I still haven't found a way to make my parents use Signal, so either I stop communicating with them (which is tempting sometimes) or have this compromise
While you are technically correct, most people vastly overestimate the cost of self hosting a (matrix) server. Mine costs like 5€ a month with domain and we use it as a group of 5 people.
It's a virtual server, so not really a hardware server, but no container either. It's when multiple servers share RAM, CPU and other things on a big cluster, but each behaves like a normal server.
The 5€ in this case even includes the domain. So it's more like 3-4€.
Can you get that to work with all messages or only a few groups you have to setup manually? Was looking into it before I started self hosting but didn't find it desirable at that time and just resorted to do what anon did.
I just don't communicate with anyone that insists on using products that have user agreements I don't agree with. The amount of bullshit user agreements are getting overloaded with makes them dangerous legal contracts that can have serious implications on your rights. Just ask the family whose daughter died at a Disney theme park and when they tried to sue Disney tried to force them to arbitration because their son had tried Disney+
Well evidently you're not in charge of anyone's healthcare: when you have a parent that has to be taken care of, you have to compromise if they're not able to adapt
Well life is all about what morals you decide to follow, I've evidently chosen the one where I'm handing over a small amount of privacy to be less of a pain in the ass to the people around me.
And the main reasons are:
elder parents I need to take care of
people won't listen to you if you are unreasonable with them
The current state of phones is WILD. Two bad options yet most everyone (including me) still use them. I actually like to use it as evidence that most people would be fine if plopped in front of Ubuntu or Debian+Gnome/KDE
That's why my current phone is a Pixel running GrapheneOS. I still hate Android, but at least I don't have to run Play services on my main profile. I do run it on a separate profile though for a couple services that need it.
I really just want Linux with decent support for phone features (MMS/calls/data on any carrier, with full wake from sleep reliability), decent battery life, and decent audio quality. Unfortunately, PinePhone doesn't seem to handle those things properly (maybe it does MMS now?), so I stick w/ my GrapheneOS phone, which at least cuts out most of the crap from Android.
It's honestly such a pain in the ass to say no to everything Google shoves down your throat these days. And even after you say no it will remind you every so many days just in case you changed your mind after the 15th time you said no. Android used to be the "cool" phone but nowadays if you don't install your own custom ROM it's basically just Apple with extra steps
I wouldn't say that's a recent development. Back before I knew anything about privacy and security, I switched from android to apple because I was tired of all the bloat. My 8 gb phone had virtually no space for photos or apps I wanted after 5 years of updates for non deletable apps. That was almost 10 years ago.
Every DRM related app afterwards: WARNING! This phone is running insecure software and is incompatible with this service.
And before you tell me just to not use Netflix on my phone, I'm talking about a government app that lets me authenticate and without which I can't read official messages or login to any government or banking service.
So if I want to survive as an adult Dane, I pretty much have to figure out which company I would like to get sodomized by, and which is less of a clingy little bitch afterwards.
In the EU, I'm not headphones with jacks will be allowed to be sold (Arstechnica).
Laptops get until April 2026 to comply, but most other things—phones, tablets, handheld gaming devices, computer accessories, and wireless headphones—will have to be powered by USB-C to be sold inside the EU from now on.
I think it's only a matter of time until phones with dual or triple USB-C start emerging.
I don't see how this has anything to do with blocking headphones w/ jacks, this only says wireless headphones have to be powered by USB-C. I've had wireless headphones that also have a jack so you can still use the headphones if the battery dies, and I also have headphones without power whatsoever and only work with a jack.
> buy fairphone because I hate constructors adding their bloatware to my phone.
> Boot it up, insert SIM.
> Next reboot, my carrier tries to get me to install their shit with a permanent notification (thankfully I can hide it, just have to do it every reboot).
I thought that could only happen in third world countries like the US but unfortunately this is in France. I'll reboot my phone to show you.
Edit : well, apparently that's related to connecting to the carrier's network because right now I'm in another country and it doesn't happen
I can show you a screenshot of the shitty app it installed the first time that happened, that it appears I can't uninstall without rooting the phone. Keep in mind I bought the phone directly from Fairphone so it was not "SIM locked" to my carrier :
I looked again for more info about that app and it appears they are pulling that shit with the phone constructor's consent. After all they are the main mobile phone carrier in France by a huge margin, which probably helps for these kinds of deals. I would have liked to have been consulted too though...
