Hence GrapheneOS sandboxing the Play Store. It is ironic that Google is the only phone manufacturer that allows for installing a different OS. But I suppose the fact that GrapheneOS has pushed security updates that have made it into stock Android and the fact that most users won’t bother installing an alternative OS on their pixel phones is why they allow such shenanigans.
I use rooted LineageOS on my 4a 5G, though I do still have GApps on it. Next phone I buy I’m thinking I’ll give GrapheneOS a try. Leaving behind my rooted system level adblocking would be difficult for me though.
In regards to ad blocking. My solution isn’t as all encompassing as that, but for general web browsing, I use the Mull browser as you can install some addons like ublock and noscript. I’ll admit though if you’re looking to install advertisement heavy Play Store Apps though, I’d say maybe look into using a PiHole to adblock your home network?
I mostly just use my phone for/at work. I already have a server that could operate as a pihole at home, but my PC already blocks everything under the sun, so it’s not really needed.
I get most of my stuff off f-droid unless I don’t have any other choice, and use firefox with ublock+noscript on my phone as-is. But it is nice to not have to worry about getting ads in anything else when I do install an odd game or something, though.
What works for me is a pi-hole at home, a wireguard service on my (dd-wrt) router with the pi-hole functioning as dns server and my phone using wireguard as an always-on vpn.
All traffic on my phone is now routed through the pi-hole at home, which filters out all tracking, wherever I am.
Motorola has always made it easy. I’ve unlocked LG phones, although not sure on how easy they make it normally. Oneplus is well known for being open to unlocking. I’ve done it with Samsung too, although you have to be careful with the model, US variants are very difficult to unlock and have very limited support, but my last phone was a US s10e and I did it. Otherwise the international Samsung phones are unlockable.
Yeah, it does seem counterintuitive, but they have to have some reason for it. If I were to guess it would be to keep goodwill with nerds like us. The way it stands, techies are still recommending Pixels, and that’s good for them.
But whatever reason it is doesn’t have to be much to have a better expected value for them. The amount of people that actually go through the process of changing the ROMs on their phone has to be so abysmally small that it is insignificant to them either way. And then the amount of people that take it the next step further and actually de-Google their phone completely is that much smaller.
Yeah, that’s why I said the US variants are very difficult to unlock, I had to pay to unlock that s10e that I mentioned and it’s fairly sketchy. If I ever get another Samsung I’m going to get the international version.
You’re right, if you get an international phone then you should make sure it supports the bands that your carrier uses before buying it. I was looking at the S22 International on scamazon, there are lot of US buyers with high reviews, but I would still make sure it has adequate band coverage for my carrier and area before I would buy it. I had a Xiaomi phone at one point that lacked some band support and I noticed I definitely didn’t have as broad of coverage out in the sticks as others.
Pinephone is the obvious one, BUT!
Have you heard of FairPhone? These things also make it easy to install other operating systems on them. Also Beter for the climate ig.
I actually have a Pinephone from a few years ago (2 years now I think?). I never used it as a daily driver as it was very slow and had comparatively less features than the iphone and samsung phones i had had previously.
Upon recently deciding on purchasing the Pixel 7a and installing Graphene OS on it, i did heavily consider the Fairphone, but I’m in the US and they only just started to come to our shores. The family plan I’m on wasn’t a supported carrier, so that more or less made the decision for me.
The observation about the pinephone and fairphone being more environmentally friendly is intriguing. Care to elaborate a bit please?
I don’t use Google Fi, but a quick search shows that many have gotten it to work with Graphene OS just fine. You can still install Fi from the Play Store, and it appears all works as intended as long as you grant it Network Permissions.
I’d do research on it though if you’re truly interested. They have a link to their Matrix chat on their website where you can field general questions.
And if you try to revoke their spying access on a rooted stock device, they force a reboot ☹️
Hence GrapheneOS sandboxing the Play Store. It is ironic that Google is the only phone manufacturer that allows for installing a different OS. But I suppose the fact that GrapheneOS has pushed security updates that have made it into stock Android and the fact that most users won’t bother installing an alternative OS on their pixel phones is why they allow such shenanigans.
I use rooted LineageOS on my 4a 5G, though I do still have GApps on it. Next phone I buy I’m thinking I’ll give GrapheneOS a try. Leaving behind my rooted system level adblocking would be difficult for me though.
