Privacy on a smartphone can be more or less, but it is always compromised. According to the data from this browser (DuckDuckGo), a mobile phone with 35 installed apps shares data with third parties up to 2000 times a day.
When we talk about “spying” we are referring to the tracking that a large part of the applications do when using a smartphone. TikToK, for example, tracks your keyboard and knows every tap you make on the screen. Then it sends this data to its servers and does whatever it wants with it.
DuckDuckGo has just released one of its most interesting features out of beta. It's called App Tracking Protection and its name indicates its function: it looks for apps that track your mobile phone usage, shows them to you and blocks those tracks.
When you set up the feature, it is possible to see which apps are trying to track you at all times, and you can realize how little privacy you have. The good news is that you can block these trackers without fear of job loss.
How to block tracking apps
It's relatively easy to get the app not to track you with, say, your microphone. It is enough to block access to the microphone permission for the aforementioned app and that's it. The bad news is that you will miss out on any features in this app that require microphone access. For example, if you block this microphone permission access for WhatsApp, you will not be able to send voice notes.
What DuckDuckGo does is prevent these effects without removing the permission. It is able to block all traces and does not affect the proper functioning of applications. It may sound simple, but it has taken years of development by the company.
You just need to download DuckDuckGo from Google Play in the latest version, go to the settings and activate the "App Tracking Protection" option. After configuring it, you can access the browser and start finding out which apps are trying to spy on you