DeGoogle Yourself
A community for those that would like to get away from Google.
Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!
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Be respectful even in disagreement
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No low value posts / memes. We or you need to learn, or discuss something.
Related communities
!privacyguides@lemmy.one !privacy@lemmy.ml !privatelife@lemmy.ml !linuxphones@lemmy.ml !fossdroid@social.fossware.space !fdroid@lemmy.ml
This right here is how i knew about my nothing phone to be relockable, good stuff
It really is time for serious linux phones
it's been the time for years, I highly doubt that it will ever happen. it's been a lot of friction to get desktop users to switch, it's gonna be 5x more difficult, considering mobile users are less tech-savvy and typically do things on their phone (rather than a computer which most people can get away with just a web browser).
Surely all or most of those linux PC users also have phones, and people already using linux should be easier to convert?
The thing that trips me up is that Android forks support most Android phones out of the box (with the obvious exception of GrapheneOS which is a deliberate choice), while Linux Phone OSs each have very short lists of supported models.
I have four different phone models available to me, from Pixel to Samsung to OnePlus. None are supported by any Linux Phone OS I've seen.
It was so miserable I just gave up and bought a Fairphone. Much happier.
Samsung has always been hostile af
An One UI 8.5 locks down the bootloader
I've always loved Notes and Ultra flagships, but I don't want to rep such a lousy OEM
They were always hostile, but it was possible. And once you finish the long and stressful fight with samsung for the control of your phone, you are left with a great phone in your hands. Depending who you ask, it was worthy.
But now they finally made it impossible. They always wanted to do this, and finally succeeded. They "won" the battle.
And the new UI sucks hard. I hate it. But at least it's a work phone paid for by work and but my problem after hours...
Thanks for letting us know. I was thinking of getting a used Galaxy S9 or S10 for a degoogled Lineage OS phone. Now, it looks like the Pixels are the only modern phones that are compatible with this. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs, I’d say.
Motorola is coming in soon, fortunately
A better link for Jolla is probably their store: https://commerce.jolla.com/
I have pre-ordered the Jolla Phone and am hoping everything is working out (won't see it for another 4 months at the very least I suppose). I am very excited getting to know a completely new mobile OS to me and the actual successor of Nokia's Meego. Like with any alternative system, and to some extend also with degoogled Androids it is advisable to inform oneself first before jumping ship.
I had a Note 3, Note 4, S9+, S21u, S24u, My wife/kids have Note 3, s9+, s23u, A series and a tab 4.
I've had Samsung 360 cameras, tv's, galaxy watches
It stops here.
The biggest thing i'm going to miss is a decent camera. I don't feel like carying around a 5x camera everywhere I go and most of the phones i'm looking at are kinda crap for cameras
Yup. I bought a camera after google play killing my s21 ultra.
Paid 800 dollars for the camera. It's inferior to the old s21 in almost every way, and I could get one for 300 dollars. Inferior as in a camera, not even considering how the s21 is great as a gaming phone, computer, etc. Plus the camera is fragile and bigger, so I never carry it, so it's never there when I need to capture something nice.
It's weird how hardware wise we reached such an amazing point, but the software has enshitified to levels I would never even imagine.
We have to choose between being a slave of samsung/google or let go of amazing hardware. But they can only afford to make such amazing stuff precisely because of their evil practices. So it will get worse. Hardware will become more amazing, the more evil these companies get.
My brother in christ, if you cannot control the software, then you never truly had the hardware in the first place.
Yeah, technology enshittification as a whole has definitely picked up the last few years, and I find myself compromising more and more as the field of reasonable options gets narrower.
Like you, I used to only go for phones with SD card and headphone jack support. Now, I'm on a (new but not bought from Google) Pixel 9 Fold with GrapheneOS using a DAC adapter to still have wired audio and a more deliberate storage management system to compensate for not having SD cards. (Unlike you, I need a big screen for spreadsheets and such.)
I purposely bought the newest phone I could within my budget, because I'm planning for Android to be completely unviable the next time I need to upgrade, and I want to give Linux phones as much time to mature as possible before I inevitably migrate.
It seems offline tech is going to be the last bastion of safety sooner rather than later, so I'm in various stages of migrating my digital life offline. Linux over Windows. Keepass, LibreOffice, Obsidian, etc. + Syncthing over cloud options. Keeping off-site backups with friends and family instead of in the cloud. Keeping local DRM-free media. It's time-consuming but rewarding. I should have done it all way sooner.
I have been on the offline open source route for many years. I don't even see it as time consuming. It's so much better than relying on cloud services that it pays off. I lost count of the situations where needing cloud would have been bad. But maybe I trained myself that way, because I never liked the "cloud" idea, my data out of my control.
