Category: Technology

Your phone knows more about you than even your best friend does. It knows where you slept last night, what apps you open first thing in the morning, and how long you scroll before going to bed. So it’s reasonable to ask: who else sees that information? That is essentially what Android privacy is about – deciding who gets a look at your daily life and who doesn’t.

The good thing is that Android provides you with actual tools for drawing that line. You just need to know where they are and how to use them. Let’s go over it step by step.

Why Android Privacy Settings Deserve a Closer Look

Most people will install an app, tap ‘Allow’ a few times, and then go about their business. That’s completely reasonable since no one wants to go through an Android permissions list before checking the weather. However, this behavior accumulates.

Many applications ask for permissions that have nothing to do with their main function. This alone doesn’t prove bad intent. What it does mean is that your data is being stored out there, with companies you’ve never heard of.

By regularly checking your Android privacy settings, you change the situation. It’s a small habit that brings big rewards because it puts you back in control of your decisions instead of leaving them to default settings.

Get to Know the Android Privacy Dashboard

That’s where the privacy dashboard comes in. Android now includes a privacy dashboard as part of the system, and it’s one of the most useful features, yet most people never use it. You can locate it in Settings > Privacy (or Security & Privacy on certain phones).

The dashboard clearly shows which services accessed your camera, microphone, or location over the previous day in an easy-to-understand way. When you tap on any item, you will see the exact timestamp. For example, if a flashlight app sent in a location update at 2 a.m., that would be something to note.

To put this dashboard to work:

1. Go to Settings and look for Privacy dashboard.
2. Check the camera, microphone, and location icons to see how many applications have accessed them recently.
3. To see the full list of programs, tap Permissions and check the exact time they accessed it.
4. If something looks wrong, adjust the access as needed.

This one screen provides you with a quick and genuine overview of your Android privacy at any particular moment.

App Permission Management: Where to Start

After you check the dashboard, go to the Permission manager (Settings > Privacy). This screen organizes items so you can see every app with camera access, contacts access, and so on.

You don’t need to give your contacts to a calculator either, and a photo editor usually doesn’t need your exact location all the time. Because of this, it only takes a little effort to keep your Android privacy under control by going through this list once a month.

For programs you use only occasionally, choose ‘Allow only while using the app’ rather than ‘Allow all the time’. That single change alone helps to reduce a great deal of unnecessary background data usage.

Watching Background Data Usage and Network Activity Monitoring

The second part involves what happens after you grant access – that is, what it actually does with your connection. It is in this regard that network activity monitoring proves useful.

If you navigate to Settings > Network & Internet > Data usage, you will see the various services that are working in the background, syncing, refreshing, or sending data even when you’re not looking at your screen. You can significantly reduce this kind of unnoticed data usage by restricting background consumption, which can also help conserve battery life.

Control What Your Network Traffic Reveals

The network traffic you generate can reveal a great deal about you – such as your general location, your internet service provider, and the patterns of when and how you connect. Third parties can put this information together over time.

One way to regain some of that control is to set up a proxy so the IP address and other network information apps see aren’t directly linked to you. If you’d like to try this approach, you can buy proxies and choose which network details are shared and which remain private. This is a practical additional measure alongside the permission changes you’ve already implemented, not a substitute.

Advertising ID Tracking, Device Fingerprinting, and Other Quiet Trackers

For example, advertising ID tracking uses a unique identifier associated with your device to build a profile of your interests. You can reset it or opt out by going to Settings > Privacy > Ads.

There’s also device fingerprinting – a method of identifying your phone by combining a number of small details such as screen size, the fonts installed, and the battery level, rather than using a single ID.

Because these processes use third-party SDK tracking, the tracking code isn’t created by the app’s own developer but is included by an ad or analytics provider. Another concept, app behavior analysis, refers to how some of these SDKs examine your usage patterns in the background to predict what you might do next.

