So short answer, I really love them but I’m keeping a cautious eye on their choices.
Full disclosure, this is coming from my OP11, so I’m a little bit biased, but this is absolutely the best phone I’ve ever had. And mind you, my previous phone was the OP7Pro which is an incredible device that STILL works like new after 3 years. So personally, they’ve been good to me.
However, I am keeping a close eye on their OS and software decisions. I was a little hesitant about this phone at first. The Android 11 OxygenOS was perfect on my OP7Pro. I upgraded to 12 (their merger with ColorOS if I’m not mistaken) and it was just a mess. For the first time since buying it, my OP7Pro had random bugs and stuttering. I immediately reverted to Android 11 and it was back to perfect. Unfortunately, the OP7Pro will no longer receive updates, so if I wanted to try the newest OxygenOS, I needed to upgrade.
OP11 starts with OxygenOS 13 and is slated to receive 5 years of updates, which is awesome for longevity. Some of the decisions they made after the terrible OxygenOS 12 (many changes to the OS, releasing the OP11 as the only flagship without a Pro later in the year, etc.) gave me hope that they recognized their mistakes and were willing to fix them. I decided to give them another shot and got the OP11 in April.
The software is still missing a few (minor) things I liked from OxygenOS 11, but Android 13 makes up for it with some interesting features. And this might be an unpopular opinion, but I actually like what they’re doing with the OxygenOS 13 skin. It’s hard to describe since there are a lot of small things I probably noticed unconsciously, but I haven’t had any bugs and it’s been a dream with this device. I do feel like they’re listening to their customers again, and trying to get back on our good sides.
In the past I’ve been burnt by Samsung and LG, but OnePlus hasn’t ever let me down (except that atrocious OxygenOS 12, but again, I skipped it). So long as they keep making the effort to listen to their customers and keep pushing the changes/additions we want to see, I’ll keep buying their devices and running their OS. Of course if I see a repeat of 12 with OxygenOS 14, I honestly might bail. 12 was so bad I’m never doing that again.
I realize this is kind of rambly, so please let me know if you want me to clarify anything.
So I’m not sure if I’m the best person to be giving their opinions as I’ve used only OP phones for the last 3 years, so the things I like might be standard android these days. Also, rereading my comment I sound like an OP fangirl, so feel free to disregard my comments.
I love their aesthetic. I like the “bubbly” feel to the UI, the font, color choices, etc. I think they’re very snazzy. I also love the customization features, specifically the launcher editing UI (it’s stupid intuitive), the AOD options, they have their own creepy animoji thing that I kind of love, the transition animations are smooth, and it’s cohesion in general is excellent.
It all feels like it belongs together. I have a hard time determining where “standard android” and OxygenOS begin/end. It just feels nice to use and I love leaving my phone faceup just to look at it. It’s hard to identify exactly what I love because I haven’t been keeping a list or anything, but just this morning I was moving some apps around and between folders and it just did exactly what I wanted in a way my old phones definitely wouldn’t. Small, but really exciting in the moment.
Of course, these are all very little things that might not be enough for other folks, but the little things are usually what delight me most. I’m also not a bank, so this phone is absolutely the most expensive thing I own and I try to appreciate it when I can.
I will say, there are things that OP will need to change. For me, things like icon customization and notification dismissal direction need updated. But these are extremely low on my list, so I don’t mind it as it is.
I want to add that the hardware on this device alone is worth it to me. It’s a beast and the battery is fabulous.
Anyway, I’ll stop gushing haha. I didn’t realize how much I like it until now. I know these devices aren’t for everyone so this is my own opinion. I’m also writing this on my commute so I feel like it isn’t coming across as clearly as I’d like. I hope that helped a bit though.
I am hoping that the new users are coming here with the intent to learn how this community works, before we try to remake the community we just left.
I counter this part of your post by throwing in there that for me and my time on reddit, the worst parts of the broader experience were the fact that communities of neo-nazis (r/conservative, r/conspiracy), Donald Trump cultists (r/the Donald), incels (numerous subreddits including r/incels and r/theredpill), and pedophiles (r/just18 among other porn based subreddits that were quarantined and banned several years ago) were allowed their own communities on the platform for as long as they were. This gave these horrible ideas time to draw attention and build a userbase that then degraded the quality of reddit across multiple other communities.
If kbin or lemmyworld immediately start banning or defederating these instances or communities/magazines, then to me that is how this larger community works and it is inherently not former redditors migrating here to shape the Fediverse in the image of reddit.
I dislike the general trend towards platforms feeling compelled to blindly imitate the various interaction mechanisms from platforms. Sometimes I just want to Instagram on Instagram. But then they had to follow-the-leader, so now you can Snapchat on Tiktok, or TikTok on Instagram. Companies are compelled to do many things haphazardly instead of one (or a few) things well.
