Signal is a stop gap measure on the way to simplex
It did its job of providing privacy of content but meta data a d KYCd phones was a honeypot. Glowies got their relationship heat maps which is really all they wanted.
Once they need content, they will brick your end point with million zero day back doors caked onto everything.
Pegasus cellebrite etc is now used against normal targets.
5 years ago you would have to be a national security concern for such royal treament
they pretty much always collaborate with the police
a corporation is a legal extension of the state, hence why all of them will always collaborate when ordered by the courts or otherwise required by law.
some will even collaborate when they are not required by law such amazon ring providing pigs access for no reason, facebook censoring content per request of US or Israel… needless bullshit but hey it helps get government contracts ;)
bottom line, expecting corpo to do anything for you for 5 bucks a month is naive, at best they should not do it for no reason and they should not sell your data.
but even that is a tall order for these parasites.
30$/hr
In 2025 america ain’t really money for somebody with a skill set to do this type of work in the US at least.
Otherwise agree. But realistically Foss will need to outcompete corpos commercially and that requires normies to make these consumption choice while Foss gains mass market appeal.
Obviously fedi is pro FOSS but we are just a rounding error as of now.
This used to work for me but then they started forcing the play store too and account which then required an account. So I just stopped using GPS all together.
But thank you for pointing just goes to show experience can be different and people should play around for their set up.
For me now it is an ideological battle. Fuck Google
Since others have broadly explained that you are in fact wrong here, let’s address this hot take by hot take:
It’s absolutely janky when it comes to its Android app support,
These limitation are needlessly imposed by google and app developers. And you are overstating the amount of the affected apps.
it’s UI is absolutely atrocious
it is bare bones stock adroid but you can install whatever you want, nobody is stopping you. they don’t sell UI. they sell control.
It’s simply a wonky operating system.
what does does this mean. it is the most basic bare bones system you can have, that works out of the box.
an operating system built only for Google pixel hardware
they have spec reqa for their security architecture, no other phone provides the specs.
Google could snap its fingers tomorrow and lock down the ability to unlock bootloaders.
this is a valid criticism and google has shown its face recently.
GOS team is now working on trying to find OEM to meet their specs. TBD.
Prompted me to donate, they need support. They provide a solid product for anyone who cares to control software on their devices.
LineageOS covers a lot of devices but I can NOT recommend in good faith as a personal phone decide.
It is made in some weird development mode and can’t lock the bootloader.
Both of these make very insecure if you lose physical control. It is a decent degoogle.
Sammy is going anti ROM and will prevent people from unlocking Bootloader going forward it seems.
On personal level, I would advise against focusing on hard ware. I used to be a hardware whore myself. But in 2025 privacy/security should be the defining factor in cell phone decision. I can’t think of anything more personal.
No tldr… I am just going off my memory as a shit poster
But to address your core request.
The degoogle privacy community has a running arguement regarding what’s the best way to degoogle for privacy
Currently there are two options microg which spoofs GPS but still does some connections ie calyxOs approach among other RPMs
OR
Sandboxed GPS ie GrapheneOS approach. Where you just run the apps but gos limits what gps can track. You do need a Google account but it is easy to get a dummy.
As side note the best is gos with NO sandboxed gps but realistically normies joining the movement need GPS capabilities.
Either one is better than normie phone but if you care about privacy AND security, gos is king.
The improvements they made to android even gets upstreamed by Google creeps.
CalyxOS development is spotty. Obviously I support them two, extra options are good and they cover more phones.
Gos only does pixel, which is problematic but that’s just what can be done currently.
Luis Rossman got into with the main dev… At the time it seemed like Luis was right
However due what happened recently with calyx guy and how him and Luis have business connection.
I am reconsidering what actually happened back then.
GOS dev is socially inept but he was right from technical perspective and looks like he was bullied. So the lashing out might have been justified.
But like I said, maybe it it is time for us to look at substance over form. Shiti PR has been weaponized against peasant class.
Elites will literally tell you what you want to hear on tv while robbing you and the normies larp that propaganda as if they came up within.
With that being futo makes good product too
But graphene is clearly superior to CalyxOS
GrapheneOS is fucking king a for a reason. The main dev was a cunt but he wasn’t wrong.
Peoples need to learn to see through PR, good or bad, and focus on specs.
It seems after years of bullshit PR, we can safely say that GrapheneOS thesis stood the test of time.
Google took notice and now fighting us.
It is a loaded statement… Which part hurt YOU specifically?