A Simple Routine for Ongoing Checks

Android privacy can never be solved in a single go. It’s more comparable to keeping things in order. By establishing a simple routine, you can keep everything in check without it becoming a chore. For example:

Frequency	What to check
Weekly	Privacy dashboard for recent camera/mic/location access
Monthly	Permission manager
Monthly	Background data usage for rarely-used services
Every few months	Advertising ID reset, usage access permission list

None of these steps take more than a few minutes, and together they build a habit that keeps your information mostly in your own hands. If you’re just getting started, don’t try to do everything at once – pick one section from this guide, work through it today, and come back for the rest next week. Your Android privacy setup will get stronger with each pass, not because you did it perfectly, but because you kept checking in.

What you need to know

• Google has officially removed the Pixel Tablet from its online store after listing it as out of stock.
• The Pixel Tablet has also disappeared from major retailers including Amazon and Best Buy.
• Google reportedly canceled plans for second- and third-generation Pixel Tablets due to sales and profitability concerns.
• Existing Pixel Tablet owners will continue receiving software updates until mid-2028 despite the lineup’s end.

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The Pixel Tablet is finally dead. Like, properly dead dead.

Google launched the Pixel Tablet back in 2023 as a hybrid device that could work as both a traditional Android tablet and a smart home display when placed on its charging dock. At $499, the Pixel Tablet offered a pretty interesting combination on paper, but reactions to the device were mixed after launch.

Google reportedly had plans for a second-generation Pixel Tablet in 2025 and even a third-generation model in 2027. But amid poor sales and profitability concerns, the company reportedly pulled the plug on those plans back in 2024. Despite that, the original Pixel Tablet remained available through the Google Store and retailers for quite some time. Until now.

As spotted by Jetstream, Google has officially removed the Pixel Tablet from the Google Store. The tablet was listed as “out of stock” until a few days ago, but the product page has now been removed altogether, effectively confirming that Google is done selling the device. The Pixel Tablet has also disappeared from retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy.

When playing a game on a computer, we have the luxury of being able to see exactly what actions we are making. But that can become a problem when we scale the game down to something we have to play on our phone. If the game we are playing is a card game, we will have the issue of us accidentally covering the screen when trying to press certain buttons. And worse still, if the on-screen instructions are too small, it becomes easy to hit a button by accident and move to another part of the game that we did not intend to go to. Therefore, before jumping to the conclusion that we need another application to play a certain game, let us see if we cannot find a control scheme that suits us better by using our phone. A simple suggestion of putting a red seven on a black eight will not change the way we play the game.

If we want to play a game of Klondike solitaire, all we have to do is open up PlaySolitaire in our browser and begin playing. We do not have to download anything, and the game offers some very helpful functions such as Draw 1 and Draw 3 and the Hint and Undo buttons. With this being the case, if we decide to play a different kind of solitaire that we have installed, we will want to make sure that we are comparing apples to apples, not apples to oranges.

Start with the same game

Solitaire is a family of games, not a single one. To make this comparison, choose Klondike – it’s got seven columns, a stock of unseen cards, and four foundations being built by suit from Ace to King. Spider or FreeCell would be a different comparison, telling you more about style preferences than browsers and apps.

Make sure their stock settings match too. Draw 1 exposes one card at a time versus Draw 3 which flips three cards and lets you play the top. The second setting allows you to access different cards. If a new application feels significantly harder, check to see if this is the case before blaming control schemes or feeling like the deals are stacked against you (pun intended). Score and timer settings should be compared where they exist.

Give the small screen a proper test

Do not judge a

by the initial deal when you only have a few cards in each column. Play until you get a longer sequence and see if you can still read the exposed ranks and choose the card you want. Try moving an entire valid sequence as well as a single card. A pretty layout in a screenshot goes away when several columns grow.

Try holding your phone in the way you normally do. Can you reach the stock without changing how you’re holding it? Are undo and new game far enough apart that you won’t mix them up? If rotating the phone changes the layout, see which orientation makes the cards easier to read. These are all personal usability things, not an argument that every app is better than any website, or the other way around.

Separate a bad move from a bad touch

Suppose that you intend to lay a red seven on a black eight, but grab the adjacent card instead. That is an input mistake, not a strategic one. Return to the browser example’s Undo control, reverse the move if one occurred, and try again deliberately. Repetition of selection errors is a valid reason to compare another layout.

