This was sent to me... https://www.googlewebappactivitylawsuit.com/

So Google is willing to spy on its own non-users too.

Class 1: All individuals who, during the period beginning July 1, 2016 and continuing through September 23, 2024, (a) had their “Web & App Activity” and/or “supplemental Web & App Activity” setting turned off and (b) whose activity on a non-Google-branded mobile app was still transmitted to Google, from (c) a mobile device running the Android operating system, because of the Firebase Software Development Kit (“SDK”) and/or Google Mobile Ads SDK. Class 2: All individuals who, during the period beginning July 1, 2016 and continuing through September 23, 2024, (a) had their “Web & App Activity” and/or “supplemental Web & App Activity” setting turned off and (b) whose activity on a non-Google-branded mobile app was still transmitted to Google, from (c) a mobile device running a non-Android operating system, because of the Firebase SDK and/or Google Mobile Ads SDK.

Are you sure you trust them as a search engine and a company when they are willing to repeatedly get sued for this and still not stop it? This is not their first case and will not be their last.

De-Google as much as you can. I preferred if you did it because you were anti-AI, but if you want some class action lawsuit cash in the future, that's good enough.

If you still are on Google Docs, etc, I'd seriously reconsider. Notice the wording of the what was won in the lawsuit. Google can freely collect the information of its users, including everything in the GSuite as they like.

I've been wanting to try to find a sustainable way to ditch Google docs/photos that won't break the bank or be so clunky I just go back to Google.

Right now my biggest "must haves" are better privacy, a fairly easy way to move things over from Google, and a photo backup service for my phone.

Do you hate ads on YouTube? Do you hate the YouTube Red popups? Do you wish you could play YouTube video audio when you aren't in the app? Well, do I have some news for you!

If you use firefox to go to the YouTube website and play a video, you can avoid all of these! Make sure you have an ad blocker installed, but that and firefox are all you need.

Play the video.

Minimize firefox/go to another app. The audio will stop.

Open your notification bar and you will have a firefox notification of the audio that was playing.

Press play. (You might have to press it a few times.)

Then voila! It will play and you can turn off your screen or go into another app. Firefox should also play the next video in any playlist that you might be watching in.

Here's the link to firefox's page for downloading