That app in the picture was installed automatically? 😮 Abhorrent and totally scary. Does that mean they can install whatever they like on your phone any time they want? Do you know how this works?
Same, but I spent $350 or so on the latest model. I suppose I'm giving Google some money indirectly, but I'm also probably reducing ewaste, so I think it balances out.
I see. In that case his push notifications will not work for apps that rely on Google play services for them. A few other things off the top of my head:
A-GPS SUPL must be changed
Captive portal must be changed
DNS, NTP servers must be changed
Depending on how much you trust Chromium system webview should be avoided
It is not trivial to remove Google from Android, even AOSP
Apps that don't rely on google push notifications usually come with a workaround that shows a permanent fake notification; which then allows normal push functionality. If that doesnt bother you it works perfectly fine without play services.
What makes me keep it myself is the necessity for certain play store exclusive apps such as banking and the one for my local public transit. Can't do without those
Yep, those are all issues you run into. Without microg you lose quite a bit of functionality. Personally, I'm content with sending less data to Google, so I leave some things alone.
I'd love to degoogle and debullshit my phone but then I need the back app... I'd like to tap with my phone to pay, and that won't be allowed because we can have nice things.
I'd like to use a host of other apps I won't be able to use anymore...
Any solution that allows me to just use a nice phone with all the features?
I did this when I was in Japan. I didn't want to jump through all their ridiculous hoops to get tap to pay to work, so I just threw my NFC debit card into my case and called it a day. Worked 90% of the time.
Your payment processor and creditor are probably also selling your info btw. If you use a service like Google Pay or Samsung Pay there's a layer of anonymity between you and the merchant at a minimum. Google has an incentive to monetize your data, but they for sure don't sell it. Companies pay them to advertise to certain demographics and geozones, but parting with that info would make them obsolete in a heartbeat. That's the strategy nowadays at least. Hoard the data and tightly control access to it. Last time I checked(it's been a few years), only like 8 people at Google even had the ability to decrypt user data with master keys to comply with lawful orders given by courts, and even then they had a good track record of denying subpoenas due to an unreasonable request for mass amounts of user data outside of specific timelines or even data on people who were within a geofence at the time of a crime. It's why there moving your maps timeline away from their severs and onto the device. I'm all for giving companies some shit where they deserve it, but in my opinion this kind of stuff gets blown out of proportion and parroted everywhere without much explanation.
I know too much about how ad tech works. I've written code to de-anonymize all the data Google leaks through bid requests. Not individual credit card transactions, but enough to make me want nothing to do with them.
Ignorance is bliss as far as credit card companies go, I tell myself they sell anonymized transactions as csv dumps that aren't tied to cookies etc. It's probably worse than that. But if I really want to be anonymous, I pay cash.
I still use PlayService but their native ads and tracker are blocked via Blocker apps through package manager mode.
For further more ads/tracker block i used adaway & adguard as main & sub with many custom filter that i add to it, so it can protect the whole phone even the sneakiest ads/tracker.
It was hyperbole... but only just. Even most of my audio calls happen over Whatsapp these days. Certainly 100% of the texting.
I know this is very region-dependent, so mileage may vary, but I did find it funny that it was acknowledged here despite the deliberately convoluted deep scrubbing depicted on the rest of the post. It's... less funny now that you made me explain it, though.
Oh, no, not at all. It's just that socially in some territories Whatsapp is incredibly ingrained. Even if you cut off every Meta app people will expect you to be reachable that way by default, so you kinda can't avoid it. I don't know if that was the point of the post, but it's the best bit, at least if you're in that kind of place.
I toyed with a Pinephone last year. Most of my complains were toward the hardware, although I didn't try every basic functionality either.
It took me a while to setup the OS because I wanted to try a few different distros and screwed up a few times here and there. Arch was the most stable of those I tried. It also comes with a built-in right to brag about using Arch, which is cool. I think that using a more recent and higher grade phone could make it usable in the day to day, as the pinephone is more of a development tool. Otherwise, give it a few more years.