A legal move that turns out to be unhelpful is a different case. Undo can get you through to checking alternative moves, while Hint can spot an available move when you have failed to spot a move. Neither is a guarantee of a winning deal. You should double-check what similarly-named controls in an app you are trying do, and whether their use has any restrictions.

Check what an installation would add

An app may be worth it if there is a key feature you want, such as a preferred layout or a clearly stated availability of an offline mode. You should read about the listing and payment terms rather than expect everything you have seen on a browser to install without ads or grant extra permissions on top. A free download and a universally free experience do not state the same conditions.

Reviewing requested permissions in the same practical manner is a matter of your choosing. On Android, open Settings and discover the game under Apps, examining Permissions; the exact path can vary per device. Ordinary card moves do not explain permissions for your contacts or microphone. If a permission request does not seem related, look up what the developer stated before letting the app do that. Using a browser does not let privacy concerns vanish, either.

Choose for the situation where you will play

For regular online play, having a bookmark is as simple as choosing a way back to the game. Chrome on Android also has the ability to create home screen shortcuts from a menu. Wording of items in a menu can change per versions, and a shortcut that opens a website is not a certainty that the game will work offline.

If you want solitaire but a flight or poor reception is expected, verify offline support ahead of time. Opening the game and new deal with WiFi and mobile data off is preferable than trusting something that happened to open. Instead, you should choose the version that lets cards be most readable, and the move most easy to make. The useful comparison is the next round you have actually played, not the number of features listed on a download page.

What you need to know

• Samsung highlights achievements by its Galaxy Z8 series in 2026, stating the Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra sales are topping the Fold 7 by 30% with “high demand.”
• While the Flip 8’s sales are far lower, Samsung states the clamshell is succeeding as an entry into foldables, and it’s also successfully getting users to switch to the Korean OEM.
• The company also highlights hardware changes in the series, such as the Fold 8’s light 201g weight, the bigger 5,600mAh battery in the Fold 8 Ultra, and more.

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Samsung is highlighting the achievements of the Galaxy Z8 series, as it notes higher sales and the “highest share of buyers” for one phone.

Today (Sept 8), Samsung published its official insights into the Galaxy Z8 series following the trio’s launch this summer. Among its shopper analytics, Samsung states consumers have enjoyed the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s “thin and light design for greater portability.” Alternatively, consumers preferred the Fold 8 Ultra for its larger display. It seems the most common feedback Samsung received was that the Fold 8 Ultra’s display reduced the need to carry a tablet.

A unified conversion reporting platform is a system that combines advertising with CRM and website-event data. Marketers extract the data and identify which campaigns generate an ROI worth continuing with. The goal is revenue rather than clicks or leads. Specifically, conversion solutions should excel at:

 

• Server-side tracking
• Multi-touch attribution
• Data normalization
• Connecting marketing activity with commercial outcomes

 

Those principles are essential to iGaming, where driving customer engagement and having a 360-degree view of players is more than simply seeing how many people signed up and deposited money today.

 

Read on for a comprehensive guide covering unified conversion solutions for iGaming and the conversion and attribution reporting platforms that turn the data into actions.

 

What Are Unified Conversion Solutions for iGaming?

Essentially, a unified conversion solution is a measurement and reporting system that connects player acquisition data with actions and financial outcomes generated after acquisition. The goal for iGaming companies is that player acquisition actually works, and that the ROI from player acquisition actually stays in positive numbers.

 

What’s slightly different for iGaming companies is that the data doesn’t necessarily look at app installs and online registrations. The solutions create a consistent view of the entire player journey. That journey could be from paid social media advertising or a search campaign to the native app before a player registers and eventually deposits and places a wager.  

 

The principal objective is to determine which channel, affiliate, campaign, creative, and audience produced verified players who deposited, wagered, returned, and ultimately generated sustainable gambling yield.

 

The Best Unified Conversion and Attribution Reporting Platforms for iGaming Companies

An iGaming conversion funnel normally contains several separate and specific events. Below are the top three unified conversion and attribution reporting platforms that map and track the iGaming conversion funnel better than others on the market.

