I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
brute force it with root
you literally cannot prevent root from doing anything.
What happens wen they prevent rꝏting tho ? Samsung already doing it
they can’t prevent it so far. samsungs will just go back to needing root exploits like everyone else before them.
add to the fact they refuse to keep security updating phones for too long.
Use a dumbphone and hold onto a smartphone to use only when necessary. I have a Sunbeam F1 Pro for daily use. And I have a Moto G Power that I use maybe once every other week for bike maps, public transit, and restaurant QR codes. I’m hoping with how amazing the battery is that will last until 5G inevitably gets phased out. I was using FOSS apps with that, but I’ll just go back to the App Store. Post-DOGE, my threat model doesn’t require degoogling anymore.
Maybe eventually I’ll move to GrapheneOS, provided it finds a way to exist without using Google products and services. I have high hopes for Ubuntu Touch in the 2030s.
For me it’s less about finding a new daily driver and more about limiting the time spent on an Android phone.
Find a phone to use plasma mobile on most likely.
ADB in the meantime.
Slowly switch to Linux devices, or dumb phone, and learning to adapt happily living without some features, but also without control and censorship :)
4/5g card in mPCIE slot until I source a more portable device to do phone things. Yes, there are m.2 options as well. If the supply chain eventually dries up, for expansion cards and/or FOSS phones, then I’ll only communicate via my ISP or local mesh nets, until my computers break.
i don’t really use apps on my phone anymore other than for maps. i just my phone primarily as a phone.
Nothing.
My daily driver is an iPhone. We’ve always had the problem of limiting sideloading (to be nonexistent for most people) and it’s never been a problem for me.
I also have a Galaxy S10, but all my apps on that come from the Play Store.
This won’t affect 99% of users, just like it doesn’t on iPhone.
I just hope now that they’re taking sideloading, and they’ve already taken memory card slots, headphone jacks… and they’re still taking a cut off the back end by selling your personal information… maybe the cost will come down. But I doubt it. Android makes sense when it’s cheaper than iPhone. I mean, iPhone makes sense to be expensive. It’s a pocket Mac, it’s made by a computer company. Sure, they have telemetry but it’s not an ad company like Google. So for a phone that’s less powerful and still has the same restrictions, and I’m paying with my personal data? I expect the phones to be cheaper. They really should be cheaper.
But I’m gonna let you in on a secret. Smartphone performance plateaued a long time ago. All these new phones are kind of a scam. Okay, so the Pixel 10 has the benchmark performance of an iPhone 11. The Galaxy S25 is like 40% faster than the iPhone 16 Pro until it hits load (like the top 1% of games, maybe) then the iPhone is like 10% faster… Who Cares? My 2019 Galaxy S10 is still a viable daily driver in 2025. So, I think I’m done chasing the latest model for a while. If Apple Health comes to iPad (I’m not sure if it’s there or not), I’d even consider replacing my Android phone with a newer phone next, like a gently used Galaxy S24 or S25 (I mean in a few years). These new phones talk about performance numbers, but for most people, they don’t really mean shit. Phones don’t slow down like they used to. They got a lot better and it wasn’t even that recently.
Rename sideloading with installing and play store with baby mode
The thing is an iphone wont let me do anything. It’s useless. No custom connection to my server, no seperate maps, no music, no ssh, no RDP. No adblock, no firefox.
Iphones are kind of nice but you can’t do anything worthwhile with them.
Use my phone less.
I can’t think of a single app I use that doesn’t have a desktop/web version.
Camera
You don’t need any apps for that, you can just use a normal camera.
I hope there will be a good Linux phone in a few years that I can switch to. Would be great with it was compatible with the latest Fairphone by then, for a true FOSS and ethical phone.
From what I’ve been researching, Fairphones pretty much work after a year or two on at least Ubuntu Touch. It uses Halium though for that. It seems like the older ones mostly work after a couple years on postmarketOS, but crucial stuff like audio from the speakers is still broken or whatever. Security is pretty obviously gonna be worse than an Android phone no matter what you use though.
