This day marks my end with android. Also helped greatly in ditching all US big tech.

Will my new Linux or whatever phone be technically worse? Probably. Do I care? Nope.

Fuck you google, from the depth of my heart. Go die in a forestfire.

Hate to break it to ya but Google will make your Linux phone mostly useless in the not so distant future.

Recaptcha will make sure of that.

I too would love a Linux phone but I am not convinced they will ever be good enough. Not for technical reasons, but for Google reasons.

Can't wait to get my Jolla phone.
Is it the ultimate solution?
No, but while postmarkeOS makes progress and receives money on a monthly basis from me, I can hope for a daily driver that can do the job until pmOS is ready.

If Google tries to take it to far, it will get worse for them than a few billion USD fine now and then.

I certainly hope that is true.

So uhm how about some defacing actions when those sites really lock privacy focused users out?

Anti-trust suits are a thing.

As long as the powers that be are willing. Absolutely.

Brazil and EU are.

I don't even have a good oversight of what's available. And it's useless as long as my pixel lives. When it's done, the market will have changed massively anyway 😁

But Jolla sounded nice. Right now I would want an Ubuntu touch. But that really is an uninformed opinion.

Only thing I will miss, no matter which I'd take, will be a great camera probably.

If your pixel is not too old, GrapheneOS can fill the gap to your next phone.
It's what I run right now.
While it's still Android, it can at least be had without Google apps.

Oh i already have it. The day google told their final date for closing down. Half my apps are my own and I sure as hell won't give google my real data and money.

Had to buy 2 other phones, one for banking (stupid ass lazy banks) and one for android auto (still better than onboard-cages).

All would be fine if their phones were free. But paying bigtime AND not owning? Fuck you

It's already a pest. Stupid lazy webdevs and recaptcha. As I don't work for free for google (and it's also blocked here), I usually just close the sites. Which are legion.

And disabled people hate those anyway. I knew a quadriplegic who could only use her mouth. Guess how long it took her to navigate those or type an answer. On every fucking site that is already an accessibility-nightmare when you even get that far. Especially in the EU where you also have the fucking useless cookie-problem.

But...Linux solved my problems. Sites that rely on google I just don't use.

Ubuntu touch is "open-washed" just like Android. I mean, technically you could do everything, like on Android. But you are basically limited to the one app store.

I know because a friend tried it. I recalled it having Snapcraft but I guess not, it came with "open store". It is bloated as fuck. Well, at least it has some sort of server source, so "open" is technically correct, but nobody is using it because nobody cares about Ubuntu Touch seriously. No idea how it works but I am guessing it's the same "install whole userspace with program" thing. Most of the "apps" are web wrappers and automated repackagings from elsewhere. A lot less actually touchscreen-only usable programs than like the Alpine repos, mostly full of stuff like "An appointment calendar, a clock, a terminal, a control panel, an MS-DOS executive AND, can you believe it, reversi!".

There's a "terminal" app but the root filesystem is read only by default, only slightly less useless than a terminal emulator on unrooted Android.

Haven't read into Jolla and such but I am guessing it's all the same shit. Corporate mobile OSes that just happen to be running unixy kernel/user spaces aren't new at all. A keypad phone I have from 2009 lists "FreeBSD kernel" under "License and legal info". Amazing! But useless.

That doesn't sound great about ubuntu. But i kinda would've expected a bit not-so-open from them. But as said, I really have not dug deep into alternatives so far, but when i have to, i will probably just get them all and try. Jolla sounded good too on a quick glance.
You make that sounds hollow too. But what's your alternative? Or did you just cave in and go google? or even worse: apple. Though apple at least never tried to hide their shittyness.

what’s your alternative?

I don't bring a phone with me, usually. "Open phone" is an oxymoron, modem firmware is a black box. "Secure telephony" is an oxymoron, it's unencrypted and SS7 access is being sold which lets people even impersonate phones on the network.

