Money makes everything possible
Few people want to pay full price for their phone.
I mean, yeah, but there’s also manufacturer bloatware. This model year, Samsung in particular has outdone themselves with the implementation of their AI chatbot nearly zero percent of their customer base wanted.
This is most prevalent on androids, even stock pixel. As much as I like to shit on apple, they have less bloat on your phone. Of course whatever native app you have on there, you wouldn’t able to delete, whereas on android you could delete it if you really wanted to.
Because it’s profitable.
It’s called enshitification. Deshitification isn’t so much a thing.
What’s sad is how true this is. Companies enshitify once they have a solid hold on the market. But if they start to slip in numbers, do they ever deshitify to regain trust and users? Fuck no, they triple down on the enshitification to make one last cash grab as they prepare to abandon ship with life preservers full of bonuses for themselves
Is it really enshitification if it was like this from essentially the start?
Outside of like literally the very first few android phones when there wasn’t even apps for the platform, they came bundled with all sorts of shit. I remember my HTC from 2010 drove me insane with the junkware bundled in, and that was about 2 years post Android’s first phone. We’re at like more or less steady state shitification. (varies by phone/brand)
I used to buy my phones with a specific eye towards avoiding bloat. It was still possible to avoid most of it 8-10 years ago, but not anymore.
This is a wild take for me. I had bloatware on my dumbphone. Hell, the old nokia phones had app/ringtone dlc bullshit in them too. My old palm pilot had bloatware. Where did you get a phone without it?
Not without it, just a lot less. 1plus used to be not too bad. Not like today where dozens of apps come with everything.
For the same reason we have every fucking other problem in the world right now.
Capitalism.
You cannot align incentives towards growing the wealth of a microscopic yet astronomically lecherous group of monsters and expect society to not just crumble under the weight.
Anti-libre software steals our control. When you see a licence text file like GPL missing, 🚩
Basically, because we don’t own our devices. We are allowed to use our devices by the good graces of the manufacturers that charge a premium for them.
This really needs to change. I remember the preinstalled app antitrust suit(s) in the early 00s. Those need to happen again, but likely the EU will have to as the US is entering a dark age, and the US will continue to have inferior everything to the rest of the world for the foreseeable future.
Companies want to spy on you and make money, it’s no secret. Just install stock Android or your favorite fork; it quite literally takes 5 minutes with a WebUSB installer.
Unlocking bootloader took me few hours.
I must register new account, install Windows application (Linux not supported, but Windows Server evaluation is free and works as a VM),
have valid SIM card with Internet access.But worth it, much better experience.
Unfortunately, average person won’t do all this things.
That sounds like Xiaomi. The best price to performance ratio of any OEM, but at the cost of terrible software and this… experience… when you want to get rid of it.
Worth noting that not all OEMs are like this.
Yeah, bingo.
I hope there are no backdoors in a firmware or modem.
Doesn’t’ the fork like Lineage OS or Graphene also need to support those phone models first?
Yep, Graphene only runs on Pixels but (IIRC) Lineage runs on most mainstream devices. Otherwise stock Android should work fine.
it quite literally takes 5 minutes with a WebUSB installer.
With a supported phone, on a Chromium browser on Windows. It takes much more than that usually, depending on device, to unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM
I guess I only have one data point from installing Graphene on my phone. I can see why it would be harder on other devices. Though I was using Linux, and Windows is absolutely not required for WebUSB.
…and then you’re locked out of using your phone to pay for things, can’t install banking apps and marginal ID apps, et cetera. 😢
- do you really need to pay with your phone?
- do you need to use a banking app and not call the automated system to check?
- What ID apps would you used on a phone? Having digital ID’s is in it’s own a huge breach of privacy and i would never consent to such a system
- do you really need to pay with your phone?
Yes and not for me. Having my dad’s card on my phone without having the physical card is not that bad
fair enough, a unique situation.
Switched a week ago to grapheneos, I love it and fuck google
The problem is that most phones don’t support ROM’s like Graphene or Linage, as people installing custom roms is a relic of years past. Next time you get a phone, think about if you want this option for yourself. Also, do keep in mind that some phones have HW backdoors on them, so even installing a stock rom/graphene does not save you from privacy.
That’s true. Graphene is majorly Pixel limited, I guess. And even Lineage has a small set of devices when one considers the nos of OEMs and variants they manufacture per year.
HW backdoors
Tell me more!
And lil papa google now forces GPlay Integrity so custom Roms are fucked
Well its known that SoC’s have backdoors on them. Usually it calls home to China, so you can guess what that’s for.
Honestly I don’t really give a shit if China invades my privacy I have nothing they’d care about anyway. I just don’t want American corporations doing it to try to sell me more shit.
With u on this sentiment
I do. fuck china.
Fuck em sure. But they can’t reach me , us corporations that block US gdpr legislation year after year - they want to use my data and fuck me over
fuck the CIA and fuck PRISIM
So phone like Xiaomi? Sorry, I’m kinda dumb in this
Xiaomi is the biggest offender, but all of them do it.
Fair. Didn’t know that
why do you think richard stallman doesn’t use a smartphone?
