android is not private, not by default anyway. you have to tinker around with your phone to get it to not rat you out every five minutes. but there's a lot to do before you actually get to 'slightly more private', which i shall write about here, so i don't forget how to do any of it.

first steps

• prepare some alternative apps: your OEM's apps are probably not very private, or simply just suck. go hop onto f-droid and look for some alternative apps there. my personal recommendations:
  • all the basics: simple mobile tools has a very nice collection of various apps and they all simply work.
  • browser: anything on ffupdater should suffice. duckduckgo's browser is very good, and it is there as well.
  • homescreen: did you know your homescreen might also be ratting you out? if you'd like the generic homescreen style, just use lawnchair (only the apk on their github release page is up to date). however, if you want a more unique and efficient search-focused homescreen, use KISS launcher (very swift, but maybe the design is a bit too barebones for some) or kvæitso (material you and some neat widgets).
  • email: your webmail should suffice, or use k9 mail (manual configs).
• get a tracker blocker: maybe you just have to keep some apps that track you. it might do you good to install a tracker blocker. duckduckgo's browser app does have an app tracking protection thing built in which you can use, and it's quite simple to use too. or you may try rethinkdns, which lets you change your dns, and add blocklists (i enabled 97 of them) to block trackers.
• debloat what you can: if you can uninstall a preinstalled app, by all means uninstall it.

stepping it up

those first steps can stop some ratting out. now you want to take it a step further.

• start properly debloating your phone: pull out a PC, and install android-tools. now that's simply just a dependency. grab the universal android debloater. it's a graphical app (oh no more bloat!!111!) which gives you a list of apps on your phone (you do have to connect it via adb first) which are safe to remove, and gives descriptions for (almost) each package. now you have that, you know what to do, time to do some housekeeping.
• bring everything local: you liked the cloud? get rid of it (or at least the terrible non-private cloud services). keep everything on your phone or sync it to another device with syncthing.

the nuke

time to nuke those rats once and for all.

• get a degoogled android rom: it's a tedious process with these locked bootloaders, but it's worth it. aithough you'll also be nuking previous progress.
• rip out your microphone and/or camera: you wanted privacy, so go get it. you can use earphones as mics, and you can just bring a separate device for taking images and videos.

now there should be other things one can do to increase privacy on android phones, but here's my starter pack on getting those spies out of the loop.