I respect people’s right to use apple products, but please stop asserting “privacy”, big corps doesn’t give a shit.
I hate the term sideloading. It’s a made-up propaganda word to make it seem scary or wrong to install software on your device. All in the name of corporate profits.
Yea, who are google and apple to tell us what to do with OUR devices that WE OWN anyways?
I will never buy a smartphone(or a computer) that I can’t replace the stock OS on, because the transaction for me and the device maker should end when I buy their device, period.
The entire business model of selling me a device only to then extract the maximum possible amount of data points, sell that data to fuck-knows-who(compromising my privacy, and possibly safety), and maximizing targeted ads to attempt to manipulate me is beyond absurd.
It’s like “jaywalking” oooh oh no don’t “jay” walk, don’t “side” load; conform to our business machines! Your natural existence and free movements are an inconvenience to us therefore you have to change.
Or whatever bullshit–however they couch it.
“Warning: If you unlock your phone, it might explode or you might become a terrorist. Also we won’t pay your money back even if there is faulty hardware because there is non zero chance you might have caused it while unlocking”
I like the term sideloading. It describes an installation method we don’t otherwise have a word for.
I’m loading a software package from the side – from a system running parallel to the target system.
I do hate the use of the term to try to demonize a completely standard practice. Like when using wget to request files from a fileserver was described as hacking.
Apple does give a shit about privacy… in the same way that companies care about gay pride. Right now privacy is still a selling point for Apple compared to other companies. This is why they are still so loud about on device AI and pretty much silent when any of their features require cloud processing. But am under no illusions that will remain the case forever.
As far as “dumb phones” are concerned; they don’t exist anymore. It’s still a device with an OS, GPS (as required by the law that created the Amber Alert here in the US), and an Internet connection, that makes calls using VoLTE or similar. Most of the ones you can buy today run things like KaiOS which has an App Store and comes with Google Maps preinstalled.
If you want real privacy you need to disconnect from the Internet which pretty much means no phones at all now that everything is VoIP.
Mostly agree except about disconnecting from the internet, classic SMS/voice calls aren’t any more private than VoIP.
Your best bet for location privacy is E2E encrypted services like Signal over wifi, plus MAC randomization and a VPN on untrusted networks. I’d say GrapheneOS is good enough for most people, but mobile Linux has also come a long way.
Encryption doesn’t stop them from knowing what tower you are attached to. Simply having a phone on you even with the GPS and WiFi off (or with the newer phones even the whole phone off) would still be enough to get your location to within a few hundred feet. The original iPhone used triangulation exclusively for location.
There is no word called sideloding it’s called installing software
“Sideloading” means “defeating a walled garden to install software”
It’s really funny seeing people who defend capitalism trying to avoid capitalism problems with individual actions instead of organizing themselves and fighting for the interest of their own class
Thia guy i know to a tee. He’ll defend capitalism to the death and say how the left is evil and anarchy capitalism is the only way.
Idiot. And he pitches about everything in life capitalism causes. I point this out and he says well yeah but thats just bad capitalism not good capitalism. Also he loves fElon, so there’s that.
Does anyone remember r/hailcorporate and its brief moment of fame before the popular subs banned mention of it and its own mods started running a crypto scam?
Comparatively they are better. Its a duopoly in terms of mobile OSs and one is made by a company who mines data and sells ads as its core. The other sells hardware and subscriptions.
I use linux and I wish for a full featured marketable linux phone someday that can compete but with privacy they absolutely beat google.
I have never owned an iphone amd I am currently debating on getting a pixel to move to gOS.
I’m all for linux, I miss the market before iPhone domination. Weird ass symbian phones, windows phones, nokia taco phones, there was all sorts of stuff. I wish we could have a market like that with lots of diverse phones that all run different operating systems. I also wish we could step away from app stores and we could just start building websites again, phones are fast enough now
apple stans are built different.
they will bend over backwards insistently to defend apple on every. single. issue. relentlessly.
apple marketing did get into their heads in a weird cultish kind of way. i’ve met a couple irl, they are kind of scary to think about.
Yeah I find it hilarious that anyone thinks apple cares about privacy. They clearly have been cultivating that image but it rings pretty hollow to me. They just chose something that would be easy to say they care about that an ad company clearly also doesn’t care about.
They care about privacy as they consider themselves the owner of your data.
Idk what I’m gonna do if the F-Store stops working.
Yoink from github via Obtainium.
Also, obtainium can also yoink from gitlab, selfhisted forgejo, codeberg and also fdroid.
Apple is kicking and screaming all the way on this side loading path.
As soon as Google got away with it, Apple will refer to Google and happily claim an even playfield and everyone is left holding the shortest stick.
The fact that there are only two operating systems and both are locked down is a major problem. Unless a company like Valve invests heavily in a linux phone it is unlikely to ever go mainstream enough for developer or device support.
