I hate that. One of the reasons I dislike Samsung phones. Last phone from them was a Note 8 and unless they go back to a pure Android experience, I won’t get another. We know that isn’t happening any time soon.
Honestly I’m super over all our current choices. Im on an iPhone and while I like their privacy stuff slightly better than android, there are lots of things I don’t like.
I also hate how much metadata the big G snorts up. Even just the location data they retain is out of this world.
There just aren’t any options if you want something that doesn’t keep you boxed into a closed ecosystem or track every love you make.
You can get a Google pixel and sideload an operating system such as Grapheneos, and you won’t have to deal with any of Google’s bs spying. Highly recommend looking into it.
I recently made the switch and it’s great. Definitely takes a bit of understanding and research to know what you’re getting into, though.
At that point why not just using Samsung phone and sideload the OS? Seems weird to do that on Pixel which has inferior hardware and good software (like its camera apps), and then remove the software
Simple reason being that there’s no notoriously good OS for Samsung phones.
Graphene is highly focused on not being annoying while keeping privacy intact. You can, for example, have Google Play Services, within a sandbox. Everything can be denied network access, or any access really, on a per app basis.
It also relies on Google’s security chip to keep the chain of trust intact. The boot sequence and your private keys are kept intact that way. Not everyone documents and opens their hardware as well as Google. Samsung is notoriously terrible and full of it when it comes to allowing you to do your own thing.
I recently just bought a pixel 6 and have been interested in Graphene OS, but would I lose features like live translate and the hold for me feature?
live translate
What is that? Google translate listening and translating live? Google lens translating images? Both work.
hold for me feature
No clue about what that is.
In general most things work just the same, and things that do not tend to be listed in the Graphene docs.
Apple’s biggest success is convincing people they care about your privacy.
What about the fairphones? I was reading up on them and might get one. I like that they come with an android fork and open-source apps so you don’t have to deal with Google. Plus being fully repairable and sustainably-made. Does anyone have any experience with them?
The problem is getting one if you’re in North America…
But they’re in America now? https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/
Where are they originally? Would it be easier to get one in Europe?
I have a note 9 and i think its time to replace this piece of shit. It lasted like 2 years without problems and then “magically” is started to fail
They have officially come to the US recently: https://murena.com/america/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-fairphone-4/
The fact that one of those is some sort of a gambling app promotes that to very infuriating! 😡
I’m amazed by how many gambling ads and games are pushed these days. Really horrible imo.
Yeah but the Cesar’s app let’s you play without paying. You can, but it’s not necessary. Besides some of the games are fun to play without spending any money
It just seems like that might really be not cool to force such apps on someone struggling with a gambling addiction.
Disingenuous. What has that got to do with anything?Are they specifically targeting those people? Do you have proof they do? I thought the discussion was about the apps themselves, not the people getting them?
Samsung has been a malicious bad actor for a while now. It’s not just phones; they also pulled shit like retroactively adding ads to people’s smart TVs etc.
(Also, even their “dumb” products, like appliances, are designed to fail just outside warranty. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my washer’s spider arm, which failed catastrophically due to corrosion even though nothing else in the machine had so much of a speck of corrosion on it. Samsung is clearly capable of specifying corrosion-resistant materials and chose not to on purpose in order to create a failure point.)
Everyone should completely boycott Samsung.
Your corrosion issue is due to dissimilar metals which, when in contact with one another, begin corroding immediately. They chose those materials knowing full well what would happen.
Their appliances are absolute garbage and I’ve read that many repair places refuse to work on them because they’re built so poorly.
Galvanic corrosion is a thing every shipyard on the planet has known about since we invented the propeller, of course they knew what they were doing.
Never owned a Samsung phone but 5 minutes playing with the gf’s S22 was enough to keep me as an Apple fanboy for the foreseeable future
Straight up gambling apps too
I had been using Samsung for the longest time before my current device and lemme tell ya, even with their flagships they pull this shit, I’m always having to go in and delete whatever shit they download, like, no, I have no desire to play fucking ROYAL MATCH please stop asking me
If one of my relatives showed me this screen appearing on their phone I’d assume they have malware
This is definetely malware. OP has probably been doing funky stuff with his phone.
No they haven’t. This is stuff is commonly installed with updates from the carrier.
Ah yeha, sorry, didn’t read the Mobile Services Manager. But this is a common malware attack though.
Why I don’t even consider Samsung phones.
Majorly infuriating.
It’s not really your phone if it does things like this. This is Samsung’s phone you pay for their permission to carry for a few years.
True ownership means fully possessing something and deciding how it operates including what software it runs, what data that software can access, and when it can access it. I would not be surprised if those apps had some very invasive default permissions.
There’s a difference between not having full ownership and not bothering to use it. There’s plenty of options from rooting to full custom ROMs, and as far as I know Samsung does nothing to prevent you using those, they just don’t do it for you / provide support and updates.