Yup, I hoped that last year would've been long enough, but it's still not in a state that I could daily drive it, so I ended up with a Pixel 8 w/ GrapheneOS. I'm definitely watching development, and if I find a good phone/OS match that allows me to daily drive something like PostmarketOS or Arch on a phone, I'll probably switch.
It's a cool project, and I sincerely hope Linux gets to a place where I can daily drive it on my phone. I already use it on my laptop and desktop (openSUSE Tumbleweed, after several years of Arch), and I would love to also use it on my phone. I'll even help port/develop apps for it as well, but it needs to meet my basic needs first (so MMS, all day battery life, good audio, reliable calls/texts). In the meantime, I'm trying to switch to a VOIP service instead, which simultaneously makes my need for all-day battery less important (can answer calls on my computer), complicates basic phone features (not sure how VOIP call device wake-up works on Linux), and eliminates much of the issues w/ carriers (just need a data plan, and most calls will be over wifi).
@[email protected]
Sorry I can't figure out how to reply in thread, made an account just to tell you you can get a nøglebrik/kodeviser for MitId. It's a fully offline TOTP thing that you can use instead of the app. I never even installed the app :)
My point is that you're buying a branded device specifically because it has ease of use features but then you're replacing them all with custom services that you now need to upkeep manually and tend like a garden. It's over complicating the purchase.
A perfect interpretation by somebody staring out over the walls of their own garden. "Pah, look at those peasants out there, putting effort into their freedom. How stupid can you be?"
What do you mean? Just buy a phone that doesn't include tracking features if you want a phone without tracking features...? Like why buy a Mazda CX5 if you are going to modify it and replace the engine and body to turn it into a Honda Civic?
I get why people would want to privacy proof their phone but it's going overboard to basically undo everything that makes a flagship device a flagship device.
Ah yes, the market will surely regulate itself. So what phone would you recommend if I want flagship hardware (nice screen, fast processor etc.) but don't want to be tracked? You make it sound like I'd have a bunch of phones to choose from.
That's a false equivalency. You're not replacing the engine but replacing what controls the engine. No-one is ripping out the hardware of their phones in this picture. It's the software being replaced.
Privacy conscious people buy flagship phones for the hardware. The screens are better, the performance is better, they have more connections and whatnot (some higher wifi version, some higher bluetooth version, etc.).
Just buy a phone that doesn’t include tracking features
Such as?
I've looked, and I can't find one. The best I found are:
PinePhone/Librem 5 - basic phone features don't work properly (crap battery life, can't use all carriers in the US, audio sucks)
FairPhone - not directly available in the US (can get from reseller)
alternative Android ROM GrapheneOS/LineageOS/Calyx/DivestOS
I went with a Google Pixel 8 w/ GrapheneOS. I don't have any of fancy AI features that Google advertises because they all rely on Google Play services (no thanks), but it works competently as a phone, has 7+ years of promised SW support, and gets a decent repair score (not perfect, but everything important seems serviceable).
I'm coincidentally looking at buying a newer car, and everything has spyware, so I'll definitely be ripping out whatever phone home devices they have. This means no remote start, probably no navigation (though navigation doesn't need to phone home), and a bunch of other modern features won't work. But I don't get the option to get one w/o it w/o getting an older car, so I guess that's what I need to do. So I plan to rip apart the car to remove the SIM or antennas, or at least remove their power.
I wish there were actual privacy-respecting options available, but I guess this is the world we live in now...
No one likes the option, but Tesla uniquely will let you opt out of all car <-> Tesla communications. Don't buy full self driving as I don't think that works opted out. Definitely don't subscribe to premium connectivity as opting out disables connectivity.
Is there a guarantee that works? As in, there's no way to locate my car if stolen? Because that's what I want.
If there's a way for Tesla to access my car remotely after opting out, there's a way for them to change the terms of the sale and require phoning home. I want technical guarantees, not promises backed by a mutable service agreement.
My panties just dropped
Edit: I’m not a girl, just a rust dev
then you likely need to wash them now, like right now
They already shattered when they dropped.
Nobody cheats on Pokemon Go... the horror!!
