Question regarding closed-source, full of trackers games

bayerelm

Hi everyone, first off I wanna say that I'm a bit of a new user (and I'm loving GOS btw!).

I'm thinking about the "risks" involved with installing Play Store games, some of which are definitely not privacy-friendly and full of trackers.
On another phone, I'd avoid those games like the plague but since GOS adds a network toggle in permissions, it got me thinking: realistically, what personal info could a game full of trackers gather about me if I disable the network permission? I feel like that would make it impossible for them to gather anything, but maybe I'm missing something?
Of course, I could dedicate a whole separate profile for games, but if disabling network permissions make it impossible for the trackers to work, I don't really see the point. Am I missing something?

I don't have Google Play Service installed BTW, and would downloading the games via Aurora store.

Thanks a lot in advance!

[deleted]

bayerelm Most of the games either will not work without Google Play, or will need network access for dynamic or supplement downloads. I have witnessed games downloading tracking tokens in the shared storage and short mp3 files to fingerprint device. To what extent they are successful, I do not know. To avoid this, I play a handful of games known to work offline, one of them I can even back up (CarX Rally). I give them as few permissions as possible. Don't forget they can potentially communicate with network enabled apps via IPC.

bayerelm

[deleted] I have witnessed games downloading tracking tokens in the shared storage and short mp3 files to fingerprint device.

Damn, that's kinda terrifying.

[deleted] Don't forget they can potentially communicate with network enabled apps via IPC

I guess that's true, but would it be expected behavior for games? I mean they're meant to display ads and use trackers through the app's internet access, I'm pretty sure the developers usually don't imagine the scenario of people using GrapheneOS to turn off network permissions, so I guess they shouldn't generally be designed to try and communicate with other apps to get network access? Just thinking out loud.

I suppose using something like Shelter and installing only these kinds of games in Shelter's "profile" could be a good idea too maybe?

browdor

put them on a separate user profile (or if you want easier access a work profile using shelter). the games without network access will either not work or have extremely limited use.
not having network activity will definitely reduce the trackers, (im assuming) some can work offline.
I wouldn't download apps with more than 3-5 trackers
(at least on your main profile) but do check for ones that aren't Google or Facebook analytics as those are far more likely going to be invasive ones rather than crash reports.

bayerelm

browdor I wouldn't download apps with more than 3-5 trackers

Why though? If the game doesn't have access to the internet, aren't the trackers essentially rendered useless?

bayerelm

Of course, as mentioned in my first message, I could also use an entire separate profile and install games there. But I kinda want my games to be accessible in my main profile, and I feel like this method might be overkill.

matchboxbananasynergy

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