I disabled my DNS block-list for 5 minutes to test something, and my Samsung TV used its newfound freedom to immediately go and automatically install the TikTok app from its app store. It no longer gets the privilege of an internet connection.
Ah, that’s where you’re wrong: it’s not your phone.
Stab in the dark…your on tmobile.
It does this to me too. You disable the damn thing, then you get a carrier update and it reactivates and downloads stupid games no one wants.
First time it did it to me, I thought I got a virus. Come to find out…nah it’s just a thing tmobile forces on you for fun.
Assholes
Verizon does stuff like this too. It downloaded TikTok and other garbage every update. Once I couldn’t take it anymore I got rid of the app downloading it using ADB
This is the sorta shit that will likely be in the EUs sights soon. Installing applications nobody asked for because of the carrier? That sounds fucking insanely invasive. It’s like Adidas installing a camera in your apartment because you bought a pair of sneakers.
That’s kind of an extreme example lol unless the game is asking for insane permissions. Still I get your point and hopefully the EU acts on it. Especially since they appear to be humanity’s only hope against shit like this
That’s probably because the EU generally isn’t run by a two party system, where both parties are actually just center-right neoliberals. If you want EU style protections, you have to actually fight for it, like pretty much every European country did.
The two party system isn’t the only problem though, there’s also:
- Money being a form of speech – EU MEPs aren’t soliciting billionaires for money to spend on TV ads
- The 10th amendment – prevents any national effort where the federal govt uses a power not explicitly granted to it in the constitution. Obamacare tripped up here for instance, and Obamacare is far from national socialized healthcare. It was a feature when people identified more with their local culture, but in an era when every American identifies as American-first, and engages the political system accordingly by only knowing or caring about national candidates and parties, it becomes a bug.
- States that should have never been states – the US Senate took a heavy rural turn in the 19th century as vast, sparsely populated territories were given statehood. Nowadays this means to buy two US Senators you only need to gaslight ~600k people with advertising (the population of Wyoming). The founding fathers never really developed a solid plan for how the west would be settled, and it shows.
- Powerful and unaccountable Court – the Supreme Court is given authority over both other branches, serving life terms, with few guidelines or restrictions. A party with the Presidency and Senate at the right time can gain a majority of the court and undo (or manufacture) precedent at the snap of a finger. The resulting system makes it far easier to capture the court than to pass a constitutional amendment. Think abortion should be legal? Here’s a roundabout legal justification for that. Oh the new majority thinks it shouldn’t be? Okay now it’s gone. It’s a chaotic way to handle bedrock rights like access to healthcare and privacy (neither of which are mentioned anywhere in the US constitution). The constitution should be malleable enough that the court is strictly tasked with interpreting the letter of the law. The US shouldn’t be relying on legal gymnastics to legalize abortion and gay marriage. It’s unstable and undemocratic.
- Electoral College – the leader of the country, not just the Executive but the Head of State, is elected in a way that respects statehood more than personhood. It is more concerned with making sure Wyoming gets a fair vote than making sure John Doe in Queens does.
- First past the post voting – this is another oversight by the founding fathers that many European republics were able to avoid, and it’s the root cause of the two party system. But it also makes gerrymandering possible, which completely breaks both state-level politics and the US House. It makes so many seats into “safe seats” that the “money is speech” briberies become much easier to allocate.
- Racism – almost every dumb thing about American politics can be traced back in some form to slavery, segregation, or racism. Why is every state given 2 senators? Slavery. Why were some of those rural states admitted? Also slavery. Why did White Americans support progressive policies in the 30s, 40s, and 50s? Segregation. Why did the entire Deep South flip from Democrat to Republican in the late 60s? Also segregation. It’s America’s original sin and it’s still playing a role.
Every one of those things plays a role in the US not adopting stricter privacy standards, or leading the way in anything except military might. It’s why American politics is so broken that even a majority of voters wanting to fix it isn’t enough.
The European Left needs strong support.
Never again Samsung. Never again.
What smartphone brand is safe to buy nowadays? It feels like every single one is terrible and anti-user.
Google pixel + GrapheneOS
Google Pixel phones (easily allows bootloader unlock and custom ROM if you need to but I can’t be bothered until EOS most of the time)
Nothing Phone (same as above but with different light skin, interesting design and not Google if that bothers you)
You don’t get any of this crap with the Pixel Android phones… I believe Motorola used to be good about not loading up junkware also, but that was years ago and I dunno if they’re still like that.
Yep, never had any of my stock Pixels install anything I didn’t put on them intentionally
I’ve stuck with the Pixel since they came out and won’t go back until they really screw it up. Every couple of years Verizon will run a special where you get the previous model for free, which works for me.
If you want a nice user experience, Google pixel line is pretty good.
If you want privacy, etc. there are better options.
Actually, Pixel is the go-to choice for privacy-concious folks as well. That’s because the two most secure and private mobile operating systems, Calyx and Graphene, support only the Pixel lineup.
Ironic that I’m tired of this post about unwanted apps popping up in every feed of mine every time I refresh to see new ones 😂🤦