You could use some VoIP provider (jmp.chat?) or get a landline installed for times when you ABSOLUTELY NEED a phone number, like for a hospital that mandates it for a reason or another. You could also ask relatives if they have some keypad phone lying around (unless your country no longer has the infra for them, ahem, the US, ahem) or buy an MT62xxx (microcontroller levels of power) MAUI based nugget (my personal favorite is Sigma Mobile) for ~10 to 4 USD depending on where. In some locations, you can buy a phone with a prepaid plan that you can just not bring home afterwards (return / give away). For work, ask for a work phone/SIM or just get a pair that you only turn on at work. I will quote some more intelligent people here (CC-BY-NC-4.0, "anarsec"):

To prevent your movements from being tracked, treat the smartphone like a landline and leave it at home when you are out of the house. Even if you use an anonymously purchased SIM card, if it is linked to your identity in the future, the service provider can be retroactively queried for geolocation data. If you use the phone as we recommend (as a Wi-Fi only device that is kept in airplane mode at all times), it won't connect to cell towers. It's not sufficient to only leave the phone at home when you're going to a meeting, demo or action because that will be an outlier from your normal pattern of behaviour and serve as an indication that criminal activity is taking place in that time window.

That advice is clearly for people protesting, but even if not, some govt official could think you were at some illegal event.

Personally, when I do bring a phone, it's usually to feed the addiction :/ . I have a phone from like 2016 with LineageOS which I basically only use for 2FA when mandated (not often at all) and to scroll Lemmy from public Wi-Fi. Native(-ish) apps run really fast to me (my Lemmy client is Jerboa), but a modern browser is extremely slow and often crashes background stuff (and itself) due to RAM. Thanks, the W3C. And also Google for making an OS so bloated. I have a copy of Chawan in Termux for a special occasion. Apart from that, I may also (very rarely) bring a PostMarketOS phone (SXMO-de-sway/SWMO) just to write code or something else (although touch keyboards suck and I often find myself waiting until I am home and have a proper keyboard). Too bad the Nokia N900 is so rare and expensive... Anyways, if I really wanted to, I could buy a SIM card from a grocery store, shove it up one of the phones, then do my thing and throw it away before getting airplane mode again and arriving home. If I were to do that multiple times, it would absolutely blow privacy due to radio fingerprint and IMEI, though.

Annoyingly, my specific device port of LineageOS doesn't have Wi-Fi MAC randomization support enabled at build time for whatever reason, and building Android is a complete pain requiring insane amounts of RAM and storage, managed to just barely advance in the build scripts to get it to compile a boot image with the kernel (itself needs much less resources lmao, it's the fucking build script). Sooooooo there's that. And even if I fixed it for everyone with a patch, LineageOS maintainers will just let it sit on the platform (that is ironically Google account only) forever and ever with a -1 score. BUT normally Android is set up to wake up the phone every .03 picoseconds and put itself back to sleep which is how it connects to Wi-Fi, and since I don't have Google services AND it's in airplane mode constantly, it has no events to wake up for and literally doesn't connect to Wi-Fi until I press a side button. That with the hostname being set to a single space character, good enough.

You could use some VoIP provider

Oh I don't even use my phone for calling or be called. If people don't text me then bad luck for them, i only answer for my wife, everything else is silent.
I value your privacy-levels that obviously beat mine (and i considered myself borderline paranoid), but if the telecom-company can track my position, i can live with that. In exchange i get mobility. A kinda fair deal, considering i grew up with rotary-phones being a "new thing".

I also have a super-dumb-phone should that concern ever be....a more pressing matter.

That advice is clearly for people protesting, but even if not, some govt official could think you were at some illegal event.

I currently don't need this level of security. But anyone might suddenly need it and then notice how difficult it became.

leave it at home when you are out of the house.

This would bring up the question: What do i need a phone for? for me it's just a mobile computer for surfing to kill some time when i'm out somewhere having to wait. At home it's going airplane or off, as i absolutely have no need for it.

anonymously purchased SIM card

That thing has been killed here (germany) a while ago. You now have to register to get one. Sure, you can snatch a "pre-registered" off of small-ads, but obviously for a decent markup.

And also Google for making an OS so bloated.

Oh yes, but not only google. Everything gets bloated as fuck AND devs become lazier and lazier. Done and gone are the days of optimizing software, quenching the last drip of power out of everything. Now we have layers over layers over layers and websites using 512319273 packages of already bloated 3rd-party-shit.
And kudos to you still bothering with compiling your own, my nerves are not made for this. Especially since it became so useless as every vendor tries their best in making it harder to even be able to unlock the shit.