But the hardware to run that and the options to do that will become more and more impossible. At least on mobiles.
There will come a day when Syncthing won't work anymore on android, because of "security" (the terrorists could send files to your phone and kill children!).
I am seriously hoping to be able to ditch Android entirely for something like post-market OS, Linux, in the future. And we'll be taking a look at what phones are supported when buying my next one.
New hosts/adblock/pihole/adguard filter/rule:
#GOOGLE===============================
0.0.0.0 google.com
0.0.0.0 googleusercontent.com
0.0.0.0 googleapis.com
0.0.0.0 gstatic.com
0.0.0.0 android.com
0.0.0.0 google-analytics.com
0.0.0.0 googlehosted.com
0.0.0.0 googletagmanager.com
0.0.0.0 googleadservices.com
0.0.0.0 pki.goog
Phone now degoogled.
Do you use this yourself? I wonder how much stuff breaks if you use it.
Also YouTube URLs are conspicuously missing...
You don't sign in to your phone, like straight lineage with no microg?
I hope we'll have next-gen linuxphones before 2G gets fully phased out in the EU....
@guismo Thanks for sharing. Mate: just get yourself a (used) Pixel that is still supported like 7a or preferrably New er like 9a or 10. Chuck GrapheneOS on it and call it a day. Good luck
I have a pixel5 with Crdroid on it (I had graphene on it but I really really didn't like it). Crdroid is awesome, makes this horrible phone much more tolerable.
All following pixels are even worse for me. Besides all the nonsense issues of pixel5 (no sd card, no headphone jack), they are all massive, while still being much worse then the competition. I really don't understand how anyone except apple users like it. It's almost as limited as an iphone.
Plus, I really don't want to rely on google hardware, or anything at all. If that's the best option, then even better is to learn to live without a smartphone.
In addition to this, anything on One UI 8 and above does not allow the bootloader to be unlocked, regardless of region. Fortunately, I had already rooted my S23 and have stayed on One UI 7 ever since.
I vowed my Last Samsung phone would be A55 (or A56 if you also count my house hold)
Good on you! Let's spread the word and help samsung die! (It won't make any difference, but I want to pretend it will)
Unlocking instantly and permanently breaks Knox too which destroys any chance of resale without being shady or flat out lying about it. I learned that the hard way, thankfully, with a cheapo A50 I was using as a secondary device back in heavy Pokemon Go days. That was my first Samsung since my Nexus, and my last, ever.
Dumbphones are just better IMO
Such a pity. I really enjoyed the first few galaxy notes I had back in the day. S pens were really useful for desktop mode on websites.
Of course this was once the fuckery stock os had been replaced with something better from XDA forums.
But Samsung was dead to me long ago.
I had a A53 5G which only supported outdated Android ROMs like TrebleDroid support.
Who makes phe calls anyways nowadays?
But yes: The best phones for degoogling are the Google phones.
Technically, the brands that offer already degoogled android (fairphone) or Linux directly (jolla) are better.
Ethically, yes.
Technologically, no. By magnitudes.
For security and privacy (by extension), Graphene is king.
For freedom, Graphene has some lacking things.
And how do you people talk to other people? Whatsapp? Apparently that's how it is in brazil, even to call companies or support.
About the second line, "best" is being generous. I guess you mean better supported. Although for some very odd reason the internet seems to love pixels. While they are the worse phones I've used for the price after apple phones (for similar reasons).
But above all, the fact that other phones support for open source is even worse than google is why I'm considering to learn to live without smartphones. If we have to rely on google for our freedom and privacy, we are well and truly fucked. And we deserve to be if that's the case.
Pixels are "loved" because they can run grapheneos and others. Not because they're technically superior phones.
They're the opposite of fucking samsung. In that one single regard though.
Attach phone, click install, wait, google gone. All others are getting harder and harder to even root.
Instead of whatsapp, I use signal. I explained to my friends that I moved to it. Some installed the app for me. Others didn't. I accept that.
Have you dismissed Fairphone for some reason?
It's very, very expensive for what it is. But I guess I just meant "mainstream" androids.
Going on alternative land there are options, like I used to have a phone with sailfishOS. But they will never have the adoption of mainstream phones, and it will probably be less and less with time as google tries to make people's life harder. And that means they will never have the same finance and support.
It's nice to support those companies, but like I said, I think it's a lost battle and I probably should focus my energies on learning to not rely on smartphones. Then it doesn't matter what feature apple or google remove, it won't affect me.