Android phones, apps and tablets

I personally think that the default Google Apps are rather good and there is little implication to privacy about not using those... as apps.

Those last two words are the important bit, if you're using the apps as apps, then hey... they're doing only what you want when you want, to whatever degree you allow them to.

Where I have an issue is with Google Search, the launcher (which is Google Search), Google Now, Google+... and all the things that attempt to be more than an app and shoot for a pervasive lifestyle tool, where your lifestyle had better shift into Google's way of doing things.

I've rooted my phone, and I've gone a bit extreme with blocking adverts, changing the hosts file, installing XPrivacy, replacing the launcher with Nova, disabling Google+ on all my Google for Business accounts, choosing to use Duck Duck Go for search, and Dolphin for the browser, and disabling history everywhere.

But... I still use the Gmail app, the Google Maps app, Hangouts, Drive, Docs, Sheets, QuickOffice, Keep, Camera, Calendar, Calculator and Clock.

I just happen to use them as apps.

I see from XPrivacy when they want to be more than a tool for me, and I prevent that. But by and large... this doesn't happen. Maps isn't doing anything that any other map provider isn't doing. I'm already on Gmail and most of my contacts use Gmail so the extreme privacy view is that I've been betrayed already and I gain nothing by refusing to use something that works so well. This goes on through all the apps in question.

The default Google Apps are fine... it's the Google Now, Google+, Google Search stuff that gets scary. That's when it goes beyond a tool for us, and becomes a modelling tool for advertising.