Question It is safe to use your main phone for travelling?

[preguntonontrack]

Hello, my travelling phone died and i always had a mid range travelling phone. I usually get a sim card on the country i go or use hotels, airbnb and public wifis. I use that traveling phone with a gmail travelling account. Recently, someone pointed out that i shouldnt worry about using sim cards in my main phone and that airbnb wifi were "safe. so i got two main questions:

How safe is to use sim from other countries in your phone to get a local number? (They are usually way cheaper than roaming)

I know using public WiFis is not secure at all but should i worry by using my airbnb wifi or local businesses wifi?

I dont know if i should risk my main gmail account and phone while travelling. Android phone by the way.

 

[hotaru.hino]

As long as you don't tie any of your accounts to the local phone number, you won't really have a problem.

I'd also treat any WiFi from unknowns as suspect, regardless if it has protection on it or not.

 

[bill001g]

Wifi is only the tiny part of the path your gmail traffic takes between the phone and the hotel equipment. It still need to travel over the internet to the server.
I am almost 100% sure gmail is encrypted end to end so nobody can intercept the data anyplace in the path.

Most other traffic from your phone is also encrypted again because the internet itself is as risky as any wifi.

The only time you would worry about wifi is if you were doing say file sharing between devices or using some other app that assumes it is running on a local network that is secure and does not need added security. Generally not something people do on a phone device.

I can't say what risk a sim card is mostly that is contacts etc that are stored on the sim. There likely is other storage on the phone that is shared between sims so you likely have to be careful with stuff like web history and downloaded app data.

 

[preguntonontrack]

Wifi is only the tiny part of the path your gmail traffic takes between the phone and the hotel equipment. It still need to travel over the internet to the server.
I am almost 100% sure gmail is encrypted end to end so nobody can intercept the data anyplace in the path.

Most other traffic from your phone is also encrypted again because the internet itself is as risky as any wifi.

The only time you would worry about wifi is if you were doing say file sharing between devices or using some other app that assumes it is running on a local network that is secure and does not need added security. Generally not something people do on a phone device.

I can't say what risk a sim card is mostly that is contacts etc that are stored on the sim. There likely is other storage on the phone that is shared between sims so you likely have to be careful with stuff like web history and downloaded app data.

I get you and i doubt any foreign carrier will try to put a fast one on someone.