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As Louis Rossman puts it: rape mentality
Stories like this is very much why I severely limit the amount of time I spend on Windows. Having been with Windows nearly since the beginning of its history, it’s insane to see the amount of reduction of user control that’s gone into it.
One of the most egregious things is the lack of control around updates. Often I’ll finish a session with my laptop and go to store it in the bag. Windows will cheerfully inform me that there is a forced update and then I end up having to wait for my machine to finish its shit while I sit around tapping my toes.
Meanwhile, in Linux-land, I have as much control over updates as I wish. I almost breathe a sigh of relief when I reach my Linux desktop, because it’s still a place that feels like MINE. I feel like I’m some kind of sharecropper or temporary house guest when on Windows 11. It doesn’t feel like “my” environment. It feels like it’s Microsoft’s computer and they just let me use it occasionally.
For myself, I was lucky(?) enough to have wasted my best years playing with Linux and running Linux boxes is no problem now. For the average Joe that needs to mess with computers, I feel bad for them. Windows 11 feels like shit, MacOS sure isn’t great either, and that’s pretty much the only choice.
No wonder I’m seeing less and less households with PCs and laptops. I think the average person in 2025 has just given up on computers and makes do with their phone or tablet.
Thank fucking god for Linux, because if I was forced to use Windows 11 full time, I think I’d snap and go live in the middle of the forest or something. It’s actively annoying to even look at at this point, and I only see things getting worse. For example, the troubles with Windows “Recall” have barely even started.
I loathe to see what Microsoft has in store for us next, and I would guarantee it’s not user friendly.
I use my laptop for data processing, but most of my tasks can be adequately handled from my phone. There are days when I don’t open my computer when I get home from work.
I am an it at a company. Forcing updates is a necessity for some of our users. We have 5 year old phones which have never been updated, and needs to be for their software to work right.
That said what works in consumer space and what works in corporate is two different things. As a consumer I’d hate this and have moved away from preinstalled android years ago. But as IT, this needs to be here.
Ultimately I just think its laziness of the company to either not have a toggle for it. Or have a corporate build for corporate customers
You’re an information technology?
Mr information technology to you
Sewer clown.
deleted by creator
You dont own something unless you install linux on it
this can be easily remedied by killing all of humanity except yourself
Are you telling me Linux doesn’t have automatic updates?
It does not. No normal Linux distro installs updates without user consent. You can turn that feature on though if you like.
Sure it does, if you turn them on. Here’s the relevant screen in Linux Mint Cinnamon.
I’m using linux mint, which is beginner friendly. It doesn’t have automatic updates as default.
funny how a(n implicitly) rooted linux computer is fine, but a rooted handheld linux computer is the devil and insecure.
If PCs came out today there is no way you would just be allowed to install Linux on it.
New ARM laptops coming out right now have their bootloaders locked. So yeah…
Not Macbooks though surprisingly.
You mean
UNsurprisingly?Edit: I cannot read.
No, it’s surprising that Macs are not locked. Because the Mac OS ecosystem is usually locked tighter than a vir-, er, very tightly.
Ah fuck I read that as the bootloader being unlocked. My bad. Misread the comment you responded to
don’t give them ideas
I am afraid you are right
Am I the only here that smells bullshit/ragebait? When your phone has the bootloader unlocked and you’re rooted, you simply cannot receive official software updates. That only works in custom roms.
EDIT: It seems that for several people this is not the case. Guess I’m wrong then, but personally I’ve never received software update requests after rooting. Right now in my xperia 5v I literally can’t even check to see if there is one. The only way to know is to look up my model in xperifirm.
I have a pixel 4a (yes, ik its eol, i use it more as a backup) that used to be rooted, until i got that shitty battery update, immediately switched to graphene. So yes you do still get updates on rooted
Weird. Also a Pixel4a user (condolences to both of us), but I had LineageOS on mine and was rooted, but I’ve had no software updates. I get reminders from LineageOS that a new build is available, but I just swipe right because if it ain’t broke don’t fix
Lineage and graphene don’t force updates. They could but that’s not their mo. If they did they would presumably lose 90% of their users.
