brandy078 The benefit of isolating WhatsApp in its own user profile with is that WhatsApp will not be able to get the list of apps you have installed in any other profile. You also prevent WhatsApp from communicating with other Meta apps or embedded Meta libraries through IPC.

You could use a Private Space instead of a secondary user profile. It's a lot more convenient to use WhatsApp in a Private Space because a Private Space is essentially a secondary user profile but integrated in the Owner profile UI.

      • TGOS

        • Post #14

        DeletedUser88

        Oh I see. I thought it can't communicate with Apps which are not installed or connected to Google Play Store

          TGOS Did you make a new account with sim, or did you just changed your number?

          • TGOS replied to this.

              ryrona WhatsApp can still communicate with other Meta apps you have installed, to share account information.

              You can install WhatsApp in a different user, work profile or private space to stop this communication with Meta apps.

                  Carlos-Anso You can install WhatsApp in a different user, work profile or private space to stop this communication with Meta apps.

                  True, I should had said, "other Meta apps you have installed in the same user profile".

                    brandy078 you need to reeavaluate your threat model and ask yourself what exactly you want to protect and from whom. You can then make decisions based on that.

                        while i understand whatsapp sometimes is a must.
                        I stopped trying to get people to use telegram or other. whatsapp is deeply embedded in lives of people, mostly in my country. everything goes through it basically.
                        the day wsp is down the country is uncommunicated and i am not exaggerating.

                        however, the use of meta-apps is avoidable. the mobile websites work as good. avoid installing other meta apps but whatsapp.

                          DeletedUser127 I want to give meta as little useful information as possible.
                          Whatsapp currently only has access to my contacts. No access to files, photos, micro or camera.
                          I also use an always on VPN.
                          I understand that avoiding metadata does not seem possible. But I want to reduce them to a minimum.

                            TGOS have you given it access to any contacts at all? That would already most likely deanonymize you. When I used WA back in the day, I made sure not to give it any access to contacts. Just wrote to numbers and remembered who it is by chat content.

                              Also remember, communication is bidirectional. So if your party adds you to contacts and does not restrict access to them, this creates another dataset that can aid tracking. In other words, don't only look at your activity, in the real world your privacy very much depends on the objects (people) you interact with.

                                DeletedUser127 I think thats the main problem... What does it help when I use Proton Mail and recipient Gmail....

                                  ryrona never heared about prepaid ready to use simcards withiut your data cinnected to it? Or burner phones? (For account creation) Or am i missing something?

                                      • TGOS

                                        • Post #27

                                        brandy078
                                        Just ordered new one. But also changing it would make the same.
                                        Because Vodafone doesn't give Meta your credentials, like whatsapp doesn't get the names in your contacts. So writing them directly or via Contact (scopes) shoudn't be a difference.

                                          ryrona WhatsApp does not need google services to run. They do affec the notifications, but that's it.

                                          Also, as far as interaction goes, as far as I understand anyway, their e2e encryption is actually real, so they can't read what you write. However, a lot of metadata is not encrypted, so things like who you message and when are available to them.

                                              • TGOS

                                                • Post #29

                                                DeletedUser88 can you confirm that whatsapp is aware of every other app in a user profile? So no matter from where it is installed from and if G-Services installed?
                                                That was actually the reason not installing it in private space for me.

                                                    TGOS can you confirm that whatsapp is aware of every other app in a user profile?

                                                    Any app can get a list of all the installed apps within the same user profile. Apps cannot get a list of installed apps in a user profile that it is not in. There is a permission for it (QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES) but it is not needed for as there are other ways apps can do this. It is standard Android behaviour.

                                                    TGOS So no matter from where it is installed from and if G-Services installed?

                                                    Refer to the above answer.

                                                        ottoptj WhatsApp does not need google services to run. They do affec the notifications, but that's it.

                                                        You can still recieve notifications from WhatsApp without Google Services. However, I have read reports about some reliability issues regarding this.

                                                            DeletedUser88 Yeah, you can receive them, but it is indeed not very reliable. Sometimes the notification happens, other times not.