Does all that and still used WhatsApp lol
I still haven't found a way to make my parents use Signal, so either I stop communicating with them (which is tempting sometimes) or have this compromise
use matrix with the whatsapp bridge
Not everyone has the possibility to self-host
you can join public instances, and maybe even make them set it up for you.
While you are technically correct, most people vastly overestimate the cost of self hosting a (matrix) server. Mine costs like 5€ a month with domain and we use it as a group of 5 people.
Late to the party. So like this sever is just a VM or container in the cloud you're paying for?
It's a virtual server, so not really a hardware server, but no container either. It's when multiple servers share RAM, CPU and other things on a big cluster, but each behaves like a normal server. The 5€ in this case even includes the domain. So it's more like 3-4€.
Can you get that to work with all messages or only a few groups you have to setup manually? Was looking into it before I started self hosting but didn't find it desirable at that time and just resorted to do what anon did.
all messages. and it works really well!
I just don't communicate with anyone that insists on using products that have user agreements I don't agree with. The amount of bullshit user agreements are getting overloaded with makes them dangerous legal contracts that can have serious implications on your rights. Just ask the family whose daughter died at a Disney theme park and when they tried to sue Disney tried to force them to arbitration because their son had tried Disney+
Well evidently you're not in charge of anyone's healthcare: when you have a parent that has to be taken care of, you have to compromise if they're not able to adapt
I'd rather use SMS than sign my rights over to Meta. They can use that if they can use facebook or whatsapp.
You cannot attach medical prescriptions to SMS
Wow. In Canada you cannot get prescription renewals any other way
If they're serious about talking to you, they'll budge. Call their bluff.
Well life is all about what morals you decide to follow, I've evidently chosen the one where I'm handing over a small amount of privacy to be less of a pain in the ass to the people around me.
And the main reasons are:
I hate phones so much.
Thanks to the companies you cannot love the phones without accepting the company's every whim. So I don't love phones.
The current state of phones is WILD. Two bad options yet most everyone (including me) still use them. I actually like to use it as evidence that most people would be fine if plopped in front of Ubuntu or Debian+Gnome/KDE
That's why my current phone is a Pixel running GrapheneOS. I still hate Android, but at least I don't have to run Play services on my main profile. I do run it on a separate profile though for a couple services that need it.
I really just want Linux with decent support for phone features (MMS/calls/data on any carrier, with full wake from sleep reliability), decent battery life, and decent audio quality. Unfortunately, PinePhone doesn't seem to handle those things properly (maybe it does MMS now?), so I stick w/ my GrapheneOS phone, which at least cuts out most of the crap from Android.
Honestly I wish we just had dumb phones and went back to Palm Pilots. But there's so much stuff that makes a phone mandatory nowadays.
Nobody, nothing stopping you from buying a dumb phone and a dumb tablet. You can do it right now.
It's honestly such a pain in the ass to say no to everything Google shoves down your throat these days. And even after you say no it will remind you every so many days just in case you changed your mind after the 15th time you said no. Android used to be the "cool" phone but nowadays if you don't install your own custom ROM it's basically just Apple with extra steps
The number of services that have adopted dark patterns is too much.
It's no longer "No" with a checkmark that says "Don't ask me again" to only "Not now" with the implied consent that they can ask you again later.
Dropbox asks me every fucking time I use the browser.
NewRelic asks me every fucking day.
Amazon asks me every fucking order.
I wouldn't say that's a recent development. Back before I knew anything about privacy and security, I switched from android to apple because I was tired of all the bloat. My 8 gb phone had virtually no space for photos or apps I wanted after 5 years of updates for non deletable apps. That was almost 10 years ago.
Apple is way better to use than a bloated android lol, once you debloat/install custom ROM sure then you get some peace
Lack of availability
Some modern Samsung phones can't have their bootloaders unlocked.
Edit: I guess maybe they can, although the instructions for this seem kind of sketchy.
Oh, whoops, not all the way, no. Yeah, in that case, that's dumb as hell.
Surely nobody would lie on the internet
Likely because of apps that depend on GMSThey removed the services too. Yeah that seems pointless.Every DRM related app afterwards: WARNING! This phone is running insecure software and is incompatible with this service.
And before you tell me just to not use Netflix on my phone, I'm talking about a government app that lets me authenticate and without which I can't read official messages or login to any government or banking service.
