All the ways to hide your location on your phone

Author: The Hated One - Bewertung: 39x - Views:217

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If you wanted to protect your privacy, you might have been told to do this.

Disable location services on your device.

The problem is if you do this, you can't use map navigation and your location is still tracked by your phone and many apps on it.

So today, I'll show you everything you need to do to protect your location from all threats. Properly and without any leaks. And you still get to use your maps completely privately.

You don't need to disable location services in order for apps on your phone not having access to it. On modern Android, iOS and GrapheneOS, you should go to the location permission settings and revoke location access to apps that don't need it. As you can see I already did this on my GrapheneOS so I am showing you da wei.

If an app needs your location like for maps, it should only need it while you are using it or on one-time basis. There is next to no reason for an app to always require background access to your location. Precise location should only be required by maps and everything else should get coarse location at best.

Especially if you are on GrapheneOS, you get granular control like you can't get anywhere else.

I'll show you a trick how you can use maps and navigation completely privately.

Instead of an online map, use free and open source offline maps you download straight to your phone and never use the Internet. All you need for navigation is GPS and when you only use GPS, your device identity is not leaked. I personally love using Organic Maps or OSMAND. I just download maps I need for my region and update them on regular basis. No information about my travels ever leaves my device.

If you are not on GrapheneOS and you use Android with Google or iOS, then you also need to worry about Google and Apple tracking you through your account. You need to go to the settings of your Google Account or Apple ID and toggle off all the location-related tracking, including any web and app activity and other usage history. Apple is known to routinely ignore user consent and settings and Google's settings are just as much of a black box. So you shouldn't trust their word and insure yourself with the following steps.

The next big way apps track your location is your IP address. A single advertising network present on multiple apps and websites can track you down even across multiple devices. Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, Oracle... they can all track you even if you don't have an account with them.

Your IP address is your location and if your location is your home, that's your identity too. So you better hide your IP address. The best balance between usability and privacy is a VPN. But not just any VPN. A multihop VPN with a defense against AI-enhanced traffic analysis. I bet you expected a sponsor segue right there. Don't you think that conflict of interest is corrupt and should be punished? If you see a VPN sponsor or affiliate on any Internet content, you should stop trusting that creator. The topic of VPNs is riddled with lies and I can't ever mention them without pointing that out. If you appreciate my efforts, join my podcast on patreon.com/thehatedone. It's pretty cool.

There is only few major VPNs that currently do this - that's Mullvad, NymVPN and Safing Privacy Network. All of these are paid, but if you use a free VPN, you are using a scam.

The only thing better than this is Tor, which is anonymous overlay network. Tor comes with significantly slower internet speeds, but if you need maximum protection, this is what you want.

After IP addresses, you have a couple of other addresses to address. The first one is WiFi MAC address. There are two things to do about this: go to your device's WiFi or network settings and find an option for "MAC address randomization". You want to enable the strongest option available for you.

Another step to do is to disable Bluetooth scanning and WiFi scanning. To my knowledge, this is really only possible to do on GrapheneOS. Anywhere else, even if you disable Bluetooth or turn off your phone completely, low energy scanning will still be happening in the background, exposing your device to surveillance beacons.

The last thing to do you might find the hardest of all. I use my phone in Airplane mode at all times and I only turn on my WiFi, with all the randomization, multihop VPN, and disabled scanning, on GrapheneOS. That way, my phone's identity never leaks, every network I connect to only ever sees a new anonymous device and all my traffic is going through random servers around the world to protect my records from hostile networks and ISPs.

The footage and images featured in the video were for critical analysis, commentary and parody, which are protected under the Fair Use laws of the United States Copyright act of 1976.