been at the heart of scandals over accusations of spying on their own phone and it's hard to protect yourself from that.