🔏 Android Privacy Guide A practical, no-BS guide to hardening Android privacy — with and without root. Levels Level Effort Root needed Result Baseline 30 min No Removes obvious trackers, locks down permissions Intermediate 2 hrs No ADB hardening, DNS, firewall Advanced Half day Optional Custom ROM, full de-Google Maximum Weekend Recommended GrapheneOS, network isolation Quick wins (do these now) # Revoke dangerous permissions from apps that don't need them adb shell pm revoke com.facebook.katana android.permission.ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION adb shell pm revoke com.facebook.katana android.permission.READ_CONTACTS # Disable advertising ID entirely adb shell settings put global limit_ad_tracking 1 # Disable cross-app tracking (Android 12+) adb shell settings put global restricted_networking_mode 0 # Block background app activity adb shell cmd appops set <package> RUN_IN_BACKGROUND deny FOSS replacements Google app FOSS alternative Notes Chrome Brave / Firefox Brave has built-in ad block Google Search SearXNG / DuckDuckGo Self-hostable Gmail FairEmail / K-9 Mail Open source Google Maps OsmAnd / Organic Maps Offline capable Google Photos Ente / Immich E2E encrypted Google Drive Nextcloud / Proton Drive Self-hostable Google Calendar Proton Calendar / Simple Calendar Gboard FUTO Keyboard / OpenBoard No network access YouTube NewPipe / ReVanced No Google account Recommended apps App Purpose Netguard No-root firewall — block per-app internet TrackerControl Block trackers without root PCAPdroid Network traffic monitor Shizuku Run ADB commands without PC App Manager Full app control — permissions, ops, components See also: android-privacy-hardener Maintained by OutrageousStorm