Nah you can easily bypass play integrity on a rooted phone, see my comment above.
I’m using Grapheneos and rooting the room will make it less secure 🤷♂️ and I don’t see why root my phone
I’m gonna look into getting Huawei os
Why Hauwei OS?
It’s android but without google . Given how much google fucks with me, I’m willing to say fuck u to google
Google fucks with everyone, now more than ever with this “recommended” (forced) play integrity. Look at the recent ban from Uber, Authy (thank god I switched a few days ago) and some other apps
I was curious why Hauwei and not LineageOS, GrapheneOS, Calyx, etc
tbh recently I just don’t have time to futs with roms.
Ive used lineage for many years. And would love to use it permanently but banking apps is a problem for me and having to hack things too much is a problem for me.
Obviously some linux mobile distro would have been ideal. but There isn’t anything usable.calyx/graphene - the model selection is just too limited. And I would never buy a google or apple device.
lineage os doesn’t support oneplus 12R I use now (well there is unofficial rom).so I would like to try huawei, the hope is - it’s like android but naturally without google because its designed like that.
They made it very hard to install roms.
There is this orange warning on boot.
Then banking apps don’t work.
With a rooted phone you can install Zygisk (magisk + zygote) and then a bunch of modules that simulate system integrity.
What you need are “play integrity fix” and “playcurl_NEXT”.
The first module lets you bypass the google play integrity check, the second one will download updated integrity fingerprint files every 5 minutes to ensure that the bypass never fails.
If you know how to install custom ROMs, this part is not a big challenge.
Thank you. Yeah I was aware that there is magysk. Problem is - it’s becoming too many hacks to deal with. And I bet it probably breaks from time to time and one has to hack/fix it again?
Even pixel or Fairphone is fairly free of bloatware compared to Samsung and shitty Chinese brands as long as you are not privacy paranoid about Google services.
I am privacy paranoid.
And that’s fine, but first people like you (and me to some extent) are in the vast minority and that’s also not an issue of bloatware per se.
yeah the only problem is that i have to participate in this hellhole capitalist society. Im trying to figure out what the best VPN is to use, along side if tor is worth using.
It’s 2024.
Because it’s profitable to include.
Why would companies care as much about the minor brand value decrease in the eyes of more technical users when they can make more money right now by making things shittier?
And laptops, desktops, televisions …
- buy a laptop/desktop
- boot up windows and setup with fake shit
- download and flash your favourite linux distro
- disable secure boot
- boot from usb.
- ???
- profit!
Sadly, there are a few programs I can’t run on Linux but I use it daily, no windows
What programs?
- Internet Download Manager (IDM): Yee, I know it may not increase your download speed but was kinda good to have the main folder of downloads and every file by category downloaded in a subdirectories: Images, Documents, videos, etc. Using JDownloader 2 but it’s not the same
- Affinity Designer: I know there is “Inkscape” but I still prefer affinity for it’s UI and because I’m used to it
- AMD Adrenaline: Yeah, maybe was a bloatware and shit but kinda liked the built in record feature and tweaks you could do
fair enough, nobody is forcing you to switch, but Inkscape is there, and i am pretty sure there is a replacement program for on-the-fly recording (never looked into it, i don’t really play games like that)
I tried Xubuntu years ago because my PC was shit then kinda abandoned it, got tired of windows and installed Linux. After a big update, Linux broke and trying to reinstall it I… Picked the wrong partition and deleted windows lol
Inkscape is nice but in used to Affinity Designer and kinda love it. For Adrenaline I’m sure it exists but steam built-in feature is enough.
I love my Linux and fuck Micro$oft
I want to add here my deeply missed Playnite. There is nothing under Linux that comes close. I’ve settled for the combination of steam, heroic and lutris, but that is not even close for sure.
It doesn’t support steam but what about Heroic Launcher
Most mainline Linux distro work pretty seamlessly with secureboot these days.
ugh. wanted to get a oled tv but will not buy a smart tv.
Just keep it offline and get yourself a Nvidia shield as a multimedia station. They are excellent.
yeah I really don’t want to have to but that is what I had to do with my fridge. keep it offline.
Same for my dishwasher. I don’t even understand why that thing asked for a wifi connection in the first place, it’s not like I can remotely unload it or anything. And a notification is perfectly useless when I can just check my watch…
heck I was mad years ago when my microwave wanted to know the year. this stuff is getting rediculous. I need to start a thing like the amish but no internet connections allowed except for computers and phones. well ok cameras and sensors.
Luckily most devices work perfectly fine without internet. And I get the convenience of being able to switch on the heating or lower the window blinds and stuff from the office before leaving so that it’s nice at home, but we did that back in the 90s with a simple timer.
Honestly … Just don’t connect the TV to the Internet.
Capitalism
Is cancer
It’s 2024 though?
If you’re still in 2024, you’re already behind. Get on with the times and start grinding. DM for a link to my weebinar and 5% discount on my eebook.
you suggestij we win this fight within this month?
press X to doubt
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Yep, time zones. Some places are in 2025 already and the US is stuck in 1940.
i just want to be in the 80s/90s with a text terminal using lynx
