DeGoogle Yourself

Didn't Fairphone or some other Linux phone maker include switches in some relatively recent model?

EDIT: According to (embarrassed for having to mention source) Google's AI summary, yes:

• Murena 2: Features a dedicated physical privacy switch that physically cuts the circuit for the microphone and camera.

• Purism Librem 5: Offers physical toggle switches on the side of the phone to mechanically sever power to the microphone, camera, and baseband.

-Pine64 PinePhone: Includes built-in hardware DIP switches under the back cover that allow you to completely disconnect the mic, cameras, and modems.

Furi Lab's FLX1 phones (Linux phones) have hardware switches.

You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe that those fuckers are being honest and open with our data.

Every time someone comes out and says that the phones aren't secretly listening to us, I gotta tell this story.

I was at one time practicing therapy in a University. We did charity work, and I was providing therapy to a homeless man. This homeless man did not have a phone, or any electronic devices of any kind. We kept in contact via email, and he would use library computers in order to connect with us.

While providing therapy for him, the only electronic devices in the room are a batter operated digital clock, a battery operated voice recording device, and my own cell phone, locked and inactive. Nothing but my cell phone is connected to wifi or internet of any kind.

During session one day, he started talking about wanting to move to another country. We hold our usual session, with plenty of talk about moving to that country specifically. Once the session is over, we say goodbye and he goes on his way. I go back to my desk, and within an hour or so, scrolling on my phone, I'm getting advertisements for flights and vacations to that exact country. I had never gotten advertisements to that country before, or even for much travel in general.

So how do we explain it? The most common answer is "Oh, well he used his phone to look up flights and stuff, and google detected that your phones were near each other, and must have assumed that you would talk about it."

Except the other man did not have a phone, nor did he have any way for Google to tell that he was near me after having looked it up at a local library. There was no way for Google to be able to tell that he was coming to our office at all unless it was reading his emails, and even then, it couldn't know that he was talking to me specifically, such that I would get the targeted ads and none of my colleagues would.

Nobody can give me an explanation for what happened other than my phone was actively listening to the conversation. I'm definitely open to alternatives, I promise. Nobody has been able to explain it.

It's far too easy to change the software that drives that. For example, in order to minimize blatant power drain the trigger mic could easily become a switch that activates the main mic only when human voices are detected (or even specific voices). With authoritarian governments on the rise — along with the more than willing corporations backing them — I don't think a bit of paranoia regarding the possibility is unwarranted.

ETA: Also there's nothing saying the hardware can't be updated for newer capabilities without anyone on the outside knowing. It'd be pretty easy to get away with once everyone gets lulled into a false sense of security regarding how they work.

There's the old-school method. You ask "can you hear me?" And after someone says "no", you know your microphone is working

Discord? Never had that. And it is super annoying that there is no mute indication. So many people "oh I was muted", teamspeak had that solved decades ago. They also had actually distinct sounds for (in)muting...

Even better, under community builds here it looks like PostmarketOS supports Galaxy 9

https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

Welcome to the dependency economy where you can't afford to not let them fuck you.

Phones are usually easier to find compatibility than tablets. If you check the websites for those operating systems, you will see what devices are compatible.

• https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices
• https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
• https://grapheneos.org/faq#supported-devices
• https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/
• https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Supported_Devices/

Concerning apps, you will be able to run 99% for your apps. There are odd rare cases where some may not work. For those, you may find success by installing them through https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/ instead of the through the Google Play Store.

One is particular feature that doesn't work is using the NFC wallet feature on phones, but you shouldn't use those anyways because you're giving an extra cut away to Google, Samsung, or Apple, on top of credit card fees from Mastercard, Visa, or the like.

Some banks apps don't work on Graphene. All of mine never have any problems. It might be worth saving a click link on your phone your banks website instead if the app doesn't work. https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/ Or instead consider switching banks.

If you think google is problematic in terms of either control or spying I got serious news for you little buddy.

Just get a Pine Phone or similar linux-based device.