inquiring about PP and tracking-newbie

[ryo]

bravo to the guys who pushed this forward. it happened by accident that triggered me to research and ultimately realize how much privacy I dont have. I think I was asleep in the matrix like many people are. freely giving every information about myself. feeling I could trust google. not anymore.

That's the first step into the great awakening, but probably you still have a longer way to go than you think.
I thought I woke up in 2014, but kept finding out that there were still many layers of matrix before I finally got my way out of it 6 months ago.

  the trigger in me was with my phone. I turned it on and icons changed. I researched that and then realized how much privacy we dont have. since then I turned off everything I could, force stopping/disabling everything i can and I dont even browse on it. ever. it was googles mistake. had they not done that and ran things in the background, I would have never known.

This is not really a privacy issue, this is rather the issue of having a lack of freedom.
Ultimately no privacy and no freedom go hand in hand, but changing icons against your will isn't really what I consider a privacy issue.

And it's not Google's mistake, Google is spying on you by design.
It's called an advertisement company for a reason.

let me get right down to it. I watch videos on PP to learn about it. ive used android and ios but know nothing of linux or PP. one specific video was this person installing pureos (this is the librem5 os, correct?) on the PP. within the first minute I saw the overview of setting up and a screen forcing him to opt in for location. oh no thats not good. does PP software have a forced opt in for tracking?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT9XUkui4zs
in the 1:00 mark.

PureOS is the OS that comes on the Librem 5 by default.
The screen was not forcing him to opt in, the options were turned off by default even.
He could have just tapped "Next" without enabling it, no idea why he even said that you have to opt in.

This same screen does pop up on other distro's using Phosh after the first boot, but once again, you don't have to opt in if you don't want to.
Also, there's no PP software, Pine64 doesn't make any software, they just use whatever is already available, and in turn donate to them.

for me, realizing how much is being tracked with any android phone. made me look for options. Im curious regarding how much can be disabled with the PP so no tracking or data is being taken.

You can use the hardware kill switches if you want to be absolutely sure, but you won't be able to use internet connection if you turn off GPS since it's using the same modem.

I dont plan on browsing on it. I will need a chat app. whatsapp is out. telegram with their new ads' is out, so maybe signal. otherwise will be happy to just use sms. anyone want, they can call. gps maps I will need and the basics like calculator sms and thats pretty much it. this trigger was a few months ago and since then I hardly want to use my phone.

I'm sorry to say, but here you start going completely against what you just said.
In order to use GPS maps, you'll need to use location service tracking.
Without it, GPS won't work.
Maps will work, but you won't be able to navigate with it, just scroll through it like on Google Maps on your PC.

As for chat apps, probably you'll want to use Firefox for whatever offers a browser version of the chat protocol (like Discord, Skype, etc.).
Signal is just as safe as WhatsApp really, I pointed it out before how it's literally recommended by Jack Dorsey (Twitter CEO) and Edward Snowden (CIA agent, he is NOT a whistleblower!!) on Signal's homepage.

I realize the PP is privacy aimed and features is not critical. thats fine by me. but seeing the video of the guy forced to opt in for location is a worry for me. I dont have anything to hide but no respect to a persons privacy and constant tracking really gets me worked up.

Again, he's not forced to opt in, he just said you have to opt in, no idea why he said that.
Nobody has nothing to hide, think passwords, PIN codes, creditcard numbers, etc.
Those count as things you want to hide.

ive erased my fb, this used old laptop I use now (just for browsing) uses w10 (horrible)and its getting downgraded back to w7. I plan to install linux on another spare 2nd pc and learn that in parallel as it will be too frustrating for me to make a cold turkey switch.

Good to know you erased Fakebook, I wonder how many people still using it (excluding WhatsApp and Instrakilogram)

Depends on the distribution, most of the popular distributions are pretty easy to get used to these days.
Distributions using KDE and Cinnamon would be the easiest to start with, but depending on how old your laptop is, it could be a bit slow.

besides this I see many videos of people showing issues with the software but im glad the option is there and in time will get better so really psyched .  I read many posts here to learn about the PP as well. all in all, I think its wonderful.
I wish I could convert my brother but hes mac fanboy ostrich with head in the sand, which also happned by accident because of his buggy HTC windows mobile.

Linux on smartphones is still pretty much alpha quality at best.
But don't be confused here, same goes for your brother, Pinephone and Librem 5 are technically no smartphones, they're rather laptops in your pocket with phone functionality.
Don't expect it to be usable as a smartphone, so many of the smartphone apps you're taking as standard use will probably never come to Linux phones, you'll instead be using actual PC apps on it.

On the other hand, this is how freedom feels like, the ability to do whatever you want with it, fix broken things by yourself, just all the things that makes PC fun to use (Linux, BSD), or used to fun to use (Windows XP or older).

stay safe and merry christmas

A little bit late, but same to you.

for me threat number 2 (internet giants) is exactly what my worries is about. I dont live in the US so less issues with 3 letter govt agencies. maybe in my country they have some but im less worried.

You're in for a very unpleasant surprise, but each country has its own 3 letter agency, except they might not be 3 letters, but 4 letters, or 2 letters, or 2~4 sinographs, or simply the Chinese government.
Make no mistake, American 3 letter agencies (Clowns In America, No Such Agency, and FBI, and also agencies that exist inside these agencies), as well as the CCP (which is the government that actually sits on top of all of them through their American proxies) have a worldwide reach.
But as long as you're just a regular, anonymous citizen like everyone else, there's not much you have to worry about.
If you're not Chinese, saying things like "down with the CCP" is also fine by the way.

I dont plan to have important data like sensitive pictures or documentss on it so not worried for hackers. PP is looking really nice with Plasma

Not today, but how about the future?

As for Plasma Mobile, you might want to wait with that one.
It's the most nice looking and 2nd most phone-like interface (after Ubuntu Touch), but at the same time it's the most unusable of the 3.
So unless you plan on helping the KDE team with bug fixing, probably a better idea to wait until it becomes more usable.

I do need to learn how to flash different os and such. still doing research.

The software called Etcher and a micro SD card is all you need.