So if I want to survive as an adult Dane, I pretty much have to figure out which company I would like to get sodomized by, and which is less of a clingy little bitch afterwards.
Oooooor have a secondary cheap absolute trash phone that is ONLY for those shitty government auth tools. Not ideal but gives you some control again
What trash-ass country requires you to maintain a proprietary operating system and device to access government services?
They referred to themselves as a Dane, which is somebody who lives in Denmark. So the country in question is likely Denmark.
Oh. That makes sense. My brain must have passed it over thinking it was a typo (of course they're not a dog of a specific breed)
Fake: Anon can do any of this
Gay: Bought a samsung phone
P.S the kids have been raving about this phone just reduces all those steps to "buy phone".
No headphone jack... So close!
Making those harder and harder to find it seems. For me it was the extra charge to ship it.
In the EU, I'm not headphones with jacks will be allowed to be sold (Arstechnica).
I think it's only a matter of time until phones with dual or triple USB-C start emerging.
I don't see how this has anything to do with blocking headphones w/ jacks, this only says wireless headphones have to be powered by USB-C. I've had wireless headphones that also have a jack so you can still use the headphones if the battery dies, and I also have headphones without power whatsoever and only work with a jack.
I'm surprised those aren't around yet
The key part is that you can charge and listen at the same time. Two USB-C ports would be fine IMO, but no, fuck me, you get one port.
Dang, can't do those 80s cosplays justice without a headphone jack
> buy fairphone because I hate constructors adding their bloatware to my phone.
> Boot it up, insert SIM.
> Next reboot, my carrier tries to get me to install their shit with a permanent notification (thankfully I can hide it, just have to do it every reboot).
How the fuck is that even legal
Holy shit, what? Do you have any examples of this?
That's in the specs apparently
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_integrated_circuit_card
Is this some US thing? What do you mean? I've never seen this.
I thought that could only happen in third world countries like the US but unfortunately this is in France. I'll reboot my phone to show you.
Edit : well, apparently that's related to connecting to the carrier's network because right now I'm in another country and it doesn't happen
I can show you a screenshot of the shitty app it installed the first time that happened, that it appears I can't uninstall without rooting the phone. Keep in mind I bought the phone directly from Fairphone so it was not "SIM locked" to my carrier :
I looked again for more info about that app and it appears they are pulling that shit with the phone constructor's consent. After all they are the main mobile phone carrier in France by a huge margin, which probably helps for these kinds of deals. I would have liked to have been consulted too though...
That app in the picture was installed automatically? 😮 Abhorrent and totally scary. Does that mean they can install whatever they like on your phone any time they want? Do you know how this works?
Basically through a notification saying I need to setup the voicemail iirc
The wonders of a device that doesnt support graphene os. Must suck
As a graphene user
You still have to fork out a grand or more to google more or less directly
I spent just over $100 on a second hand one.
Same, but I spent $350 or so on the latest model. I suppose I'm giving Google some money indirectly, but I'm also probably reducing ewaste, so I think it balances out.
Still money in Google's pocket
Increasing the demand for pixels, regardless of state
They would sit in a desk drawer otherwise.
They would be sold to others
How? How? 7a costs $350.
In your currency sure
I mean, getting that going was only mildly less involved to do. You still need to dick around with the bootloader and such.
I couldn't buy Balatro on it tho and had to pirate 😔
If I'm not mistaken, Anon's Phone will still communicate with Google services for location services and push notifications after this.
No, not after he removed everything with Google in the name, including Google Play services.
What anon doesn't realize it's that you don't need to root your phone for all this, you can just use adb or the universal android debloater.
— sent from a Samsung that's degoogled in the same exact way.
I see. In that case his push notifications will not work for apps that rely on Google play services for them. A few other things off the top of my head:
A-GPS SUPL must be changed Captive portal must be changed DNS, NTP servers must be changed Depending on how much you trust Chromium system webview should be avoided
It is not trivial to remove Google from Android, even AOSP
Apps that don't rely on google push notifications usually come with a workaround that shows a permanent fake notification; which then allows normal push functionality. If that doesnt bother you it works perfectly fine without play services.
