Is it worth unlocking the bootloader on my phone? It’s a Samsung with One UI 7.0 (I’ve been avoiding upgrading to 8.0 since they don’t let you unlock it after that). I just want to avoid having Google Services and AI installed. I use my phone to take photos of my art / send it to friends on signal and hate the idea of it being scanned by AI. I use a camera and gallery from fdroid but somehow the default photos app still has access (I know because it makes GIFs of pictures I took even though I marked permissions as “not allowed”). I also would love to get rid of the default apps I don’t use. While I can unlock the bootloader (for now), I can’t install a custom ROM because there are none compatible with my phone, so will I just be forced into using 8.0 at some point anyway? :( ATP I’m pretty much ready to give up smartphones and get a digital camera for anything I don’t feel comfortable feeding to tech companies.
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While your model may not be supported now, it may be in the future. I would join some of the communities that make custom roms and operating systems and lurk a bit to see if someone is doing a port to your phone and are near the stage where they need testers.
Look at deGoogle guides to see what you can do to make your phone safer in the mean time. Every little bit can help you be more secure.
Are you sure the animations it’s giving you are ai? Android recently got the thing where the phone actually takes a short movie and picks a frame, processes it and hands it to you as the “picture”.
My biggest beef when someone asks a question about improving security and privacy on a commercial OS and people say “just buy a Pixel/Fairphone” is that, besides not really answering the question, it complete ignores reality outside first world countries.
Wrong, sold and unsold software spies. We need libre software, software we control.
This is the type of guy who tells obese people they can get healthy without losing weight, never really answering the problem, totally ignoring reality.
Yeah, but while libre software is only available on specific, expensive hardware, it is a PRIVILEGE for the rich.
Do a test: think of a country that you believe people would need GrapheneOS to protect themselves against the government. Be sure Pixel phones aren’t available there, so just take the retail price of the latest model (because of its limited support time, and other models are going to be just as expensive, buying the latest is more cost-effective) and convert it to that country’s currency. Add 5% because banks get a share in the exchange. Expect that this cost will be at least doubled by tariffs, as third-world countries are full of protectionist taxes and corruption. Wait, we didn’t add the shipping costs yet. So if the retail cost of a Pixel is $800, expect someone from a third-world country to pay $1600~$2000 for it.
But wait, now check the average income of that place, and you can safely remove 30% of it to get a number closer to the real average income because of top 1% earners and higher income inequality. Now consider that if someone manages to spend only 80% of that income on housing, utilities, transport, clothing, food, healthcare, education/childcare, etc, that person is in a really comfortable zone and can think about buying a new smartphone. Hell, if that person is committed to not eating out even once and only keeps some money for emergency medicine and such, they could spend up to 10% on it. How many months would it take for them to pay for a Pixel 9?
I did the math quickly here: for a Venezuelan, it would take about 88 months of heavy sacrifices and having no savings, which means the phone would go out of support before they could fully pay for it… oh, and I didn’t take interest rates into account.So yeah, thanks to everyone who gave tips on how to improve privacy and security on commercial OS.
Well, 800 - 1000€ for a new pixel is normal even in EU. Where the fuck could I even get that kind of money as a highschooler? I’ll just use my old (2017) Redmi 4x with LineageOS for the time being. I know it isn’t secure, but it’s the best I have.
And of course, I don’t recommend buying older redmis (I got mine for free around a year ago). The security is atrocious since it doesn’t support AVB (not even with original OS). I’m always anxious about it starting to bootloop (since it randomly restarts, I saw the same issue on multiple Xiaomi phones, even ~2 year old ones). And while I have used some decent phones from 2017, the Redmi’s performance is underwhelming while others (like my mom’s huawei p10) still perform well.
Then, just admit it. Fake privacy does not fix that.
Like saying it’s useless to use Tor if you are not on Tails…
I suggest that you just admit you don’t want to help people improve privacy within their means. If they can’t have it all, they should have nothing.We can spread Tor without lying about Windows or macOS being private or crying over comments showing libre system software.
Do you really block the word “improve” in your head? Not fucking once I claimed commercial OS could be private so you are arguing against your own imagination here.
Yeah, if someone got a phone and he doesn’t have the means of getting one compatible with a better OS, I really hope he manages to IMPROVE his privacy with better programs and workarounds. If you however don’t give a fuck and think it’s useless to try to improve his privacy because the OS is still shit, well, either buy that person a device that can use a better OS or move on, because telling that person to just buy it isn’t helping.
Besides having a go at removing apps you can install NetGuard https://f-droid.org/packages/eu.faircode.netguard and then block all apps including system apps from using network. From there allow only the apps like Signal you want to give network access to. Drawback is that NetGuard needs an internal VPN connection to work so you can’t use a VPN services and NetGuard at the same time.
Thats kind of a big downside
If it was me and you’re comfortable with getting a second-hand phone I would sell or swap your samsung and buy a Pixel to install a custom ROM on it.
Not an expert, but I’ve been looking into this and it seems like grapheneOS is the way to go if you really want control and security on a modern phone with timely updates (you would have to switch devices). The timely-ness of updates/patches on other platforms is a big criticism that I saw brought up a lot in disussions online. Not sure how much of a problem that truly is, if at all, but it is something to look into before committing to a big change.
Also one thing to look into before doing anything drastic would be taking advantage of shizuku with something like Canta. As I understand it, shizuku is like an inter-app request mediator that is able to abuse wireless debugging access to grant root-like permissions to linked applications without requiring root access or an unlocked bootloader. This should allow you to do some serious debloating.
From what I have read, living without google play services is possible to an extent (using FOSS alternative), but can be difficult / not 100% due to how google has positioned the bundled play services specifically as an authority in modern android
Thanks for the suggestion. I think I’ll try tweaking things with shizuku first but will definitely consider getting a phone that supports custom ROMs in the future. I just have this one because it was inexpensive and had headphone jack (another thing that’s gone the way of the dodo). :)
If you’re in the states and have a couple hundred I’d just go on swappa and get a pixel and run graphene on it
Ooh thanks for the swappa recommendation, I hadn’t heard of it!
No problem
I bought a Pixel 8 Pro on there last spring.
you can delete system apps without root with Shizuku and Canta.
Or ADB, plus App Manager to find the package name
You’ll brick some functionality if you try, along the same lines as ScoffingLizard recommended, get a Linux phone of some kind or barring that, at least seek out an unlockable phone that’s supported by LineageOS.
Sell and get Fairphone 6 with e/OS. Use Murena service if in US. If somewhere else, there are probably several providers.
EOS is in no way better than Google or others. It is a Google replacement. Not a google services alternative.
They, with their services, still collect just as much info about you, in non-encrypted ways. The moment e decides to sell your info, or lock you out or share it with authorities (just like how google did it), you can do nothing against it.
The permanent solution to not having your data raped through any means is not giving anyone your data in the first place (for example, encrypting it with a key only you have access to, like proton enables you to), in which category Murena is just as bad as google or any other shady data hoster.
