I switched to a feature phone that has nothing to do with Android for calling (Mocor RTOS aka S30+) because I'm tired of fighting Android for the moment. I keep an unrooted smartphone at home for online banking. Kinda extreme but that's one way.
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Privacy
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I personally don't know how a non-smartphone is better is terms of privacy. Can you explain?
AFAIK, they have the same level of spying, just more restrictions and less features.
Common vulnerabilities: Tracking by carrier, including cell tower triangulation, SMS, and call logs.
Non-smartphone specific vulnerabilities: Lack of security updates. However, the data to be exfiltrated from a non-smartphone is limited. If it's only call logs and text messages, everything's already compromised by virtue of the carrier. So the level of concern will vary with your threat model.
Smartphone-specific vulnerabilities: Tracking by apps, manufacturer, OS vendor, or just about anything that can take advantage of the smartphone's computing power. More data to be exfiltrated if it falls to a security vulnerability.
Smartphone-specific advantages: Can be run Wi-Fi only to avoid tracking by carrier.
Can relate. I have a phone with stock Android and a removable battery for anything won't or I'd rather not have on my primary GrapheneOS phone. I only ever plug in the battery as needed and when I'm settled at the safety of my desk.
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It's a rat race. You can only win by not playing.
But if you don’t play, your pay with convenience and your time. You lose the freedom of installing a lot of apps. You lose a lot :( - to the point where it would make most people give up
As of now, I find very few apps beneficial, convenient or time savers - maybe I'm a weirdo luddite. Most apps seem to be for pastimes anyway so saving time seems odd - I prefer to take time to savour my pastimes. I think mp3 player app, and organic maps are the real ones that I actually find useful.
But refusing GPS/microG and therefore Microsoft Authenticate will become a problem for me quite soon I think. For now a phonecall still works, but I think it's only a matter of time. Once that goes I might have to quit my job, and will struggle to find one in my field that doesn't require it, so I guess I'll have to look for less skilled work or retrain, and I'm far too old for that shit. That's where it'll get constraining, when the tentacles of bundling enwrap and bind many other aspects of real society.
I really hope the EU keeps on at MS for bundling and other market power abuse, it seems so obvious that they've effectively ignored the fines from the old Internet Exploder case, and ramped up their misbehaviour regardless.
Of course the twats where I live are easily radicalised against EU regulations (or any regulations really) , so I'm probably still fucked. But at least someone needs to stand up for consumer rights and competition and keep kicking MS in the balls every time they pull their dick out to fuck consumers. Ideally kick them harder and harder too, 'punitive damages' are more than justified due to them being a repeat offender.
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Big tech can't win because you can't force the internet to do something.
They don’t need to make us do anything. They just need to make it too inconvenient not to.
The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.
Gilmore's quote was true then, it is not the current state of play.
If you need to use banking/government/transit apps, you need to play by the rules now
You can hide root/fake play integrity.
They can make it so much harder to do that, to the point where almost everyone just gives up.
i think we are already at this point.
its not necessarily harder, but its so annoying to do and find comprehensive information on the process.
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