AppsFlyer

AppsFlyer is the closest broad independent measurement layer with the capability to connect acquisition, app activity, web behaviour, cost and revenue data. The current Measurement Suite is specifically positioned around unifying:

 

• Attribution
• Incrementality
• Revenue
• Optimization signals across mobile, web, connected TV, PC and console

 

For iGaming operators, AppsFlyer can help attribute app installs, re-engagements, and in-app events to media sources and campaigns to see which are driving the most ROI. The event structure can be configured around operator-specific milestones such as:

 

• Account registration
• KYC initiation and approval
• First deposit
• Qualifying first deposit
• First wager
• Repeat deposit
• Casino or sportsbook activity
• Reactivation
• Revenue or value events

 

For cross-platform measurement, the platform really excels. In 2026, the platform expanded its cross-platform capabilities through its Web Attribution product. The product connects website visits and web events to marketing sources, providing raw data for BI teams and displaying web data in cross-platform reporting.

 

AppsFlyer is also testing user-based cross-platform attribution, a model that uses a persistent Customer User ID to link events across platforms and avoids treating each device as an entirely separate player. For an iGaming operator, that could help connect a desktop registration, mobile-app installation, and subsequent app deposit to one player journey.

 

Protect360, the platform’s fraud protection feature, combines real-time blocking with post-attribution fraud detection. It can detect fake installs, bots, click and install fraud, and suspicious in-app events at device, publisher, and media-source level. For iGaming operators struggling with false registrations or manipulated attribution, it’s the perfect feature.

 

AppsFlyer is strongest for app-led or omnichannel operators that need an independent acquisition-measurement layer across mobile and web.

Optimove

Optimove is more of a player-data, CRM, and lifecycle marketing platform. It isn’t a direct replacement for a mobile measurement partner.

 

For iGaming, the solution takes historical player information and real-time web and app activity to provide data for campaign engagement, gameplay, and predictive analytics. It’s perfect for a single player view used for segmentation, campaign orchestration, and personalized experiences.

 

Optimove’s identity-resolution approach is relevant to fragmented iGaming journeys. It’s designed to link identifiers, devices, transactions, wagers, behaviour, and consent data into one player profile. 

 

Operators can take that data to recognize that an anonymous mobile-web visitor, later desktop registrant, and logged-in app player are the same person. That unified profile supports constantly updated segments based on lifecycle stage, engagement, wagering behaviour and predicted value.

 

We will say that Optimove is strongest after the player has entered the operator’s known-player environment. Operators can use behavioral triggers and journey orchestration to:

 

 

Optimove also supports multi-touch campaign measurement through its Streams functionality. It doesn’t attribute all credit to the final CRM message, but the model examines how different campaigns within a player journey contribute to the final outcome.

 

Optimove is good for known-player marketing, retention, reactivation, and cross-sell and CRM incrementality, but we will say that its limitation is that it’s not an independent paid-media or app-install attribution platform. It’s better for after acquisition.

Affilka

Affilka is the most directly linked iGaming-specific platform of the three, but the issue is that its scope is limited to affiliate management. It’s specifically designed for online casino and sports-betting affiliate programs, providing tools for managing partners, referral campaigns, player activity, commissions, payments, and reporting.

 

Affilka tracks players referred through affiliate links and associates subsequent actions with the appropriate partner and campaign. Operators can then calculate payments based on the agreed commercial model.

 

Affilka also supports CPA, revenue-share and hybrid commission arrangements. These structures can be based on FTDs, NGR, deposit values, wagering and other player-performance criteria. Essentially, it directly calculates how much an operator owes its partners.

 

Affilka’s integration model allows operators to send registrations and player activities from their iGaming systems through APIs. Its Reports API makes statistics available to operators and partners without depending solely on the platform interface or periodic CSV exports. Reports can also be supplied in formats including CSV, JSON, and XML.

 

Affilka is best for iGaming operators whose acquisition strategy depends heavily on affiliates and who need transparent tracking, flexible commission rules, partner payments and detailed player reporting.

