Comment by evanjrowley
8 months ago
Every time I am tempted to switch to iPhone, it does not take long for me to remember that Apple is a hostile enemy.
FWIW, I get tempted to switch when my Android starts feeling like it works for Google and not for me. The advantage of the iPhone is that it works for nobody.
I've never had an iPhone and I'm sure it's even more locked down, but I've always felt like my Android phones worked for Google rather than for me.
Always some new notification to be disabled (or cannot be disabled without ADB). The Play Store "helpfully" refuses to install some software on my phone that doesn't meet the minimum specs or whatever. Can't remove protected applications from phones (such as Facebook on some Samsung phones). For all its talk about being open source, it's certainly always been more locked down than a Windows PC or a Mac.
At least Windows Phone did almost nothing, which was more relaxing lol
Google is implementing changes here soon that require their approval and digital signing to side-load apps. So Google is an equal and more hypocritical "hostile enemy."
You can always install a de-googled version of Android, such as GrapheneOS.
And then you won't be able run your bank app.
I mentioned this yesterday on the Google only allowing verified developers story, but my banking app works fine on GrapheneOS, as do many others. There is a crowd sourced list of their status here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
Depending on what your bank's app actually does, that might not be a big problem.
If it is, there's a good chance LineageOS with root and Play Integrity Fix will work, at least it's been working for me for years.
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Then get another bank. Or better yet, don't bank on a phone.
...on a VERY specific model of phone
True. The problem is most Android smartphones don't allow re-locking the bootloader using a custom key, so you can have a locked bootloader with a de-googled operating system.
Ironically, Google Pixel smartphones do
More demand would help ^^