Wi-Fi MAC randomization

Maybe it helps: i dunno which android-version, they had a bug with OFF=ON and vice versa. So "random mac=fixed". Made me so effing angry.

and since I don’t have Google services AND it’s in airplane mode constantly, it has no events to wake up for and literally doesn’t connect to Wi-Fi until I press a side button.

superfucking annoying.

But still, in the end, a lineage from 2016 sadly is no answer to "what fucking phone to get nowadays" :-)
So far I'm fine with graphene, but it's on a google-phone and as i block everything google, i kinda feel like a traitor with a pixel.

leave it at home when you are out of the house.

This would bring up the question: What do i need a phone for? for me it’s just a mobile computer for surfing to kill some time when i’m out somewhere having to wait

Same! That advice is for people using a phone for calls and SMS and such. I don't. No SIM card. Airplane mode. It's just a mobile computer. I can choose to bring and not bring it freely with zero consequences. I can scroll Lemmy from public Wi-Fi. Also, Gemini is designed to be "offline-able" just like the early web (scrape a bunch of logs and read them later) but the only implementation of that idea I could find is "offpunk" (I have a copy in Termux), BUT it is in Python, which means it brings in 2 gigs of dependencies with it... Maybe I will write my own solution one day. One day. Among other "my own solution"s that are piled up at the back of my head while I do nothing productive.

anonymously purchased SIM card

That thing has been killed here (germany) a while ago.

Sad.

And also Google for making an OS so bloated.

Oh yes, but not only google. Everything gets bloated as fuck AND devs become lazier and lazier. Done and gone are the days of optimizing software

Yeah! Although I would put that "gone" line a lot further back than most people. Some say C++ was a conspiracy, yet everything GUI nowadays is either C++ or faked C++ with C macros. That's another thing in the back of my head that I would have "my own solution" for.

Wi-Fi MAC randomization

Maybe it helps: i dunno which android-version, they had a bug with OFF=ON and vice versa. So “random mac=fixed”. Made me so effing angry.

Yup. That's the old behavior when broken AFAIK, the new behavior is that you literally no longer have a checkbox for MAC randomization per network. There's still a checkbox for "randomize per connection" in developer settings in that case, and it does a grand total of nothing.

and since I don’t have Google services AND it’s in airplane mode constantly, it has no events to wake up for and literally doesn’t connect to Wi-Fi until I press a side button.

superfucking annoying.

Right. But in my case it (mostly) mitigates the lack of MAC randomization, so like, whatever. Also, battery lasts forever this way. If you want the "Googled" + cell towered behavior of constantly doing stuff, I think there are workarounds somewhere, same for the "Googled" behavior of having GPS ready at all times... Well, you would need root, and I won't get into details this time but that breaks some of Graphene's architectural assumptions. It will work but it requires fucking up some of the security down. Still much higher than Lineage for example.

So far I’m fine with graphene

Amazing for you! I am (mostly) fine with the Lineage (with the no-SIM part of course) despite being much less secure than Graphene. Graphene is like the "eat TailsOS MicroSD card to shit out weekly" of the phone world.

i kinda feel like a traitor with a pixel

Wait until you hear how many silicon fabs there are in the world, how many of them are doing microprocessors (not a lot), and how many aren't owned by oligarchs (zero). Free software still leverages all of that. That's why I am against bloat and webapps, software should run on as many existing chips as feasible.

Honestly, I would rather still have my 2gig RAM phone so that I can be in the minority to complain about stuff like the F-Droid v3 alpha being the only version that I have to wait around to load.

scroll Lemmy from public Wi-Fi.

Rarely can do, as free WiFi mostly just exist in like hospitals or such. And the apps that exist for other networks of their own "free" wifis need, you guessed right, net to begin with 😁

Not a real bummer for me though. If anyone can see that I went for a stroll in the park or went shopping, that is totally useless data.
Should I ever do something where privacy matters, the thing is off. I survived no net as a kid, I will survive it some hours.

Also I do need the app whobird outside or some bug identifier. We like to know new stuff.

Python, which means it brings in 2 gigs of dependencies

Yeah lol. That's a bit overkill

Some say C++ was a conspiracy,

I wish most would still be done in CPP. The amount of total sluggish, unoptimized, library-relient crap is legion nowadays.
I was deep in the demo-scene once. Because they pushed a mashine to their limits. And they often showed what you COULD achieve. Then came winblows. And every clueless Joe became programmer, because it's sooooo cool.
(I'm none, I just code for fun or necessity)

my own solution"s that are piled up at the back of my head while I do nothing productive.

