…within reason. I know that the top answer will be to flash a different OS on your device. A lot of us are not at that point right now.
So I was texting with my wife in Spanish and suddenly a system bubble popped up, “would you like to translate this to English?” At a minimum, this means that Google is reading the words on my screen at all times to detect the language. I don’t know if this is possibly done on device, but translation certainly isn’t. I’ve already changed my system translation app to Translate You.
I’ve noticed other times that Google watches or listens in the background. It has a feature to detect ambient songs playing, for example.
What other standard settings should I check for to prevent Google from watching and listening to my phone in the background?
Edit: I was not using a Google messeging app at the time. It was detecting the text from another app. The specific setting in this case was to switch off “Live Translate,” in System settings.
TrackerControl is an effective firewall. Blocking internet access to most google apps, like google framework. It should suffice for most of your needs. Even if it detects something, the data won’t be sent to their servers.
Do test to see if any other services end up broken while blocked.
How is the battery draw on that? I see it uses a local VPN which I imagine would affect it somewhat.
I’ve just charged my phone so I’ll look at the battery usage after a couple of hours, but it’s likely very low