This is a tangent, but I've always wondered... is it silly of me to be hesitant to use Android for the fact that Google owns it? I'd trust a jailbroken iPhone to do my bidding (and not be sneaky) more than an Android phone, but perhaps I'm being a bit crazy.
Still, it's hard to shake the feeling of an all-seeing eye watching everything I do when I use Android. I installed it in VirtualBox and there were at least five different options I had to turn off just to ask it to please not transmit my data to Google's servers: Auto-backup, location info, usage statistics, crash reports, and a couple others I'm forgetting right now.
Google has a vested interest in knowing as much about you as possible. Apple may have the same interest -- like I said, I'd trust a jailbroken iPhone rather than a vanilla one -- but they make their money by selling you hardware and apps.
If you're wary of Google, just don't create an account on the phone.
I've recently de-Googled a number of Android phones, and the cleaned-up experience is wonderful. Long battery life and plenty of apps from F-Droid or Amazon.
Browser-sync is nicely handled by Firefox Sync, which you can self-host.
Ideally it'll be a rooted phone and you can also delete all the com.google.*.apk files, too, so none of their apps run in the background ( uselessly spinning and burning CPU cycles in case you suddenly decide to create an account ).
If the phone has a Google account already configured, lock-out the phone by changing the account password on a PC. If its rooted, delete the accounts.db file.
Apps that I usually then install for the user:
- Osmand to replace Google Maps
- F-Droid and sometimes Amazon App Store
- K9 Mail ( you can even point this to G-Mail quite safely! )
Once your phone is rooted, use Titanium Backup (there may be similar apps on F-Droid for free) to uninstall the Google apps and services you don't need.
Still, it's hard to shake the feeling of an all-seeing eye watching everything I do when I use Android. I installed it in VirtualBox and there were at least five different options I had to turn off just to ask it to please not transmit my data to Google's servers: Auto-backup, location info, usage statistics, crash reports, and a couple others I'm forgetting right now.
Google has a vested interest in knowing as much about you as possible. Apple may have the same interest -- like I said, I'd trust a jailbroken iPhone rather than a vanilla one -- but they make their money by selling you hardware and apps.