Stock android even if rooted easily can and does force updates.
oh right true, that’s the issue – stock android
I think it depends on the device. I remember rooting my s7, or maybe it was the grand prime? I cant remember the exact model, but it was samsung and around that time period for those two models, and any software update i wanted to apply, including security updates, had to be manually installed/side loaded.
Why not? I remember buying phones that could be unlocked and had no issues with them updating after doing so.
Same. Why should bootloader unlock stop OTAs? Sure, i dont doubt that some manufacturer somewhere does this, but I would not expect it to be the norm.
Normally that is true but they just forced one on Pixel 6a. I had the same thing happen to me and had to reroot my phone at like 6am before work.
It seems they are being significantly more aggressive about it with their battery failure updates.
sometimes it tries to automatically update, fail and mess up the OS (happened to me with earlier versions of Moto G)
locked bootloaders and complicated processes to getting phones changed are crimes against humanity layman can’t really perceive.
wish i had solutions.
I guess it would be good to have consumer petitions demand phones with unlocked bootloaders.
Edit: this inspired me to write this post.
or make our own phones equipped with blackjack and hookers after we take it over from the oligarchy
yeah, i bet you can ask women who work in the tech industry about their understanding of consent and get some colorful responses.
“If we let you control your phones you’ll just mess them up!”
Which is our right. I paid for the phone. Google, Samsung, and Apple aren’t fucking paying me.
Which is our right. I paid for the phone. Google, Samsung, and Apple are
n’tfuckingpayingme.There, I fixed it. It’s time for a new FOSS phone OS to take over. GrapheneOS looks nice, but it only runs on select Google pixel devices. Maybe if phone manufacturers were forced to let the user chose their OS?
I would love to get GrapheneOS or some other similar OS but the lack of mobile tap-to-pay support just kills the idea for me.
I have this little offline only single purpose device that handles tap to pay for me. It is actually waterproof, survives falls, is light enough to not be noticed, and hasn’t run out of battery in a few years.
Jokes aside, what is wrong with good old plastic cards? If you don’t want an extra wallet (which I need anyway to carry ids, drivers license, cash, emergency ear plugs, a handy sticker or two…), just get a phone case with card/cash slot thingies.
As it is right now, my cell phone replaces a collection of about six plastic cards. I have not yet found a wieldy phone case that has space to store payment cards.
Realistically, this question could also be asked with cash. If you’re going to be pulling out a wallet-like item anyway, and you are that concerned with privacy, why not go with anonymous, fee-free, secure, actually offline paper money? Card processing is not offline. The card machine has to be connected to the Internet for it to work (offline card processing theoretically exists, but is not widely implemented enough to rely on and is not particularly secure).
If people are going to argue that wanting to pay with a cell phone instead of a plastic card makes me lazy because the card takes a few extra seconds to use compare to the phone, I’m going to argue in turn that they’re lazy for using a card when using cash, with all of its privacy benefits, also only takes a few seconds more.
How can you spend time thinking about phones, when there are children starving to death in Africa! See, I am can do that too.
Besides, I do carry cash for everyday expenses, and I do prefer cash. I don’t know where you got that idea from.
But the question was to replace tap-to-pay. Sadly, tapping people with a fiver makes them irritated at best.
I’ve got nothing against you. I’m just not willing to accept a lecture (from other people, not you) about being “lazy” for wanting tap-to-pay on my cell phone. My statement is that the convenience of tap-to-pay for payment cards and transit passes is not worth the otherwise marginal privacy benefit of switching to Graphene.
I’d love to own my own devices but I’m so addicted to my phone I can’t handle pulling out my lighter, smaller, always charged debit card and so will continue to give up my ownership rights so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.
I’d love to stay private, but I’m so addicted to giving my financial information to banks that I can’t handle pulling out a lighter, fee-free, no-Internet-access-required, and nearly universally-accepted banknote from my wallet and so will continue to give up data about my spending so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.
Debit card? You let your bank know where you’re spending money??? Cash only for privacy
(I don’t actually follow this, I like credit cards and their rewards points, unless it’s actually cheaper to use cash)
If you own a smartwatch that supports tap to pay, you can use that instead.
I don’t wear a watch at all. I view smart watches in particular as completely useless gadgets. What useful thing do they do that a cell phone doesn’t? Count your heart rate? Sell that info to advertisers so they know what time you stay up at night doom-scrolling? They have absolutely no utility for me.
