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PopOfAfrica ,

I buy Google phones used and install Graphene OS on them.

dinckelman ,

I have owned multiple Pixel phones before, across generations, and I would be very unlikely get one for a variety of reasons. The ad blunders just make it that much less likely.

It’s really sad that in 2023 you don’t own anything. Your things own you

kingshrubb ,

Ever since Google lured us to the pixel with the promise of unlimited picture storage and then took it away I was driven away.

skymtf ,

I have a pixel 6 and would say its a pretty decent phone, generally I think Googles problems are more in its stock software, graphineOS seems to work great.

Sygheil Bot ,
@Sygheil@lemmy.world avatar

A refurb Pixel 5 (the last qualcomm sd i guess) which saves me some cost and installed custom rom (calyx)

applejacks ,
@applejacks@lemmy.world avatar

Ever since they removed the headphone jack on the A series, they stopped being a viable option for me.

Transcendant ,

I went from a Samsung s9 to a Pixel 7a this year.

At first I thought I’d made a big mistake; egregious amounts of tracking in all apps, enabled and encouraged by google; no ability to customise the home screen which has a whopping 2/3rds taken up by useless, unremovable widgets. Wtf is this shit?!

However, now I’ve had it a few months and customised it to suit my needs I’m very happy with it, especially for the price. I installed a custom launcher (fixed home screen woes), and installed DuckDuckGo browser which has an inbuilt tracking blocker for all installed apps and the launcher (using Nova, I know, I know, I should be using grapheneOS bla bla bla but it suits my needs and tracking is blocked).

Maeve ,

I was a fan of ddg until the article came that said it sends its search results to Bing. MS has massive data marketing.

CameronDev ,

Could you elaborate on whar you mean by sending search results to bing? My understanding was that DDG has always been a wrapper around Bing, but from Bings perspective your search is coming from DDG instead of you specifically, which cut the ability to track/personalise the results?

t_uxio OP ,

I’ve also noticed that recently, if you search something like news on DDG, the articles shown on top are by msn.

ArseneWenger ,

What launcher did you go with? I’ve always been a fan of the stock pixel one personally but I’m curious what people find better.

triptrapper ,

Everyone seems to love Nova, but it’s missing some features I like, i.e. drawers and a text list of all my apps. I’ve been using Action Launcher for as long as I can remember.

GBU_28 ,

I’m on nova for my pixel 5 too.

Lojcs ,

Not that I’d buy a phone from Google either way, but whenever there’s a press outrage about “advertisements in x software!” or some other software annoyance I get the vibe that they purposefully check every option that might lead to an inconvenience in hopes that it does and they get to write an article about it. Are there actual stock pixel users inconvenienced by these ads?

Transcendant ,

I haven’t seen a single ad outside of ‘free to use’ software that incorporates ads as a part of the program funding (eg Angry Birds, DuoLingo), even before I installed DDG tracking blocker (Pixel 7a).

algorithmae ,

That’s a load of crock, I don’t have any ads that wouldn’t normally be in apps

Zak ,
@Zak@lemmy.world avatar

The phone with a no-BS bootloader unlock and the best third-party ROM support?

Yes.

Norgur ,

Well, the way I see it:
If I use any android phone, Google is having a field day with my data, get everything they want and more and the manufacturer will spy on me just as much.
If I use a Google phone, I have effectively halved the amount of companies I'm all too transparent to.

t_uxio OP ,

Yeah one of my friend uses s23 and the amount of data that’s being sent to Samsung is crazy. (Found it out through Rethink dns app)

br3d ,

Until recently I had both a Samsung phone and a Samsung tablet. According to my PiHole, the phone wasn’t too bad, but that tablet was contacting Samsung almost constantly

RovingFox ,
@RovingFox@infosec.pub avatar

And if I use only ad blockers, all that data losses value.

Norgur ,

Yes and no. It does use value, yet Google may not be aware that it does, so it doesn't for them. Besides, the issue is not what your data is worth, it's that they have it in the first place.

RovingFox ,
@RovingFox@infosec.pub avatar

If enough people join in the same behaviour, Google will notice all the data gathering is losing value, and if the value is low enough the effort to gather it should be directed to something else. As a result new data is not gathered.

bruzzard ,

Google then sells your data to data brokers and anyone willing to pay a pretty penny. In the end it doesnt matter if your device is only bleeding out of the Google hole exclusively because everyone else can just buy it off Google (who probably does a better job at deanonymising and aggregating your data.

vector_zero ,

Not trying to defend Google, but they don’t actually sell your data. Their ownership of your personal info is their biggest asset, so they wouldn’t easily give that data up to others. Instead. They serve ads to you on behalf of other companies based on their ad targeting criteria.

I dislike Google and their entire business model, but I do at the very least trust them to keep my data captive within their own ecosystem, as hideously enormous as it is.

diocan ,

The real issue are the Google services so good luck luck with that, android itself is hardly secure enough

Sibbo ,

I hope to have the funds to buy a fairphone next. But they are very expensive, so let’s see…

superseven ,

You mean because they are not able to restock on their own cases since half a year now?

c0mmando ,

Pixel GrapheneOS gangggg

space ,

Sad samsung noises…

datavoid ,

I’m tempted to install graphene, but I use google wallet for payment frequently and don’t want to lose that feature… Is there still no way around that?

Cyberflunk ,

You know I was in this dilemma too, and I just decided that my card was fine to tap with rather than my phone. I keep my DL and CC on my phone, so tapping is just about as easy.

joshuaacasey ,
@joshuaacasey@lemmy.world avatar

you can still use google wallet. Just can’t use tap-to-pay. (not really a big deal for me because Walmart, which is really the only grocery store I shop at, doesn’t even support tap-to-pay like the tech-hating bastards that they are grumble grumble)

datavoid ,

Come to canada, we be tappin’ up here

c0mmando ,

you could use shelter to create a work profile with google services framework installed… then freeze the profile when not in use

GBU_28 ,

Sell me on graphene.

c0mmando ,

It’s really the only choice for a secure and FOSS mobile device. GOS addresses most of the SIGINT associated with phone tracking.

  • disabling wifi autoconnect to prevent bssid pings
  • auto reboot feature
  • auto disable bluetooth feature (prevent bluetooth mac leaks)
  • airplane mode is never auto disabled after system upgrades … which is a requirement to prevent cell tower triangulation
  • usb-c data transfer disabled if the phone is locked
  • secure hardware to prevent physical attacks and evil maid
  • and many many more…

grapheneos.org/features

dog ,

Pixel as a phone is good.

Google bad.

But it’s not like other brands are any bit more ethical/pro-consumer.

So buying second-hand is always a goos option.

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