Planning to create a fresh google account to use for my mobile games. Do I need to create it under another profile to avoid tracking and just put google services and the games I will play on that profile? I would create it on another device but creating it on a phone won’t prompt me to give a mobile number which is favorable.
Unless you’re buying games, you can simply use Aurora Store to install apps you want where you don’t even need an account to download and install apps. Aurora Store if you don’t know has all Play Store apps.
That is the problem, I am planning to buy games and also my other games only accept gmail for account creation.
Then doing it in a new profile is the best way to go about it. You can also do it in your main profile, Play Services is sandboxed in GOS and that should still provide you with enough privacy if you ask me.
But a new profile will be more “cleaner” way to go about it if you don’t want Play Services installed at all in your Owner Profile.
If you want both isolation of Google Mobile Services (GMS) alongside convinience, you can install GMS to your Private space (PS). That way you’ll get a separate profile from you main Owner profile while still getting a high amount of convenience since you can access your PS without leaving your Owner profile.
I personally tried the approach of originally installing GMS to a fully dedicated profile. It worked, but it was really cumbersome. Every time I wanted to open an app that needed GMS I had to switch profiles, and then when I was done I needed to switch profiles back. It became a chore really fast, even when I purposefully avoided using those apps as much as possible. I imagine this could be even more annoying for you if you want to game whenever you have those small moments of downtime.
Using PS makes that all much less of a hassle and I evenetually transferred all my GMS-dependent apps there. If you haven’t already activate PS, you can do so from Settings > Security & privacy > Private space
Good luck on your privacy journey. You got this! ![]()
I am already using private space but I dedicated it to my work apps which use Google services. I would prefer it if Google didn’t link my work accounts and my gaming accounts. Do you think GOS is setup to where if I login both accounts in the Owner and Private space that they aren’t both associated? If not then I guess I would have to deal with switching profiles which might be annoying.
Do you think you will be able to create the fresh google account without requiring a phone number or do you have a way to navigate that issue? I am seriously contemplating gos this year but as a uk resident we don’t have spoof phone services like we do email
If this is the case, then a full independent user profile can be an option if you want to keep everything in their own boxes, as in private Owner, work stuff in PS, and Google Play dependent games in a separate profile. That’s an option and it does fully work, but the annoyance factors listed above still apply.
If you login to separate Google accounts inside Owner and PS, they’ll be separated. PS is actually a full-on user profile, but it’s just nested inside Owner instead of being wholly independent. Profile and data isolation still applies, outside of a few small & clearly defined user-controlled features such as clipboard sharing and file transfer, among others.
I’d say a more realistic risk is the apps themselves that you use tracking you, sharing that data, and eventually linking your identities that way. That’s much easier and simpler than trying to smash through the Owner-PS profile boundary.
Creating a new Google account through GMS after installing them on GOS is just the same as with any other Android phones. It’s not the device, it’s your current IP address.
If you use a local public Wi-Fi, it should let you skip the phone number. Cellular data should work too perfectly fine. And I’ve personally noticed that some less popular VPN servers work too. If it’s requiring a phone number, change your IP and/or the VPN server you’re connected to.
Good luck!
Ways that worked for me is 1st creating it in the settings of the phone itself. It didn’t ask me for a phone number but the problem I encountered is when using a VPN, it will freak out and ask you for confirmation through SMS when the set country on your VPN changes (I was using the free tier of ProtonVPN).A tip if you are paranoid like me is using a buddy’s phone on public WiFi to create the account using the Google tab in phone settings then logging in the account on your phone using the same public WiFi. Invite that buddy for coffee.
Another way is 1st creating either a Tuta or ProtonMail account then using that as a recovery email instead of using a phone number. I haven’t encountered the VPN problem with this method but ymmv. A tip for the 2nd way is using an email aliasing service like simplelogin if you don’t want Google to know your email address. We live in different countries and again ymmv.
Thanks for the assurance. If only I could drop Google stuff but my job demands it. I am also too broke at the moment to buy a dedicated android handheld to really separate my gaming and personal devices. I guess this is how it is when you try to reclaim your privacy against the big corporations.
Using a separate profile or Private Space on GOS is indeed the cleanest way to isolate your gaming Google account. Creating the account via phone Settings on public WiFi to skip phone number verification is a smart trick. Thanks for the detailed insights — very helpful for privacy-conscious users!