I have the strong feeling you're all but non-productive. Which also is very subjective. If everyone would be so mindful of (modern) tech, the world would be different. This alone I find very productive.

no longer have a checkbox for MAC randomization per networ

Oh great...I didn't notice because I actually need fixed macs for my DHCP and for a front layer of security by only allowing known macs. Outside, that's a different thing

would need root, and I won't get into details this time but that breaks some of Graphene's architectural assumptions.

Indeed. Understandably so. But usually I demand to be able to own the device I bought. Noone would accept their Win-PC without privileges. At least not the majority I HOPE.

I am (mostly) fine with the Lineage

I did use it very often. Back then it was vastly easier to root/unlock any phone. Stupid google and the stupid manufacturers kinda killed it. Now only the devil himself is left. I'm tired of bricking and trying for days, just to own the fucking thing. I'm tired, boss. Really tired.

I just use graphene because I wanted to see it before judging it. And as long as my pixel lives, it seems very fine. Zero google. As far as I can say.

ow many of them are doing microprocessors (not a lot), and how many aren't owned by oligarchs (zero).

Yeah of course you're totally right. But still. Using a pixel, I publicly advocate for the worst of the worst. One of the destroyers of privacy and the internet. And I loved them when they started. Until the slogan "dont be evil" fell...

But while you're totally right, what is the practical alternative? I'm not professional enough (or motivated) to do it all myself. What could one buy that is not only decent-ish (I love a great camera without having to carry a DLSR) but also runs android apps (emulated or whatever) and is private and my own?
Sounds like a fantasy...

I mean, your current phone is the best one possible right now as a phone... The alternative is killing the gap between "don't bring anything" and "bring a laptop".

Also, apps for Wi-Fi? What the hell... Can you not just look up a Wi-Fi map for whatever authoritarian regime you live in?

I like to plan ahead...my pixel is aging, I wonder why it still lives.
A laptop would be great. In the size of an 8" device 😁

I dunno, I only know one vendor that has a broad offering of WiFi. And last time I checked, it needed an app. But I would never use random public wifis anyway.
Authoritarian regime? Judging by the Lemmy server you're on, we're in the same boat 😉

Oh, I am not in Germany. Sorry for calling it that. I'm in Ukraine. Chose this instance in Germany for various reasons, including the fact that it allows IPv6-only networks (like when my ISP fucks up again, or I fuck up again, and IPv4 gets unroutable). I was also looking for an 8inch laptop but they don't make Librettos or those "internet appliance" ARM ewaste pieces anymore.

Ah okay, i just assumed you're a kraut. Then again, my Zigbee-coordinators are ukranian, so that's that :-)
I picked the next best, as i never though i'd stay.
I would also be fine with something like the nokia communicator from back then. just a bit more modern and open. Or even a blackberry without blackberry. The porsche P9100 (i think?) was a nice thing, i liked it. The thing itself though, not the OS nor the company.

8inch laptop would be something...with one of those tiny keyboards. Lovely.

Right... Those none of these are made anymore. Except some EXTREMELY overpriced "gaming" and/or Intel Atom devices straight from foxconn. Saw a listing for a Libretto 50ct with a broken backlight in Kyiv the other day, by the time I figured I actually want to commit to buying it the listing was gone. Reduced to atoms. Shouldn't have been so indecisive... The seller also included a picture of it running Win95 with a VGA monitor, was funny to see a shortcut named "Kiev map" (old name) right next to an Internet Explorer icon shortcut that says "anime".

Lol. That dude knew what he needed in live. Anime and a way home 😁

And yeah, informed purchases will often bite you in the ass. I usually take ages to come to a decision after weighing in as many factors as I could. By then it's often sold out, EoL or more expensive.

Guess we are just sooooo niche that it's not profitable in the slightest.
Though the libretto was a bit on the big side for me. If I carry this around, I could also take my laptop. Which never left the house at all.

Anything less then a Pixel 11. 11 looks like it won't get GrapheneOS.

Euro fine sure I don't see America cracking down on companies anytime soon.