I’m thinking of getting a second phone to ease off iOS. It has been good for productivity stuff but the closed off nature of the device keeps disrupting my plans. Everything is either expensive or ad ridden. (Except floccus, floccus is awesome)
So far I have read about graphene OS and am quite interested. I really despise google though. Any chance to use another device and put some linux flavor on it? I was playing with the idea of a pinephone but it seems to be nowhere near daily drivable, fairphone is starting at 580 €, volla phone (german) 450 €…
Some people said xiaomi should be rootable. But the amount of different phones is huge. The price range is awesome though. I was thinking sub 300 €/$ would be awesome so tinkering doesnt hurt me financially.
Disclaimer: I dont want to go full hermit mode with no sim and a faraday bag. I respect the opinion but thats not what I’m trying to do. I want to write some small apps for my phone and use it as a computer if needed. Calling, matrix and browser should work flawlessly.
Any ideas or suggestions? :)
Having run other rooms since about 2010, I have a lot of experience with this.
I’ve intentionally bought phones based on the ease of flashing.
I finally switched to Pixel this year because I’m tired of fighting. My last phone was a non-Pixel 2017 flagship, that was about as simple to flash as possible.
Only needed:
- ADB on a pc
- enable OEM Unlocking
- boot to fastboot
- fastboot flashing unlock
- boot the phone to ADB/sideload mode
- adb flash boot <rom name>
The end.
Pixel works the same way. And, there’ll be another Pixel model next year. So I should be able to buy a 2 year old Pixel whenever I want.
I’ve fought with flashing (and rooting) other phones, which require more effort, and it gets old.
Even with a Pixel I have a project plan with 130 tasks to restore a phone (many of those tasks occur in a single adb install script).
May be check out other privacy focused custom ROMs:
LineageOS: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
DivestOS: https://divestos.org/pages/devices
DivestOS is the only privacy focused OS in that list.
LineageOS’ goal is extend software support for Android phones, and /e/OS is designed for the Fair Phone. Privacy isn’t the goal, and LineageOS still phones home to Google for most things.
LineageOS still phones home to Google for most things.
Do you have a source on this? I thought LineageOS was completely de-googled now.
My knowledge here isn’t perfect, but I learned a lot from this discussion on the Privacy Guides forum.
You might find this chart to be helpful as well.