In regards to ad blocking. My solution isn’t as all encompassing as that, but for general web browsing, I use the Mull browser as you can install some addons like ublock and noscript. I’ll admit though if you’re looking to install advertisement heavy Play Store Apps though, I’d say maybe look into using a PiHole to adblock your home network?
I mostly just use my phone for/at work. I already have a server that could operate as a pihole at home, but my PC already blocks everything under the sun, so it’s not really needed.
I get most of my stuff off f-droid unless I don’t have any other choice, and use firefox with ublock+noscript on my phone as-is. But it is nice to not have to worry about getting ads in anything else when I do install an odd game or something, though.
What works for me is a pi-hole at home, a wireguard service on my (dd-wrt) router with the pi-hole functioning as dns server and my phone using wireguard as an always-on vpn.
All traffic on my phone is now routed through the pi-hole at home, which filters out all tracking, wherever I am.
What do you mean by that? There are definitely other manufacturers that make it easy to unlock the bootloader so you can install other ROMs.
I stand correctted then. Please tell me a few of these other manufacturers!
Motorola has always made it easy. I’ve unlocked LG phones, although not sure on how easy they make it normally. Oneplus is well known for being open to unlocking. I’ve done it with Samsung too, although you have to be careful with the model, US variants are very difficult to unlock and have very limited support, but my last phone was a US s10e and I did it. Otherwise the international Samsung phones are unlockable.
I stand very corrected. My apologies for not investigating this further before posting. I suppose i should rephrase my previous comment as:
I find it ironic that Google allows its flagship product to be rooted with an OS dedicated specifically to limiting data harvesting of Pixel users.
@z3rOR0ne @somedaysoon
I don’t do Android development, but I would imagine rooting makes it easier to test things, as you wouldn’t have to rely on ADB all the time.
It’s nice to have full file access and take advantage of apps like Adaway and Neo Backup and some Tasker functions, among other things.
Yeah, it does seem counterintuitive, but they have to have some reason for it. If I were to guess it would be to keep goodwill with nerds like us. The way it stands, techies are still recommending Pixels, and that’s good for them.
But whatever reason it is doesn’t have to be much to have a better expected value for them. The amount of people that actually go through the process of changing the ROMs on their phone has to be so abysmally small that it is insignificant to them either way. And then the amount of people that take it the next step further and actually de-Google their phone completely is that much smaller.
@somedaysoon @z3rOR0ne
With Samsung these days, it’s usually impossible to root without some sort of exploit on US models unfortunately.
Yeah, that’s why I said the US variants are very difficult to unlock, I had to pay to unlock that s10e that I mentioned and it’s fairly sketchy. If I ever get another Samsung I’m going to get the international version.
last time I checked U.S band support on international samsung versions sucks.
You’re right, if you get an international phone then you should make sure it supports the bands that your carrier uses before buying it. I was looking at the S22 International on scamazon, there are lot of US buyers with high reviews, but I would still make sure it has adequate band coverage for my carrier and area before I would buy it. I had a Xiaomi phone at one point that lacked some band support and I noticed I definitely didn’t have as broad of coverage out in the sticks as others.
Pinephone is the obvious one, BUT! Have you heard of FairPhone? These things also make it easy to install other operating systems on them. Also Beter for the climate ig.
I actually have a Pinephone from a few years ago (2 years now I think?). I never used it as a daily driver as it was very slow and had comparatively less features than the iphone and samsung phones i had had previously.
Upon recently deciding on purchasing the Pixel 7a and installing Graphene OS on it, i did heavily consider the Fairphone, but I’m in the US and they only just started to come to our shores. The family plan I’m on wasn’t a supported carrier, so that more or less made the decision for me.
The observation about the pinephone and fairphone being more environmentally friendly is intriguing. Care to elaborate a bit please?
I’m not the right person to do that, they got some good advertisement tho.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6gtj1ynstU
I’d encourage you to wait a bit tho, because it seems like they are about to announce a new one.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=Q6gtj1ynstU
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Good bot
Can users who use Google Fi switch too? Will call screening still work?
I don’t use Google Fi, but a quick search shows that many have gotten it to work with Graphene OS just fine. You can still install Fi from the Play Store, and it appears all works as intended as long as you grant it Network Permissions.
I’d do research on it though if you’re truly interested. They have a link to their Matrix chat on their website where you can field general questions.