IzzyOnDroid

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© Keoni Cabral (CC)

While most permissions an app requests are somehow understandable, some are not – and others even sound ludicrous. What stands behind them? Why do some apps request permissions that don’t seem to make sense? Do they really need them – or is there „anything else“?

© Izzy

Adebar stands for „Android DEvice Backup And Restore“. It creates scripts you can use to backup/restore your device via ADB (including freezing apps), and partly „documents“ your device. What’s more? Read on!

© Galen Lyle

Some apps simply request too much permissions we either do not understand – or understand them pretty well and do not want them. Be it for privacy reasons, or out of anxiety the apps themselves might abuse our trust. Unfortunately, app stores don’t provide a filter for that. Do not fear: StripSearch comes to your rescue!

© Menny G. (CC)

Having written a five-part-tutorial to finally show you how it could be done, I thought it might be a good idea to try it myself (oops?). So this post shows my experiences with a Google-free Android, diary-style.

© Alan Cleaver (CC)

You might have noticed that “IzzyOnDroid” has quite a strong focus on privacy. I want to make it easy to find not only the best rated app for a purpose, but also the least invasive. And give you good hints in my articles. But of course I cared for that as well when building this site. Some sum-up and hints in this article.

© Sylvain Naudin (CC)

You might have seen the one or other tutorial including steps to be performed “via ADB” – and thought installing the entire developers toolkit with its 90+ megabytes being more than just overkill for you. Luckily there are alternatives. And there are several things making ADB useful for the end user. Read on for details.

© Iwan Gabovitch (CC)

Now that we’ve checked around, it might be time for the final step: free our devices from the Google apps, making is as open source as possible – while keeping it as convenient as possible at the same time. We will pick up details from the previous parts, while adding the missing bits. Let’s go!

© pixabay (CC0)

The foundation has been laid: our most private data got its ownCloud, and we know how to get rid of some bloat. Next step is to look for alternatives: are there any replacements doing a better job than the pre-installed originals – at least in some aspects?

© pixabay (CC0)

Before we go on a hunt to find replacements for pre-installed (Google-) apps, another question needs to be answered: How can we get rid of the “originals” we then no longer want to use? As those mostly come pre-installed in system-space, they cannot simply be “uninstalled”. This article will present some solutions and work-arounds.

© ownCloud (LGPL)

In the first part of this series we figured there might be good reasons not to put all our private and personal data into the Google cloud. Starting with this second article, we’ll take a look at alternatives: ownCloud seems to cover several services at once, leaving all data in our hands. Does it work out?