Firebase is a google service (a company that google acquired some time ago) and it is used by Home Assistant Android companion to serve notifications. I was really shocked when I first found this out. We all now that google is not the best at safeguarding our privacy.
Even if the data is encrypted, google has plenty of resources to throw at it, and also without decrypting anything, it knows that my home assistant server is sending me a notification. If they wanted to, they could store time/date/frequency of notifications and figure out a lot of other things without decrypting anything, by using the IP addressed involved.
Other open source projects have solved this problem (like syncthing) and they don’t use google for incoming data on an android phone.
I just wanted to make everyone aware so you know what you are getting into.
There are already plenty of non Google options for notifications. If you are using an Android phone and home assistant app decided to use firebase for it’s push, to me that seems fitting. Don’t use the app notifications if it’s a problem for you, many alternatives to use.
And to OP. I agree with other statements. You have an Android phone. Google already has more than enough info. They are t going to go through your home assistant notification message details to be able to track down anything they can’t already track down with other means. If you don’t want Google having your information you should not have bought an Android phone to begin with.
That’s no secret And look like one of the trolls (after facebook) comes now to the forum. For all readers here is the full storry (we are transparent):
The account that posted this has been created just to post this message. It has been registered with a disposable email service. This person is not a community member. Like Pascal said, this person is a troll.
Our Android app is made by volunteers who do this in their spare time. Our work is published on the Google Play Store and it is free and open source.
Sadly we have been attracting people from outside the community who feel the need to harass our volunteers because they work on things that the poster doens’t agree with. That’s not how open source works. That’s not how people work. This got to stop.
If people want to work on a version that does not rely on Google Play Services, feel free to fork our app. That’s how open source works.
I am locking this thread as we’re not going to give a stage to trolls.
And look like one of the trolls (after facebook) comes now to the forum. For all readers here is the full storry (we are transparent):