 

AppsFlyer is the best overall, providing more of an in-depth exploration into player acquisition and lifetime value across platforms. Unified conversion solutions for iGaming platforms should provide a reward journey that makes sense for every player and platform, with the overall goal to improve player experiences. 

Pros

• Android 17 with 7 years of updates
• Higher base storage
• Tensor G6 is more efficient
• Pixelsnap support opens up compatibility with an insurmountable number of accessories
• Improved triple camera setup with better zoom
• Bigger battery with faster charging speeds

Cons

• Costs $100 more and misses out on HiLight
• Cameras not too different from Pixel 10
• Display isn’t an LTPO OLED (60-120Hz)
• Wi-Fi 6E

Pros

• Half the price of the Pixel 11
• Also promises 7 years of updates
• Shares many of the Pixel 11’s best features like Pixelsnap, IP68 water and dust-proofing, and many overlapping AI features
• Dual cameras do a fantastic job
• Wi-Fi 7

Cons

• The Tensor G4 chipset is quite old
• Lower base storage
• Slow battery and charging specs
• Display isn’t as bright as Pixel 11
• Lacks magnetic Qi2, or Pixelsnap as Google calls it

The Pixel 11 brings several upgrades over the Pixel 9, but in a strange turn of events, it also brings quite a few downgrades. One thing is for sure, though: the latest Google Tensor G6 chipset is the clear winner in terms of performance and raw power.

Most importantly, if you were to step into the store to buy both phones right now, the Pixel 9 would only cost you about $549, whereas the Pixel 11 starts at $899. The price gap is significant, leading us to question which phone is better. Two generations later, and it’s still unclear to Pixel 9 owners whether the Pixel 11 is worth upgrading to. I’m here to unearth the answer to this question.

Google Pixel 11 vs. Pixel 9: By the numbers

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Google Pixel 11 family specs

Category	Google Pixel 11	Google Pixel 9
Storage	256GB, 512GB	128GB, 256GB
RAM	12GB	12GB
Display	6.3-inch 120Hz LTPO AMOLED, 3000 nits peak, Gorilla Glass Victus 2	6.3-inch 120Hz LTPO AMOLED, 2700 nits peak, Gorilla Glass Victus 2
Processor	Google Tensor G6	Google Tensor G4
Rear Cameras	48MP wide 13MP ultrawide 10.8MP 5x telephoto	50MP wide 48MP ultrawide
Selfie camera	10.5MP	10.5MP
Battery	4,985mAh, 30W wired, 25W wireless (Qi2)	4,700mAh, 27W wired, 15W/12W wireless (Pixel Stand/Qi)
Connectivity	5G, Bluetooth 6, Wi-Fi 6E, eSIM-only (US)	5G, Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 7, nano+eSIM,
Dimensions & weight	152.8 x 72 x 8.6mm 197g	152.8 x 72 x 8.5mm 198g
Colors	Frost, Pistachio, Hibiscus, Obsidian	Obsidian, Porcelain, Winter

Google Pixel 11 vs. Pixel 9: Cold hard specs

Looks-wise, the Google Pixel 11 and Pixel 9 are very similar, but the former’s brighter colorways and all-glass camera bar stand out distinctly. Apart from that, both Google Pixel phones are the same size, each with a 6.3-inch HDR10+ OLED display. Neither Pixel has an LTPO panel, so the variable refresh rate can’t drop below 60Hz.

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Disappointingly, the Pixel 11 misses out on HiLight, a standout feature of the Pixel 11 Pro and Pro XL. It also comes with Wi-Fi 6E instead of Wi-Fi 7, which is found on the Pixel 9. Google did upgrade to Bluetooth 6 on the Pixel 11, thankfully, so the Pixel 9’s Bluetooth 5.3 is quite outdated by comparison.

Battery and charging are significantly better on the Pixel 11, jumping from the Pixel 9’s 4,700mAh cell, 27W wired charging, and 15W wireless charging speeds to a 4,985mAh battery, 30W wired charging, and 25W wireless charging. Pixelsnap (or magnetic Qi2) is one of the best features of the Pixel 11, something the Pixel 9 lacks entirely.