I was looking at that too and came to the same conclusion. I should probably migrate off apple at some point but Android in its current state is not viable for me.
What about it isn’t viable? Genuinely curious
I can’t use it stock because cell providers can push bullshit apps I don’t want without my permission and I can’t fully disable Gemini. Switching to grapheneOS addresses those concerns, but cause new problems, like killing tap to pay and triggering security flags on games and banking apps.
Yeah that’s a fair point. Some android models do have minimal or none bloatware, like Google pixel… But also then papa Google owns your ass lol
wasn’t there also some concern about messing up the radio communication for a lot of users?
the idea was that you actually can’t mess with radio communications. if you send too much data, it kinda clogs the airspace of radio frequencies and that’ actually illegal to do in many countries. rooting the android phone lets you access the radio antenna directly, and you can’t let playful nerds mess up the city’s mobile internet for a million inhabitants every other day. especially since the source of interference would be hard to track down.
Now i wonder what that would mean for mobile internet usb peripherals that you can plug into linux laptop and desktop machines. how do they solve this issue?
Rooting the phone means playful nerds could potentially mess up radio frequencies, but they can already do that because they can build radios using readily available electronic components. We already have all kinds of regulations about radio use, and we go after people who actually cause problems.
I am reading this with a rooted LineageOS phone with MicroG installed.
The worst thing is the past few years android updates brought fuckall exciting new stuff and just more spyware and worse performance .
Thank God for the Bixby button though.
I returned my Samsung phone over that button. Haven’t touched their shit since.
Fuck that button. At least let me map it to something else!
You can. They did an update to the S8 (and others, I assume) that let you remap it. I used some app before that, something from the Google Play Store but it’s been way too long to remember the name. Nowadays there isn’t a Bixby button anymore for us to remap. They tried to take over the power button with AI now, but thankfully you can remap this back to power as well.
Oh you reminded me that I also have the Assistant on long press power button, but I don’t use it almost at all, so…
That is the first “feature” I turn off when setting up any Android. Power off is the panic button, you don’t just give that to AI.
I installed e/OS when Google made the button to turn my phone off give me an AI prompt.
My recent (unwanted) update changed the lock screen to this weird format where the two-digit hour is above the two-digit minute instead of next to it separated by a colon like normal people use. I keep setting it back to what I want but this weird over/under format keeps coming back. Some fucking douchebag of a UX/UI designer thought this was a genius new way of showing the time and now it’s being jammed down my throat.
I always keep at least one notification so I don’t have to see that stupid format on my lock screen.
You guys do know that there is an option in the settings to just always have the normal clock?
Thanks! This wasn’t implemented when I got my phone, but it looks like they added it a couple years later. I never looked after the option wasn’t initially there.
Huh, I’ll have to try that.
Yeah, I was using stock pixel launcher forever until the most recent “update” that added yet another button to the search bar that you can’t remove, that I used daily, and the button went conveniently right where my right thumb tapped. Switched to Lawnchair, and it’s not without issue. Why can’t shit that has worked just continue to work the same way?
Why can’t shit that has worked just continue to work the same way?
Line must go up.
At the top of the world, we’re all just the bottom line.
I also swapped to Lawnchair not that long ago. The only thing I miss so far is the ability to use app shortcuts on the home screen. Like opening YouTube directly to my subscriptions, etc. It also uses black text for the status bar on the home screen making it invisible but that might be user error.
Edit: There’s a setting for “Dark Status Bar.” I don’t know if it was on by default or if I switched it. But now I can see it again.
Hey now that’s not fair, they also made the ui huge so it looks like a fisher price toy! No you can’t turn it off why would you want that??
Of course they did, the average American struggles to tie their shoes.
The recent OneUI update on my Galaxy is shit. Performance and functionality overall are worse than before. Smdh
Here is my list of what any device really should have:
- Make me able to use my device as I want to.
If the Operating System don’t agree - there MUST be a way to install alternative OS with a SINGLE BUTTON CLICK.
