• norske@lemmynsfw.com
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    1 year ago

    I hate that. One of the reasons I dislike Samsung phones. Last phone from them was a Note 8 and unless they go back to a pure Android experience, I won’t get another. We know that isn’t happening any time soon.

    Honestly I’m super over all our current choices. Im on an iPhone and while I like their privacy stuff slightly better than android, there are lots of things I don’t like.

    I also hate how much metadata the big G snorts up. Even just the location data they retain is out of this world.

    There just aren’t any options if you want something that doesn’t keep you boxed into a closed ecosystem or track every love you make.

    • HourglassHayden@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      You can get a Google pixel and sideload an operating system such as Grapheneos, and you won’t have to deal with any of Google’s bs spying. Highly recommend looking into it.

      • Comrat@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I recently made the switch and it’s great. Definitely takes a bit of understanding and research to know what you’re getting into, though.

      • norske@lemmynsfw.com
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        1 year ago

        Yeah. That’s what I’ve been looking into. I used to root and do roms and stuff. Back in the day I was pretty involved in the XDA community.

      • Xanvial@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        At that point why not just using Samsung phone and sideload the OS? Seems weird to do that on Pixel which has inferior hardware and good software (like its camera apps), and then remove the software

        • claudiop@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Simple reason being that there’s no notoriously good OS for Samsung phones.

          Graphene is highly focused on not being annoying while keeping privacy intact. You can, for example, have Google Play Services, within a sandbox. Everything can be denied network access, or any access really, on a per app basis.

          It also relies on Google’s security chip to keep the chain of trust intact. The boot sequence and your private keys are kept intact that way. Not everyone documents and opens their hardware as well as Google. Samsung is notoriously terrible and full of it when it comes to allowing you to do your own thing.

          • KuroJ@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I recently just bought a pixel 6 and have been interested in Graphene OS, but would I lose features like live translate and the hold for me feature?

            • claudiop@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              live translate

              What is that? Google translate listening and translating live? Google lens translating images? Both work.

              hold for me feature

              No clue about what that is.

              In general most things work just the same, and things that do not tend to be listed in the Graphene docs.

      • Derproid
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        1 year ago

        I wanted to do that but need to use Google apps for work (specifically google chat won’t work).

        • Ellie@lemmy.silkky.dev
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          1 year ago

          You can run Google Play services on GrapheneOS it’s called Sanboxed Google Play. It allows you to run Play services as a normal app without any special privileges so you can install it without sacrificing all of your phones data to google. Should allow you to use pretty much all Google apps.

          • Derproid
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            1 year ago

            This isn’t enough for work apps that require Android Device Policy unfortunately. When I researched it in November I found that it would require too many permissions so GrapheneOS isn’t planning on supporting it.

    • nondescript_citizen@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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      1 year ago

      What about the fairphones? I was reading up on them and might get one. I like that they come with an android fork and open-source apps so you don’t have to deal with Google. Plus being fully repairable and sustainably-made. Does anyone have any experience with them?

    • Reamen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s really frustrating because Samsung is basically the leader in Android phones right now.

      I hope we get a bunch of new good options this year because I really need to upgrade and posts like this remind me why I don’t by Samsung.

    • EdibleFriend@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      wtf do you go with for a quality hardware android reasonably priced? LG got out of the phone game which sucks ass. Pixel can be great but they are all flagship prices. Samsung, while having horrible shit like this, is quality hardware and has lots of models under $200.