this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2026

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DeGoogle Yourself

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Is conversations safe? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by gog@lemmy.world to c/degoogle@lemmy.ml

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I'm using the same gmail (as recovery email) that i'm using in youtube and instagram. I was talking to someone using conversations about removing ads from smart tv, and when i logged to youtube after, found a vid about it. This was the second time, the first time was instagram, similair thing.

Update: I replaced my recovery email with proton and Big AND, deleted knox matrxi. No more suggestions. I think it was knox matrix.

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Anything that’s fully end-to-end encrypted and trustworthy. So, Signal, iMessage, and ProtonMail (but only to other ProtonMail users) come to mind. WhatsApp and Telegram are supposedly E2EE, but I don’t trust them.

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[–] kutt@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

WhatsApp is definitely E2EE, however they can still collect the metadata. For Telegram I think it’s not even encrypted by default.

Edit: sometimes I should just learn to shut up

https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.world/post/42285905

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[–] Atemu@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

PM is automayically E2EE too if the recepient's server supports WKD or has uploaded their pubkey to keys.openpgp.org.

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago

Ah, ok. That’s good to know. :)

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Yeah but i thought that if I put my gmail as a recovery email in conversations it will be used as a fucking recovery email, not to share messaging infos

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 6 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Conversations is just a client, right? So if your server or your friend’s server is run by or backed by Google, they have the messages.

XMPP is not end to end encrypted, so whatever server you use, unless you own it, will have access to your messages. If that’s something you’re not comfortable with, you can run your own server or use an E2EE messenger.

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

XMPP is not end to end encrypted, so whatever server you use, unless you own it, will have access to your messages.

Almost every current XMPP client, including conversations, supports OMEMO E2E encryption by default.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago* (2 children)

This happend with OMEMO, for the server just whatever jabber.network got me

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Hmm. Ok, then the likelihood Google was monitoring anything is pretty low. Unless they were monitoring your screen or your microphone. Do you have any AI screenshot features enabled?

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

No, i don't even have gms and samsung apps (using samsung), no ai. The only google apps i have left are android system apps that if i removed my system will break. And the only samsung apps i have are settings, clock, camera and UI stuff

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[–] hperrin@lemmy.ca 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

Ok. I’d say the likelihood it was a coincidence is pretty high then, but not 100%. We can’t really know all of what Google is monitoring when you use an Android phone, since their code on top of AOSP is closed source. It sounds unlikely that this was because of active monitoring though.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 2 points 7 months ago

Fuck, i'm buying a pixel as soon as i get some cash. Graphene is the only solution left, or linux

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago* (1 child)

If OMEMO was on, then Google didn't read your message. Also now you say you weren't using your Google account but a server from jabber.network? How about your interlocutor? If both of you were using an account for a random server on the jabber.network list, then Google wasn't reading your messages, even with OMEMO turned off.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

I said that the google account was used as a recovery email, this is in the post btw

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

I don't think that was very clear since other people also assumed you were using it as your account in Conversations.

A recovery email doesn't really have anything to do with XMPP. Using Google or whatever won't make them be able to read your messages.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

That what i tought, i'm not a bigginer, i know at least how to make a website with a backend. And a direct recommendation of a topic that was talked about in Conversations happend 2 times! That's 2 out of a potential 3 times. First when i got the instagram recomendation i thought my friend searched about the topic on instagram then I got the recomendation, then fucking youtube too? Wtf. And right after i finished the conversation.

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

Did you search for anything while having that conversation?

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

Nope

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

Notifications with full message contents?

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

We were both in the chat window, no notifications.

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

Then it's probably just a fluke.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

The only vids i watch on ytb, are videogamesdunkey, nakeyjakey and gamersnexus

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

All I can tell you is that Conversations didn't send your messages to Google. The servers you used didn't send your messages to Google, and if you were using OMEMO, they couldn't even they wanted to.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago (1 child)

Thnks, maybe the leak is from my sys apps

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[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 1 point 7 months ago

Very possible. Android works in shady ways.

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[–] gog@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 7 months ago

Yep true

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