What makes me keep it myself is the necessity for certain play store exclusive apps such as banking and the one for my local public transit. Can't do without those
Yep, those are all issues you run into. Without microg you lose quite a bit of functionality. Personally, I'm content with sending less data to Google, so I leave some things alone.
I'd love to degoogle and debullshit my phone but then I need the back app... I'd like to tap with my phone to pay, and that won't be allowed because we can have nice things.
I'd like to use a host of other apps I won't be able to use anymore...
Any solution that allows me to just use a nice phone with all the features?
put your credit card in the back of the case hah
best bet is get a phone with default android and delete default apps with ADB
I did this when I was in Japan. I didn't want to jump through all their ridiculous hoops to get tap to pay to work, so I just threw my NFC debit card into my case and called it a day. Worked 90% of the time.
It's funny how i never thought of this until i wrote the comment. Was Now i just gotta make an RFID blocking sheet that flips off the back lol
Pay with a credit card, you can tap those, and then you're not inviting one of the tech giants to monitor your purchases for no reason.
Just get a case with a card holder on the back, tap away
Your payment processor and creditor are probably also selling your info btw. If you use a service like Google Pay or Samsung Pay there's a layer of anonymity between you and the merchant at a minimum. Google has an incentive to monetize your data, but they for sure don't sell it. Companies pay them to advertise to certain demographics and geozones, but parting with that info would make them obsolete in a heartbeat. That's the strategy nowadays at least. Hoard the data and tightly control access to it. Last time I checked(it's been a few years), only like 8 people at Google even had the ability to decrypt user data with master keys to comply with lawful orders given by courts, and even then they had a good track record of denying subpoenas due to an unreasonable request for mass amounts of user data outside of specific timelines or even data on people who were within a geofence at the time of a crime. It's why there moving your maps timeline away from their severs and onto the device. I'm all for giving companies some shit where they deserve it, but in my opinion this kind of stuff gets blown out of proportion and parroted everywhere without much explanation.
I know too much about how ad tech works. I've written code to de-anonymize all the data Google leaks through bid requests. Not individual credit card transactions, but enough to make me want nothing to do with them.
Ignorance is bliss as far as credit card companies go, I tell myself they sell anonymized transactions as csv dumps that aren't tied to cookies etc. It's probably worse than that. But if I really want to be anonymous, I pay cash.
I think NFC payments work in Graphene
For me it just :
”just” 😅
For me i'ts just
Btw, you should remove Play Services too, they are the main ads/tracking point most of the libraries in the apps communicate with.
I still use PlayService but their native ads and tracker are blocked via Blocker apps through package manager mode.
For further more ads/tracker block i used adaway & adguard as main & sub with many custom filter that i add to it, so it can protect the whole phone even the sneakiest ads/tracker.
Isn't lsposed dead?
It has been forked and resuscitated.
very based.
And then anon still walks around with a beacon in their pocket
... and then hope that you don't get hardware issue warranty claim denied because of the software.
I like that in this scenario they still have to install Whatsapp to be able to phone on the phone.
Frankly, my stance to this is to just do what's convenient and deal with the rest. For big, meaningful change you need regulation, not user behavior.
What do you mean? They can phone without, they install it to "communicate with boomeer relatives", as it's written.
It was hyperbole... but only just. Even most of my audio calls happen over Whatsapp these days. Certainly 100% of the texting.
I know this is very region-dependent, so mileage may vary, but I did find it funny that it was acknowledged here despite the deliberately convoluted deep scrubbing depicted on the rest of the post. It's... less funny now that you made me explain it, though.
OK, I've never used WhatsApp so I thought you meant that with these changes the regular call feature would be broken.
Oh, no, not at all. It's just that socially in some territories Whatsapp is incredibly ingrained. Even if you cut off every Meta app people will expect you to be reachable that way by default, so you kinda can't avoid it. I don't know if that was the point of the post, but it's the best bit, at least if you're in that kind of place.
Just install Linux mobile at this point
If only basic phone features still worked properly with Linux, I would do just that.
I toyed with a Pinephone last year. Most of my complains were toward the hardware, although I didn't try every basic functionality either.
