At the end of the day, all you can really do is to start treating your phone more like a phone and stop carrying it everywhere and using it for everything.
The convenience of it has made it way too easy for people to spy on you.
this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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Yep. My disdain for the combination of fascist government where everything is surveillance, and sociopathic corporations and billionaires where everything is a cynical cash grab, overcame me excitement for tech "products" a long time ago. I'm in the US so it's especially bad.
I still have a smart phone that's 4-5 years old, and I do of course use it every day, but I consciously avoid using it every hour. I love when I misplace it in my own house, to then not look for it for hours. The only person who is going to message me anything urgent is my wife and she knows where to find me.
Constant phone addiction is one of those situations where when you remove yourself from it you can more easily see it in others. It's like there's a new form of body language where when you see that slight forward tilt of the head you know they are in the Phone Zone without even seeing the rest of their body.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old,
Mine is an older model too, thankfully. I never needed the bells and whistles other people are into, which probably helps me stay more secure.
But I also just love that I'm not reaching for my pocket every 30 seconds for another dopamine hit too.
I have thought about trying to get away from shit but it's hard. If I want to stop using my phone regularly I need to purchase a GPS unit, wire up a charger for it on both my bikes (go deep in woods some times so I use gaia on my phone to figure out where I am), I'd need to get an mp3 player for music, and no more scheduling everything on my phone calendar. It's an effort, but the more this convenience starts to cost (both in $ and privacy) the more willing I am to make the effort. Another major gripe I have with phones is their all so goddamn big now too, last comfortable to hold phone I had was a damned s3 now everything is a mini tablet and I have big hands. My SO hates phone shopping cuz her hands are tiny! Can't hold the damn things with one hand anymore lol
I understand.
It's a bummer what we have to consider to avoid people snooping, but it's (at least in my humble opinion), necessary.
A good way to start breaking the habit and only using it when you need it is to just keep it in another area of your home. I keep mine in a bathroom drawer.
If you are going through this much effort you could consider getting an /e/OS or GrapheneOS Phone?
My buddy has a pixel with graphene and loves it. I am not familiar with /e/os how does it compare? I have a not terribly old Moto G (2025) right now as it was the cheapest phone I could get locally after loosing my last one deep in the green mountians so I hate to have to get a new phone again already as this one seems to be unsupprted by either G or E os's
I don’t know your budget but I got a pixel 9 that I put graphene on, and a year of 10gb monthly cell service for 550 total. The pixel was from eBay, and the cell service is from usmobile. You could go cheaper with a pixel 8 and a different provider
Yea. Also have an old moto g and am sad to find that E and G os are not compatible.
We need go start talking about the year of the GNU/Linux phone
If AluminumOS takes off and overtakes Windows and Mac marketshare, desktops are headed in the same direction as mobiles.
As long as you can build a computer from off the shelf parts we are fine in that regard. They can't stop FOSS OSs from working.
Gross, combining Chrome OS with Android? NO thanks! Another OS to harvest data to the max! "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not apply to Google at this point.
On top of desktops getting turned from the last remotely open platform into existence into locked-down black boxes fully controlled by Google if AluminumOS actually succeeds, and Google's positioning it in a way that it might just succeed, positioning it in between Win10 getting deprecated and Win11's continuing enshittification, Google could just severely undercut the cheapest Win11 PCs and the Macbook Neo and gain marketshare by selling AluminumOS devices as a significantly cheaper option than Win11 PCs or Macs. If that happens, and that tactic actually works and PCs and Macs get overtaken in the desktop market by AluminumOS devices, it's game over for desktops as an open platform.
Keep dreaming! Chrome OS and Chromebooks in general are nearly as expensive as actual windows PCs with 5%the functionality. Just go straight up Linux at that point!! Free, open source, EASY to install or dual boot even. It is far better than anything Google would put out.
If you've never tried it, follow any one of the million guides for Ubuntu or Mint and you'll be amazed. Even Steam OS, CachyOS, ZorinOS, or other gaming oriented systems.
I forget this isn't the privacy thread, but you can't just "hope" Google's going to fix everything wrong with Windows when they're doing the same exact thing as each other. You want to break free, you want functional, you want privacy, get Linux.
A major hardware and software change is happening in my life too, Google, to excise you from every facet of my life.
As a person who uses a few sideloaded apps, this is sad news.
Well, as far as I know the current idea is that you'll have to toggle a setting in developer options and wait 24 hours (once). After that you can sideload unverified stuff as much as you like. So it's not horribly sad, I´d say.
I actually kind of think that's a reasonable change. It improves safety for the clueless majority, but it still gives those that know what they are doing a free reign with a minor initial inconvenience. And I kind of feel like articles still claiming how horrible this all is are mostly just outrage farming. Unless the plans have changed to something more fucked up, that is.
No, it's not reasonable. Fuck the clueless majority. Stupid people should be prevented from hurting others, but they should not be prevented from hurting themselves. If you manage to download malware that's on you, no big brother should ever be controlling what you can and can't install on your personal fuckin devices. I'm a fucking adult and I do not need or want some bullshit fucking kid mode imposed on my personal shit because Google went full fucking nazi. Companies have no business dictating how you use your own purchases property. Imagine your fucking car saying nah you've already driven twenty miles today it's not safe for you to drive more and just shutting the fuck down. Every motherfucker making these decisions in every industry need to be publicly gruesomely executed. The owner class needs to remember who they're accountable to.
"Android fans"
Android Hostages lol, what am I supposed to do use an Iphone?
I was just getting home picking up my new second hand Pixel 3a to install PostmarketOS on. Wish me luck :)
Was it really ever?
Please consider donating to PostmarketOS to build up a pure mobile Linux alternative that is completely free of Google's influence. It's the best option we have.
Just signed up to donate 5 euros a month. Took me about 45 seconds.
I thought graphene was the best daily driver for the moment ?
It's the best option we have.
Wow, that guy is an absolute putz. Like, postmarketOS literally tells you that their shit is not ready for prime time and to be ready for it to be a little bit wonky right now. And this guy is acting like they're advertising it as it is ready for Freddy and it's just garbage or something. Not to mention the way he installed it was just stupid. My 8-year-old niece could do this better than he did.
I think I'll find a video made by somebody more competent.
He's a comedian. His videos aren't meant to be taken seriously.
What about fairphone? Don’t they run a Ubuntu option?
Hijacking as I've done on other posts. In my country all 3 major tellcos needed to verify phones can call emergency on VoLTE.
FP5 does this. For whatever reason the telcos cant "conform" that (its not sold here but important and DOES work) so the device is blocked at a network level.
Not blocked just for calls but even data.
Phone is now a brick. Double brick once the Android changes roll through.
no they don't. they do have a partnership with Murena, which sells them preinstalled with /e/, which is a degoogled Android ROM. there is a Ubuntu Touch port available for some Fairphone models though.
So that would be a yes. Yes they do.
And Why are we being confrontational about this?
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