Still using gmail, whatsapp for work - what are my workarounds? profiles?

nervousball

hello lovely people, im here again seeking your assistance and knowledge.

installed GoS for a while now on pixel 8 and im quite comfortable with it - loving in but still havent filtered many apps and converted it to FOSS - havent reached maximum potential. unfortunately i am still using some "cancer" apps, such as:

whatsapp - trying to convert my family to signal but work groups are on whatsapp and dont want to miss out important notifications;

i have gmail for work - so i can reply from my mobile when im away from the laptop - installed thunderbird and connected my personal old gmail (for banking stuff, government logins etc) - thought this will be safer and wanted to test before i migrate it on work email too and get rid of gmail - guess what, it already connected to my google maps the second i logged my private gmail account on thunderbird! i was expecting that thunderbird is safe client with least trackers/spyware? perhaps i was wrong, or maybe this got nothing to do with thunderbird and google is just being google..

what could be my options here? because only installing GoS is not enough (yes i got better control on permissions and camera,microphone etc comparing to stock android/iOS) but i can still see LOADS of trackers via nextDNS coming from my GoS, via these apps..so starting to slowly improve my overall setup

i heard of profiles - question - if this can be a potential workaround, e.g.:

profile 1 - main, private, everyday use;
profile 2 - work stuff;

can i log into profile 1 and receive profile 2 (work's emails) ? so i wont miss out important notifications

any advice would be appreciated..thank you

BeepBeep

nervousball

From the Thunderbird login behavior you describe, it sounds like you might want to look at Google's own privacy options for your account -- and then also check your Thunderbird settings. What you wrote doesn't align with my experience. If push email is active, you're constantly telling Google your IP address and linking in everything else you do. If staying logged in is required, you might split tunnel Thunderbird so that your Gmail traffic is isolated from your other activities.

I have an old Gmail account I need to monitor for very occasional items, but I don't want to be logged in to Google except when absolutely necessary. So, I set up in Gmail to have all my mail forwarded to an anonymous address at a more privacy respecting email service. I read my incoming mail there. Then, only if I need to send a reply from my Gmail, do I...(1) Stop whatever else I'm doing online and switch VPN servers to a new time zone; (2) log into Thunderbird and send my Gmail reply; (3) Switch VPN servers again. It's a pain, but I've already minimized my use of this old Gmail account enough that I can easily live with it.

Eumenia

nervousball i heard of profiles - question - if this can be a potential workaround, e.g.:

profile 1 - main, private, everyday use;
profile 2 - work stuff;

can i log into profile 1 and receive profile 2 (work's emails) ? so i wont miss out important notifications

You can do multiple profile or do maim and private space

Byku

Hi there. So yeah, putting stuff you're weary of in a different profile is certainly one way. You can keep the secondary profile running at the same time and receive notifications from the secondary profile in your owners profile (but not message contents). Be warned though that your battery will suffer because of this.
Some alternatives:
for email: Fair Email (the github or play store version) can manage your gmail box and doesn't log you into your Google account (I recommend the github version if you want to buy pro functions)
for whatsapp: Beeper can connect to your whatsapp account and you can disable Whatsapp itself, it got an upgrade recently to support on device bridges so you no longer need to trust or use Beeper servers, it supports messaging but no calls

mmobder

Byku Beeper

does it rely on FCM?

"Beeper collects device information, including OS, hardware, public IP addresses, network routing information, information on the installed Beeper client, and other device settings"

Unless I misunderstood, their Android app is not FOSS and is distributed only via Play Store, isn't it? It that's so, what's the benefit from setting up original Whatsapp "limited" :)))) by tools like RethinkDNS in Private Space or another acc (or setting up matrix bridge yourself altogether with FOSS matrix client)? ... apart from shifting your data from a giant that is monitored/sued to a minor org that will never get such level of attention re digging into malicious practices?

Byku

mmobder All valid points. Beeper uses Play Services for notifications. The matrix bridges they develop are open source. The app itself is proprietary. The benefits I see:

avoid battery drain from running 2 active profiles
official Whatsapp app has memory errors and is used for phone infiltration a lot. Also having no Meta apps running on my phone is a gain in my book
hosting a full matrix server is resource intensive, Beeper allowed to host just the bridge itself in your server, but now you don't need even that, the decryption and re-encryption between the protocols happens on your device

nervousball

BeepBeep thanks mate for your help but as i said i need gmail for work, so yes - constant email reads and responses..so still trying to figure it out what is the best way getting rid of google and manage to be up to date with emails..

nervousball

Byku @BeepBeep i havent heard of beeper at all, i feel such a newbie in this topic..

let me guess - by looking it what it does - i can setup connections from various chat apps to deliver "safely" into one?

eg signal, messenger, telegram, whatsapp? if correct, and once i link all these accounts from whatsap and other messenger services, can i disable network permissions from whatsapp or delete app completely? so only beeper stays on GoS?

Byku

nervousball that is how I use it more or less. I keep a disabled WhatsApp on my phone just in case.

KitsuneNoBaka

Main profile for phone/SMS and some non google dependent stuff.
Work profile for work stuff with sandboxed Google play store (some app need to be installed from Google play store unless they don't work at all). Ditch gmail app. It's garbage. Thunderbird is better. You could have Thunderbird in main and in work profile.
You could have google calendar in work profile (tested few Foss calendars and no...). Use google maps in anonymous mode.
Sensitive stuff in private space profile.
That way you could move files and clipboard between profiles.
It's not super safe but you fairly separate stuff and don't loose convenience of normal phone.
Unless you are dangered by outside world and need to be super safe and can loose convenience for safety then use separate full profiles with separate logins.

nervousball

KitsuneNoBaka thank you for your consideration. yes i tried to get rid off google calendar and thought i could somehow use gmail that will prompt me with at least calendar view on what meetings i got...

gonna connect work email with thunderbird. thanks

KitsuneNoBaka

If you do work profile from main and use private space then you can use 3 profiles without need to reloging.