How to play online games privately?

I segregate login, usually i don’t login to games with fb, google, apple, twitter or whatever sso login it allowed. Instead if it offered option to create new account via email I’ll choose that option and registered using a unique alias not use anywhere else. Simplelogin, addy.io, duck.com, apple hide-my- email etc can be used for that. I used my own custom domain for alias.

I also will use email sso if I can but as I have shown the example above of some games not allowing emails and if you want to switch between different platforms (iPhone and Android), then Facebook is only way.

Then theres telemetry tracking. Games are the worse when it comes to tracking. Every clicks, every taps etc would be tracked and sent to whatever sdk they used. Usually those can be blocked via adguard dns, nextdns, rethinkdns etc. I used my own selfhosted adguardhome to block those craps.

I have Adguard dns enabled on all of my devices. I also deny any microphone or contacts permission that these games might require. But I still think all this isn’t enough.

Many of these games with invasive anticheats have very tame privacy policies. Take riot’s for instance… Personally I don’t buy it, because they need to check software running on the computer against known cheat signatures in order for their anticheat to work, and there is no way this happens exclusively on the client-side…

As I said I understand and I haven’t reviewed all privacy policies to be for sure or if there’s a recurring theme…
Anti cheats are definitely a concern here, Though it is understandable why they’re here I wish Server side AC was adopted for this reason…

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Oh cool someone posted my question on Techlore forum. Here’s link : How to play online games privately? - Techlore

Here’s the conclusion from the above post:

Yeah personally VPNs especially free ones never work best with games but even with paid ones the high ping results in almost unplayable matches.

So here’s what I conclude:

  1. Use a seperate device/profiles on device with a burner account (Google/Facebook) only for gaming purposes.
  2. If a game provide custom account with email, then use email alias and prefer that method over Google or Facebook. IMPORTANT.
  3. Use a ad and tracker blocking service like NextDNS or Adguard DNS or some sort of firewall like netguard to block most of the trackers.
  4. From OP (original forum): Don’t provide online games with device permissions such as microphone or contacts permission.
  5. Make sure to check the superficial toggles in the games and service providers to enhance the privacy of the games.
  6. VPNs may not work best with online games. Do a try test if it works, use it else don’t bother using a VPN service.
  7. Keep SSO like Google/Facebook as last resort if nothing else works.

If anyone wants to add something here. Go ahead.

point 4: Here OP is me as this response is written in Techlore’s forum by @smartbirb. Check the link I posted in top of this post.

PS: I think that’s all someone can do currently to play online games more privately. I hate that most online and offline games are owned by Chinese company Tencent and we do know how nefarious are chinese companies when it comes to the data collection.

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This alone is a big no no for me.

If you can somehow “borrow” a neighbors connection with a dedicated gaming phone, then maybe

Good conclusions, Just wanted to add about this. Games do play nicely with VPN (Unless it’s ProtonVPN with P2P but now that I think about it I haven’t tried the P2P servers, will do, otherwise well those are not friends) just don’t use anything that slows it down like proton secure core if you’re gonna play multiplayer fast paced like for example PUBG Mobile or Fate Trigger when that comes out or games like it anyway. Otherwise it should just work.

The reason I can tell is that especially when I play NFS Unbound. Playing with Proton’s secure core causes some serious desync in online races or lockdown or any online mode, syncing with players is crucial here or you’re ruining the experience for other players and/or unintentionally confuse them (had this happen to me where specific racers desync constantly and it got annoying)… For games like live service but don’t provide PVP or Co-op for example you’ll be fine!

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I’ve noticed games like COD mobile let you use a guest account where you don’t need to provide an email or any info.

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Anticheat wise seems like a bad idea when cheaters can just dispoae of accounts quite easily.


Has anyone here tried BlueStacks for phone emulation? That seems like a good way to abstract your information away from the game companies, the problem is that BlueStack gets to correlate and maybe “sell” the information? Another downside is that it is a paid product.

Since you are already in the google ecosystem, I’ve read that Android Studio enables the same emulation but this for development purpose and I havent reaaly tried that route.

there’s also waydroid

Waydroid is specific to Wayland and Linux and I am not sure if you can install stock Android in it. I have succesfully installed Lineage on it though