It’s not absurd at all. They know the IPs, they know those devices use the same network, and they also know where they are located pretty accurately: the Google Street View cars also scan for WiFi networks and map them to their location.

2 devices consistently connected to the same router, to the same network, in the same place… must belong to the same person or to 2 people sharing a home. If cookies set by other websites and seen by Google show similar browsing habits, it’s probably the same person.

You just mentioned 2 different Google accounts: if your devices are connected to Google accounts they are already getting a lot of information from you that way, and Google knows that those 2 accounts are related.

Librewolf + uBlock Origin on desktop. Mull + uBlock Origin on mobile.

I feel like I have to tell you about the fabulous, most groovy… Bellbottoms (by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion).

Unfortunately it’s just less than 2 minutes on the intro of one song. I wish they had done some more like it, because it’s a great combination in my opinion.

I’ve experienced the same. Contacted them and no solution was given. I quit using it because it’s useless to navigate around my city.

I had to contact them 3 times in 3 months to get a reply, and this is what they said:

we’ve checked and it’s a quite difficult case.

There is a roadblock (data coming from our traffic data provider) which refers to a bridge in construction.

OpenStreetMap does not have this bridge. So the roadblock data is decoded as if it was referring to the nearby streets. (check attachment) We cannot disable the roadblock data individually. I’ll add the bridge to the OSM data and it should hopefully fix the issue.

Fortunately, they also attached a screenshot showing the closed bridge drawn on top of what I assumed is the software they use, next to Google Maps where the bridge is mapped and marked as closed. I quickly checked OpenStreetMap and… the bridge was mapped and marked as closed. It just seems the software they use doesn’t download closed ways and they just mark as closed whatever road is nearby what has been reported by their traffic data provider. I quickly replied to advice against editing the correct data on OpenStreetMap. It’s been more than one year and the issue is still there. They don’t seem to care.

I have a setup which is not ideal, but I believe improves privacy while preserving convenience: I never connected my TV to the internet, and instead use a MiBox TV S 4K for all my streaming with custom DNS blocking trackers and ads.

I guess there might be other Android TV boxes that allow you to change the DNS server. It might be worth checking a bit around if you decide to go down this route.

In my case, I found this Reddit post and was able to change the DNS server on the MiBox to NextDNS, where I could later activate relevant blocklists (SmartTV, Xiaomi, Google). I also perform monitoring of the domains the MiBox connects to and have blocked a couple manually.

This way I have an AndroidTV experience with the streaming services that I want, and with the domains I don’t want blocked.

There are several degoogled OS options for the Fairphone models, with different levels of degoogling and privacy: LineageOS, CalyxOS, DivestOS, iodéOS and /e/OS.

Most of these are based on LineageOS (I understand that CalyxOS isn’t, but I might be wrong). I personally use iodéOS and I like the helpful developers, the ability to remove / replace any of the apps preinstalled with the system, and the iodé blocker which blocks trackers, adds and any connection you want to at a system level.

Don’t forget iodéOS!

I’m going to paste here the comment I wrote on another post about this same issue:

Organic Maps and OsmAnd are not adding ads during navigation. Nor “promoted pins”. Nor ads when browsing the map. Nor tracking your every move.

Seriously, give them a try. And remember that, if the maps are lacking information, you are free (and encouraged) to improve them on OpenStreetMap.

Wanted to say the same: the typo made the comment better. There has to be a community for this.

$1 would be overpriced

Which “govt”?

Good news: you never needed Google Podcasts to begin with. Antenna Pod is a Free Open Source app that won’t track your every move and just works.