Google's phones track you in several ways that aren't through a browser. Want to see every place you've ever visited since you got your Android phone? Google has it and you can see it in your dashboard.

Google keeps location tracking a secret from you until you view your data, then once you go look at it, they start sending you monthly summaries of your travels.

Any don't get me started on the facial recognition in Photos. Take a photo of someone else's kids, and it will show you a helpful popup asking if you want to send the photo to the kid's parent.

You can turn off Location History (and may other things) here: https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols

It's not a secret and I believe you have to opt in at some point.

I believe you can turn off facial recognition in Photos' settings.

Disclaimer: I am a Google employee, my opinions are my own.

While it’s certainly not something I’d want my mom to do, for someone technically knowledgeable, these things are not hard to prevent.

> and want an only slightly less great browsing experience

You mean far superior because Firefox actually has extensions for their mobile browser?

yeah but if you're running no-script you're not going to have as good of a browsing experience

Subjective. But then there's always uBlock Origin, which blocks crap automatically without breaking stuff. Who wouldn't want that on their phone?

Even with an Android phone?