I’m currently using GrapheneOS on my Pixel phone I brought secondhand so think I should (for now) be okay?
Otherwise, Linux phone looks interesting but it just relearning both another OS (like iPhone users trying to learn Android and vice versa) and also just I have low income so buying new tech is just expensive.
I don’t want to throw myself a deepend to an OS that I not as familiar with beside on my desktop and Raspberry Pi. Personally, I prefer to know what’s there before I just go blind so at least I can manage my expectation than expected it to do 1:1 stuff that I do on my phone right now.
I’m planning to go Graphene but realistically until a solid third option such as Linux phone is able to break the duopoly I dont think we can do much as I doubt devs will update or release many apps with little take up. Probably 90 - 95% of apps on my phone are FOSS derived from outside Play store.
This is only the start I’m afraid. “Big tech” has far, far too much leverage. Google are effectively censoring apps, they will no doubt cave in to any government asking who has (or hasnt) installed a particular app that at some future date is deemed unwelcome. Between this & ill conceived online ID schemes about to be forced upon populations, various minorities are about to be marginalised even further.
Very concerning times.
Be fucked? I don’t know I already hate most phones on the market and I’m going to need to buy a new one at some point, not looking forward to it…
Well, I know that I probably wont be buying anymore android devices and I know for sure that I’ll never buy an iOS device. But outside of that I’m not sure, I’ll have to wait and see how things play out. If possible, I’d like to be able to use Linux or at least custom versions of android but, as of now, most of my devices don’t have custom roms available and the two that do haven’t been supported in years. I have looked into Linux phones, tablets and other portable devices like the Steam deck and the Legion Go S but they are very expensive and there isn’t even a way for me to purchase some them.
I am also aware of ADB commands but I’ve never used them before. If they are easy enough to use without potentially bricking my devices, I am not opposed to using them.
I moved to GrapheneOS about a month ago, not too long after the announcement. Bought a used Pixel and jumped. TBH moving to Graphene was something I’d considered for a while for privacy reasons but Google gave me that last push.
There are some different ways of doing things but I’ve really enjoyed the transition overall.
I’ll happily continue using my GrapheneOS Pixel since nothing will change for 3d-party ROMs :)
Until it does. Google is already closing development, so the GrapheneOS devs will have a more difficult time rebasing their changes to AOSP each snapshot.
Not exactly. GrapheneOS has an OEM partner and has early access to AOSP changes that aren’t public. A huge downside to that is that security preview releases can’t be open source until after Google makes the code public.
Well, that’s not a huge downside. They still provide those security updates in their binary builds.
Fair enough. I said “huge” because I guess some people care a lot. I personally don’t and have been on security preview releases since they started releasing them.
Yeah, it’s a moving target for sure. For now, the devs seem to be very certain that AOSP will stay and that they will still be able to port GOS on new devices (although it will take more time and work).
Is this verified, or does it still depend on how the mechanism is implemented?
If all installation is not managed by Google (i.e. if you’re not using Google Mobile Services or GMS), Google cannot block the installation of any apps. Graphene’s devs have confirmed themselves that this new measure will not affect their ROM
Perfect. I thought about some kernel level shenanigans which could be out of influence for third party vendors.
That’s great to read
Can you tell me how the ad experience is with GrapheneOS? As in, do apps which try to insert ads in screen transitions (or anywhere) still do so? Or websites which put in AdSense popups?
GrapheneOS doesn’t recommend AdAway or other adblocking solutions, so does it do so itself?
It does not block anything by itself. I use Adguard as my DNS provider and it does that system-wide. It you can also use a VPN provider such as ProtonVPN that does it
Hmm. OK, I’ve been using AdAway (not AdGuard) as DNS and/or VPN, experimenting with both) under Pixel 9 stock OS, and it mostly works… but some apps and websites still get ads through.
LineageOS w/Adaway root /etc/hosts blocklists was 100% perfect on my older phone… that’s my main quibble with trying LineageOS vs. GrapheneOS.
I know some people recommend against rooting, but I’ve never had security issues doing it and it seemed to offer more bulletproof ad-blocking.
