Comment by buzzwords
14 hours ago
Given the way Google is going I'm not sure if my next phone will be Android. I am fully aware that I am probably in the minority here. For me the trust is entirely gone.
14 hours ago
Given the way Google is going I'm not sure if my next phone will be Android. I am fully aware that I am probably in the minority here. For me the trust is entirely gone.
There really isn't much of an option. Apple's just as bad if not worse.
At least with an Android i have the option of Graphene, and have access to a terminal, and for now can sideload apps.
With apple there's no choices, so I'll continue to take my chances with Android
Possibly... but the extension of this to Android and Apple is going to be the entire internet shuts you out. And everything else will be a giant Dead Internet crawling with bots.
4 replies →
Can Graphene OS pass this kind of Google attestation challenge, though?
1 reply →
Both are terrible for privacy so it comes down to which one has a nicer screen now. :(
I'd rather have Google check an Apple phone attestation than have Google check a Google phone attestation, and vice versa, though, because you can assume each company is trying to keep as much information private to themselves instead of giving it to the other. Google is probably just getting "yes it's an Apple phone" and some kind of temporary token, instead of my IMEI, IMSI, phone number, all signed in accounts, biometrics and so on.
> Apple's just as bad if not worse.
Could you justify that? Because to me it seems like Apple isn't doing anything even like this.
https://httptoolkit.com/blog/apple-private-access-tokens-att...
Also, Apple sells themselves as a privacy company, but often pick (possibly intentionally) insecure defaults. E.g. you might use end-to-end encrypted chats, but by default iCloud backups are not end-to-end encrypted, so law enforcement can just request your backups/chats from Apple. If you are vigilant and enable Advanced Data Protection for E2E iCloud backups, it probably still doesn't matter because the people that you communicate with probably do not have ADP enabled.
Besides that, they are enshittifying in the same way as Google. Ads in Maps, Ads in applications that you get with the OS (Apple Creator Studio ads in Keynote, etc.), Ads in your system settings for Apple Fitness+ (really).
At least Pixel phones and soon some Motorola models have the option of installing GrapheneOS.
Apple never allowed custom ROMs to begin with, so their device attestation feels more seamless: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102591
Motorola + GrapheneOS next year could be an alternative. So far they've been relatively insulated from the changes that have been coming down from Google.
Motorola won't change a thing about hardware attestation. GrapheneOS is locked out from reCAPTCHA because GrapheneOS is signed by GrapheneOS and not by Google.
The way it's going, by the time the Motorola + GrapheneOS phone is out, it will be a lot more painful to use GrapheneOS than today. Not because of GrapheneOS of course, but because everybody accepts that bullshit Google is doing.
If you're waiting for Motorola + GrapheneOS, you could start complaining to banks and other apps that don't support GrapheneOS :-). If enough people did that, maybe those companies would consider it.
I'll be waiting.
In the meantime, I'm currently using a low end Motorola moto g 5G 2023 which lets me turn off Play Services. Chrome and the Google Calendar don't run (really do need to find a replacement calendar), and I couldn't be happier. Motorola's interest in GrapheneOS makes me wonder if they did this on purpose.
For calendar, I now have my own local setup, with Tailscale
Calendar server: https://radicale.org/v3.html Sync: https://manual.davx5.com/
So, you run Radicale server, you can import Google Calendar.
Set up Davx5 on mobile to sync with the local server
Access from anywhere with Tailscale.
Or if you need it now, Pixel + GrapheneOS. Pixel A-series are really affordable. E.g. the 9A is 350 Euro here, have great device security (Google Titan M2 hardware security processor, CPU that supports MTE, etc.), pretty good cameras/camera processing, etc.
https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at...
You won't be alone. I've resolved that this will be my last Googled phone.
My dad runs the family domain/emails/etc. The hard part will be convincing him to degoogle the whole family.
I'm inclined towards keeping an ancient android for those apps that require it, and maybe something open for actual use. Or perhaps a crappy old android for android and a small non-android tablet/laptop for daily-driver stuff, which always works better as a computer anyway!
I'm also becoming open to using software that lies to google about what it is :) Google will treat us like sh*t, why shouldn't we reciprocate.
I've been getting asked more and more how to degoogle stuff by non-nerds.
Android yes, but Graphene is the answer.