It is against the GDPR.

In the EU this kind of automatic opting-in to marketing/data sharing is against the GDPR as it requires explicit consent from user/customer. I’m in the EU and have those settings but they were both toggled off, as expected.

I’m in the EU and that section in the settings isn’t even there. I guess they aren’t doing it here, for now at least. Probably due to GDPR.

Filen is good. Works like a charm. Back in the days I got their pay once for 100GB of storage package and am very happy about it. Looks like they have the starter 100GB lifetime available still i.e. pay only once.

I use that myself though haven’t sent a sms/mms in like > 10 years. Anyhow FOSS > stock spyware any day. The fossify project has many other useful tools as well.

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.messages/

https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Messages

In a country with good consumer rights, this would be a valid reason to return it and get a replacement or refund: It’s no longer offering functionality that was advertised and that you paid for as part of the purchase price.

In the EU this would probably be a no-brainer.

Are these available on f-droid already?

+1 for Nebula

https://blog.torproject.org/bittorrent-over-tor-isnt-good-idea/

Tor browser can be used to access the site itself but don’t use it for torrenting itself.

Google is lying to you. They don’t want your phone number to “verify it’s you”. They want your phone number because it’s an effective measure against bot accounts.

There you’re correct that they are lying and don’t want the number to verify. They want it so they can link the profile they have to an actual person. That’ll make the profile more valuable to them. Better tracking etc.