Oh, god. Think of what kind of world that would open up with this simple rule. The device could be a smartphone, Windows machine, termostat, or a dishwasher. Anything would never be obsolete anymore and all users can be happy - a machine obeying the user. Wonderful. Please EU fix this!
What kinda magic fantasyland one button click smartphone dishwasher…
Finally my dishwasher and thermostat can all run templeOS
I routinely get a Samsung notification telling me to agree to some new agreement thing. I swipe it away. It just reappears in 48 hours or so. I swipe it away. We’ve danced this dance for years.
I don’t know what it’s for, I don’t care, and things are just fine as is. There’s nothing it it for me so, no.
Please click here to agree to our new Samsung privacy policy.
I’m sure that they would choose to interpret the swipe to clear it as a click
but yeah my last phone I did that for several years. nope, no thank you.
every time I start my TV I have to say I don’t want the new firmware because it comes with a new privacy policy / user agreement
I will need to buy a new TV soon, and the single biggest factor won’t be price, features, or quality, it will be the absolute minimum smart features available. I’m fine with a sleep timer, and built-in audio smoothing would be great, but I can add anything else I want with a dongle that costs less than $100 (or just attach a full-blown computer to it). I’m not made of money, but I’m fortunate enough that I can afford to buy a TV with something other than an opportunity to invade my private life for marketing.
The other thing I’m looking for is a decent non-Google/Apple smartphone with an eye to privacy. A decent Linux phone would be great, Sailfish OS looks promising, maybe there are other options. Hopefully my Samsung lasts until then. When one of their updates came out whose main feature seemed to be the ability to spy on you everywhere, I closed my account and don’t even have that logged in anymore. There are a number of interesting features I can’t use, and a lot of terrible features I don’t want, that aren’t available to me anymore. A smartphone that belongs to me, and not some corporate conglomerate would be nice. We’ll see.
Sailfish isn’t bad but its a compromise. I don’t like that it’s not open source. I’m happy to pay for it, but I’d prefer if it were a community project rather than something buiut behind the closed doors of an understaffed company.
That said I’m using it to type this comment so I must still think its better than the alternatives.
We bought a smart TV a couple years ago, and it was so hard to find a model without a built-in microphone… No I don’t want my fucking TV to listen to every word said in the room.
Same with WhatsApp for me, there are new terms and conditions that allow engagement with businesses and sharing some personal data with them, I’ve been rejecting that shit for four years now, they still keep asking.
And the app still works? Mine told me it was compulsory and would stop working if I didn’t agree
Sometimes it’s true but they’ll always let you agree later if they do disable things, so always reject them the first time, in case its an empty threat.
My Samsung forced update and installed bloatware. I’m looking forward to going back and getting a clamshell phone from
tothe 2000’sI use an app specifically designed to automatically dismiss notifications and I use it to dismiss this Samsung one you mentioned and the voice mail notification, which for some ridiculous reason can’t be disabled.
Which one
I use Macrodroid for similar notification handling shenanigans. I even bought it bc it’s so beautifully customisable 👌
This one: https://joaoapps.com/autonotification/ lots of features, somewhat confusing, but I literally only use it for the auto-dismiss, which works so well the notification doesn’t even appear so it’s effectively disabled.
I do the same. I’m close to just delete my samsung account because I don’t really need and/or use it.
I stopped using a Samsung account a long time ago. Never used it with my current phone. It doesn’t seem to make a difference.
True. I genuinely don’t use i either.
Then again, I’m rolling an S20 Ultra+ that just does everything excellently still. If I want to extend its life as long as possible, I should just load on another OS and solve the Samsung issue that way.
btw you might be able to block notifications from that app with long clicking
No, it doesn’t let you disable this notification unfortunately.
At some point it annoys me so much I just hit accept. It’s probably nothing anyway.
That’s what they want, so spite fuels my resolve to reject it repeatedly
I know, bad habit. But I just couldn’t care less about those stupid agreements. I just want the damn popup gone.
I legit got this notification on my phone while reading this comment. I do the same and will continue to do the same.
- “Yes”
- “No, but thank you soooo much for asking anyway! You’d be welcome to ask again and I am soooo thankful. It’s a great thing that you filled the screen with this pop up for a thing I do not want. No, but thank you.”