It took me a while to setup the OS because I wanted to try a few different distros and screwed up a few times here and there. Arch was the most stable of those I tried. It also comes with a built-in right to brag about using Arch, which is cool. I think that using a more recent and higher grade phone could make it usable in the day to day, as the pinephone is more of a development tool. Otherwise, give it a few more years.
Yup, I hoped that last year would've been long enough, but it's still not in a state that I could daily drive it, so I ended up with a Pixel 8 w/ GrapheneOS. I'm definitely watching development, and if I find a good phone/OS match that allows me to daily drive something like PostmarketOS or Arch on a phone, I'll probably switch.
It's a cool project, and I sincerely hope Linux gets to a place where I can daily drive it on my phone. I already use it on my laptop and desktop (openSUSE Tumbleweed, after several years of Arch), and I would love to also use it on my phone. I'll even help port/develop apps for it as well, but it needs to meet my basic needs first (so MMS, all day battery life, good audio, reliable calls/texts). In the meantime, I'm trying to switch to a VOIP service instead, which simultaneously makes my need for all-day battery less important (can answer calls on my computer), complicates basic phone features (not sure how VOIP call device wake-up works on Linux), and eliminates much of the issues w/ carriers (just need a data plan, and most calls will be over wifi).
Its my secondary phone
@[email protected] Sorry I can't figure out how to reply in thread, made an account just to tell you you can get a nøglebrik/kodeviser for MitId. It's a fully offline TOTP thing that you can use instead of the app. I never even installed the app :)
This, so fucking much that I have it automated.
And you forgot the most important part, firewalling every app off with before connecting to the first network.
Buys a $1000 modern communication device
Disables all ways for it to communicate or use its modern services
Just buy a Nokia dumb phone and call it a day.
Imagine thinking that there are no modern Services or Communication besides Apple and Google
My point is that you're buying a branded device specifically because it has ease of use features but then you're replacing them all with custom services that you now need to upkeep manually and tend like a garden. It's over complicating the purchase.
A perfect interpretation by somebody staring out over the walls of their own garden. "Pah, look at those peasants out there, putting effort into their freedom. How stupid can you be?"
What do you mean? Just buy a phone that doesn't include tracking features if you want a phone without tracking features...? Like why buy a Mazda CX5 if you are going to modify it and replace the engine and body to turn it into a Honda Civic?
I get why people would want to privacy proof their phone but it's going overboard to basically undo everything that makes a flagship device a flagship device.
Ah yes, the market will surely regulate itself. So what phone would you recommend if I want flagship hardware (nice screen, fast processor etc.) but don't want to be tracked? You make it sound like I'd have a bunch of phones to choose from.
That's a false equivalency. You're not replacing the engine but replacing what controls the engine. No-one is ripping out the hardware of their phones in this picture. It's the software being replaced.
Privacy conscious people buy flagship phones for the hardware. The screens are better, the performance is better, they have more connections and whatnot (some higher wifi version, some higher bluetooth version, etc.).
Such as?
I've looked, and I can't find one. The best I found are:
I went with a Google Pixel 8 w/ GrapheneOS. I don't have any of fancy AI features that Google advertises because they all rely on Google Play services (no thanks), but it works competently as a phone, has 7+ years of promised SW support, and gets a decent repair score (not perfect, but everything important seems serviceable).
I'm coincidentally looking at buying a newer car, and everything has spyware, so I'll definitely be ripping out whatever phone home devices they have. This means no remote start, probably no navigation (though navigation doesn't need to phone home), and a bunch of other modern features won't work. But I don't get the option to get one w/o it w/o getting an older car, so I guess that's what I need to do. So I plan to rip apart the car to remove the SIM or antennas, or at least remove their power.
I wish there were actual privacy-respecting options available, but I guess this is the world we live in now...
No one likes the option, but Tesla uniquely will let you opt out of all car <-> Tesla communications. Don't buy full self driving as I don't think that works opted out. Definitely don't subscribe to premium connectivity as opting out disables connectivity.
Is there a guarantee that works? As in, there's no way to locate my car if stolen? Because that's what I want.
If there's a way for Tesla to access my car remotely after opting out, there's a way for them to change the terms of the sale and require phoning home. I want technical guarantees, not promises backed by a mutable service agreement.
this is lemmy