We need governments and legislators to force these systems open. To enshrine the right to control the things you own and criminalize any attempt to curb people’s ownership or control. That is the first step. Once that’s in place, the environment for a third option to exist will be in place.
There are more than these 2, they are just ubiquitous.
Sailfish is another one, UBPorts, Danctnix, … They have no marketshare worth considering for companies so they lock their services down to the 2 big ones and everything else in their eyes is “unsupported” at best and “not secure” at worst.
First of all: writing this from my iPhone. I’ve been on various android phones, including flashed to Sailfish and alternative ROMs, and I kinda hate being on an iPhone now. But - it works.
Look at the incentives of Google and Apple. Google sells ads. That’s it. Any operation at Google other than that is just a small side hustle. Apple sells hardware and 30% commission on apps/media. Apple’s incentives to fuck over the privacy of individuals is far smaller than Google’s incentives. That’s it.
Let’s go through the list:
- Android vendors (Samsung et. al): Zero incentive to not sell you out. Also, no recurring revenue throughout device lifetime (except selling your data), so zero incentives to provide more than absolutely minimal software support after sale.
- Open Source ROMs: All the incentive, but zero funding or business model. Continually fighting against Google. Thus, not really an option for ”normal” people. I won’t hand my mother a flashed phone, and she won’t be able to flash one on her own.
- Sailfish: Had incentives and a business model. When I used it, the developers could barely keep the web browser patched. Tell me that’s good for privacy.
- Apple: Has incentives to patch and update older phones (recurring revenues from AppStore and iCloud), and doesn’t really sell any ads themselves.
Apple are anti-consumer assholes with a clear objective of creating lock-in under the guise of ”privacy” and ”security”, and they really want to force people into buying more hardware. Agreed. But they are the only major phone vendor that doesn’t have incentives to actively screw you over.
Is a flashed ROM ”better” for ”privacy”? Probably. Should you get your mother an iPhone? Yes.
Apple: Has incentives to patch and update older phones (recurring revenues from AppStore and iCloud), and doesn’t really sell any ads themselves.
Don’t fall for Apple PR, they sell you out like everyone else does: https://ads.apple.com/
Of course they do.
But they have recurring revenue streams other than just ads, unlike the Android vendors. Meaning - they probably won’t fuck me over as hard as Google.
Edit: also, note that the ads they sell via your link are on their own platform, i.e. within their own ecosystem. The revenue here is most likely peanuts compared to the AppStore commissions.
Linux Phone with waydroid is the way
Probably excellent. Can my mother buy it over the shelf, in a store?
If not, what’s the best alternative currently available over the shelf, in a physical brick and mortar store, for my mother?
Mothers use iPhones anyways. For now iPhone might be okay but someday it will start to suck so hard that you can’t stand using it, just like what’s happening to Windows. That’s why we need to consider start using Linux phones so your mother can ditch iPhone for it.
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Yeah, I use lineage with microg…and it’s been tough… I had to deal with several government apps in order to start a new job and guess what? None of them work…I had to use my wife’s phone to get my new ID… I’m a teacher and I have to use government apps to deal with student’s absences…that Does not work either…basically anything that relys on Brazilian government app to authenticate something is not going to work. I tried to use the website…guess again…it does not work! One can’t export an ID from the website…I had been dealing with banking apps without much trouble…but this ID thing is terrible! How come you can only do stuff using an app and not using the website!?
Maybe China will bring out a cheap, affordable and degoogled phone lol.
Idk man, PRC isn’t exactly FOSS friendly. I mean they are pushing their corporate platform called “WeChat” which requires a smartphone. Many of mainland China’s services require a phone number verification, and phone service require Identification. They’ve started developing things like “HarmonyOS” and started going Closed Source and blocking .apk installs (allegedly, I can’t confirm). Bootloader unlocking has become a pain in devices like Xiaomi. Etc…
I’m more wiling to bet on the Europeans to develop FOSS stuff.
Wechat and Alipay are really convenient though. I could see them enshittifying in the future, but right now they’re great.
Many of mainland China’s services require a phone number verification, and phone service require Identification
Some work with foreign numbers. Some require a passport photo.
Meituan works if you verify a foreign number the first time you scan a bike. Which is a problem if you don’t want to catch roaming charges. I had to drag a bike into wifi range so I could get the SMS verification via wifi the first time.
when you install western apps on a modern chinese phone, it will complain that it doesn’t have a license from the ICP. For now there’s a “install anyway” button to bypass it, but for how long?
How are devs supposed to test their apps on devices before they publish?
They can upload their ID to google, pay $25 USD, and then sign their apps using their own signing key which was pre-approved by Google.
Its the same for apple, but I think their fees are like $99 per year.
There are also reports of Google potentially leaving in a ADB bypass for it.