Corporate machines stole my voice that’s MY VOICE give it back I have THOUGHTS to say with MY VOICE give me my voice back you ass give it back let me say what I want I need to tell them to fuck off
I hate that my phone is held hostage. My computer is free thanks to linux, it just sucks theres few linux phones that work in the US.
GrapheneOS is at least better than Google android.
GOS by all its strenghts, is following the paths treat by Google and Apple on defining what a smartphone has to be and how its security model has to look like, where only the OS distributor has full privileges, and you are just allowed to use it.
If you have the same requirements for your system as the people who designed these phones assumes you have, then GOS is great for you.
But if you want to tinker and customize, like we can with Linux systems, then Android and especially locked down systems like GOS aren’t for you.
I am using GOS myself, because it is good, but I also have a separate device of tinkering.
For me it’s a necessary compromise.
I’m a Linux user on my other devices and I’d love to have a fully libre and open phone, but the most important thing for getting my life tasks done is that apps work, so I’m somewhat hostage to where the apps are available and will run.
Graphene is me trying to achieve that in the least-bad way I can.
Sure, I get that.
But there are also people that don’t use banking apps or pay via NFC, etc. They use their phone just to call and text people, browse the web and take pictures. I will not recommend buying a Pixel and putting GOS on it, if they don’t specifically ask for a high security device.
If they are in the market for a new phone, I will recommend phones that are maintained for a long time and have a good active open source AOSP port community around them. For example the Fairphone with /e/ or Lineage with MicroG. Somewhere where people aren’t funneled towards google services. Since privacy is a bigger issue for most people than security.
What do you have for a tinkering device, if I may ask?
Well, my old phone, with LineageOS. It is a OnePlus 8, but I probably wouldn’t recommended OnePlus phones generally, I was hopeing that it eventually get mainline treatment, like the 6T, but that hasn’t happen yet.
I rooted it for managing battery charge limits, among other stuff. Having a root shell in termux makes debugging or fixing app and other issues very easy.
Graphene isn’t entirely better. It makes trades. Some of those trades get you things you might like but they also cost others things they may want to keep.
For example, I want a folding phone without fucking Gemini. I cannot have this without graphene os, but that also disables other things I still wants, like tap to pay or the ability to use certain banking apps.
I have a Samsung sadly
Maybe you are lucky and have a model compatible with lineage
Sadly an s23 but im saving this link, thanks!
We really do need more viable open phone options. We are well past the point in hardware capability that we could have a linux phone that turns into a desktop when you plug it into a docking station. USB-c connections handle everything for my work laptop.
I have reverted back to using my Linux PC for most screwing around online. My phone, for the technological wonder that it is, is for communicating with family, listening to music, GPSing, and then occasionally computer stuff, looking things up, etc.
Sailfish OS existst, but it is far from beeing nice. Look out for Jolla OS too
Canonical tried years ago and just didn’t get the funding they needed to release an Ubuntu phone. It would have been a dreamy device, especially in today’s tech market.
Graphene OS is a privacy focused OS that runs on Pixel phones.
Its not as seamless as native Google Android but it’s still production worthy and works well enough for me
I’m definitely glad it and others like it exist. But for phones isn’t the issue more with low-level hardware and firmware? I bet we really need Google to make “Pixel” an open platform and not just a device, so that we can have the “IBM compatible” of phones. But I trust the Google of today to do the opposite.
Maybe RISC-V is what I’m waiting for? An open phone is going to need to run the same software as Linux PCs to have all that good FOSS support, and I don’t think I’ve rad any rumors about x86 phones, lol.
Risc-V is not going to be any better. Technically, the ISA of Arm is very well documented. Sure, it is created and licensed out by a single company. But that doesn’t matter when the device is either locked or has so many non-documented quirks and peripherals.
Bah, but thanks for the info!
:( 👍
Well hey, on the upside I have switched back to browsing on my Linux PC rather than my phone. I have the monitors on arms next to my end of the couch, so I can hang out with my family and watch a movie or whatever, but also have a 27" monitor hovering over my lap. And I’m already kinda old so it will help once my eyes start going, lol.
there have been x86 phones for a long time, but they are kind of rare. I think they use more power too.
I can’t wait until a PinePhone comes out that I actually want.
I’m impressed it’s only $200