This is simultaneously coupled with a growing trend towards disallowing any type of UI customization. You will take our experience and you will like it. How dare you want to turn off our faux Tiktok bullshit that our developers spent so many months plagiarizing.
I have hosed so many installs over the past 20 or so years that it’s impossible for me to guess a number. It’s part of the learning process. Just keep at it and you’ll get there.
Imagine you need to go see your doctor. They work in a building with 65535 rooms. Some rooms are empty. Some rooms have people in them that provide different services. But you need your doctor so you look up their location.
You learn the building address (IP address) and the room number (port)
In practice, you attach services to specific ports so that other computers can access those services. Typically, http traffic is on port 80 and https is on port 443. So if you visit a website, you are likely connected to a server on one of those two ports. But it’s not a requirement. You could create a website and put it on port 2097, or 532, or 47210; it doesn’t matter.
Well, here is the problem: the right wing has made it their platform to go after certain classes of people. I can debate you all day long about the economy or gun control or taxes. I should not have to debate you on my right to exist and thrive as a citizen.
And then what sucks is that they'll try to debate reasonable things after saying horrific dehumanizing shit. And you don't want to engage them, since they are being dehumanizing, but then they'll say they won because you won't debate them on the normal stuff. It's just so damn tiring.
And it’s not even so much the fiscally Right as it is the social ideas held by most of that side. I value personal rights, small, less involved government, and most of their other fiscal platforms. But they happened to be the side the got infiltrated by the Christian theocracy that calls for dehumanizing LGBTQ+, restricting abortion access, and calling out anyone not in their cult as demonic… it could have been any side economically, but when the put their roots down and started the ‘Christian conservative’ movement, they destroyed any possibility of more than to-party politics by turning it into the ‘party of basic human rights’ vs the ‘party of the Christian theocracy.’ I agree with classical liberalism. I agree with modern liberal social / human rights policy. I do not agree with the Democrat Party’s fiscal and economic policies. But you can’t dissent without being associated with the bigots and cultists (‘conservatives’) who took over the other side. For obvious moral reasons I’d have to vote Democrat. But I do not support their economic policies.
I think the reason you stated is probably the main reason for most of the hate. I’ve been a Nord user for years and have no complaints. However, I am currently considering switching to Firefox VPN because I want to financially support Firefox development and that’s one of the best ways to do it.
Isn't the Firefox VPN just a rebrand of Mullvad or something? Like they just use their servers and put in their logo?
I have been using PIA for the last few years and I am personally pretty happy. I had some issues with Nord connect and speed a few years back. PIA on wireguard has worked great for me. I have a gigabit connection and although I can't hit that with pia, my Unraid SabNZB hits over 70MB/s easy which is great
PIA can be a little slow, but the big difference (and reason I use it) is that they don't keep any logs. A VPN provider gets a subpoena and they will turn over the history of what you did under there service. To my knowledge PIA is one of the few (like 2-3 I thought) that keeps no records and couldn't cooperate if they wanted to. I'm like 7 years deep with them and they still roll out new features and servers all the time. I consider them a pillar of what a VPN should be.
Ports are a way of sorting requests sent to the same physical device into different services. If a single device is providing three different services, you want to send your request to the right service on the device. For example, maybe your device has a website, a piece of accounting software, and an online video game running on it. If it weren’t for ports, you’d need three different devices to run those three different programs. But with ports, as long as I know what port the service I want is on, I can send my request to the right service on that device.
If you have limited money to buy devices but you want to make a lot of different apps, ports are important. Ports are also important if you’re a business like Google that provides lots of different services.
Like many said, it's not about profitability but sustainability. I signed up to donate $2 per month to help run the servers for lemmy.world. I'm very happy with this instance (and the fediverse in general) and want to contribute. There are plenty of other people willing to do the same. Together, we will make something much bigger and better than reddit over time.
I love their $8/month tier description: "The $8 verified user tier. You'll be allowed to place a blue checkmark behind your name. You'll have to do that yourself though. And you could also do that without donating ;-)."
I use a different VPN, but honestly, I wouldn't use Nord only because of their ads and sponsorships. It's kind of a lame excuse, but they wore me out with that.
Anything that’s so heavily advertised is a big red flag to me. To me it feels like they’re spending more on advertising than making a decent product and hoping people buy it instead of letting the product speak for itself. But that’s not necessarily only about Nord…
I’m way more tired of the designs before it, or the apps halfway into the design language but not really. Especially if it is to the point where just using the material you colours you have seperates it, signal comes to mind there for example.
Some apps can keep their design layout but please let me use my material you colours anyways
most scientists are great at speaking. Your research is only as good as how effectively you communicate it. You don’t have to be a TED talk speaker, but generally most scientists can put together a logical story on what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why you should care. (That’s how we get funding, but convincing people that it’s important).
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