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Almost all budget and mid range android phones come with invasive tracking, bloat, and ads now. The worst part is you cannot flash a custom rom without cripplin

Almost all budget and mid range android phones come with invasive tracking, bloat, and ads now. The worst part is you cannot flash a custom rom without crippling your device to almost a feature phone. Many apps use safety net now. You can temporarily bypass it using magisk but Google will get rid of it soon through hardware key attestation. Flagship phones are too expensive for me and they don't come with features like a good charger, headphone jack, big battery, etc. Most of them also suffer from Android ecosystem problems. Slow security updates and trash apps in the playstore. iPhone is expensive too and iOS limits your freedom even more. You cannot customize the layout or app drawer too much. You cannot use non-web kit browser. Adblockers are crippled on iOS. Notch and suffers from the same problem as Android flagships. Lack of easy side loading. All I want is a phone which respects me. I don't care if it's Linux based or not.

BelenusMordred 6y ago
This is one of the reasons I highly respect Xiaomi and Google Pixels. They are basically the only phones left that make this painless to do without resorting to dodgy hacks. Xiaomi have an official bootloader unlock and are simple to put LineageOS on. Pixels are the only phones that are supported by GrapheneOS, which offers substantial security benefits over any other Android phone. It's giving the consumer freedom and environmentally friendly for when the updates run out/planned obsolescence kicks in. I have a spare phone lay around from 2014 running up-to-date 2021 Android patches and it works perfectly fine, the battery went bad once but this was the days of replaceable batts and it cost $15 online for a new one. If you can accept the tradeoff with no further physical firmware updates it's a much better deal than the rampant consumerism and e-waste that plagues the mobile market.
spijdar 6y ago
> Many apps use safety net now. You can temporarily bypass it using magisk but Google will get rid of it soon through hardware key attestation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't really a criticism of Android as a platform but that apps use DRM for tamper proofing. I suppose Android could try to make this harder but I'm sure hardware vendors would step in with their solutions. You're totally free to do as you please with android/rooting as long as you don't care about those apps -- which I have a strong feeling will never be available on more open platforms, unless somehow they gain market dominance.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I can use banking sites on desktop. The same functionality via app require my phone to pass safety net. Even games, social, and news apps use safety net now. Google should discourage blatant misuse of it which they don't. If Google cared about security, they would push OEMs to provide proper security updates which none of them do. > Almost all budget and mid range android phones come with invasive tracking, bloat, and ads now. This is what tempts me to install a custom rom. Solving this could be great for security.
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Of course they don't discourage it. It keeps their hold on the Android ecosystem. I'm sure they're not worried about lineageos and other aosp niche roms but they will be about Huawei and Amazon and their forks without play services.

BelenusMordred 6y ago

This is one of the reasons I highly respect Xiaomi and Google Pixels. They are basically the only phones left that make this painless to do without resorting to dodgy hacks. Xiaomi have an official bootloader unlock and are simple to put LineageOS on. Pixels are the only phones that are supported by GrapheneOS, which offers substantial security benefits over any other Android phone. It's giving the consumer freedom and environmentally friendly for when the updates run out/planned obsolescence kicks in. I have a spare phone lay around from 2014 running up-to-date 2021 Android patches and it works perfectly fine, the battery went bad once but this was the days of replaceable batts and it cost $15 online for a new one. If you can accept the tradeoff with no further physical firmware updates it's a much better deal than the rampant consumerism and e-waste that plagues the mobile market.

spijdar 6y ago

> Many apps use safety net now. You can temporarily bypass it using magisk but Google will get rid of it soon through hardware key attestation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't really a criticism of Android as a platform but that apps use DRM for tamper proofing. I suppose Android could try to make this harder but I'm sure hardware vendors would step in with their solutions. You're totally free to do as you please with android/rooting as long as you don't care about those apps -- which I have a strong feeling will never be available on more open platforms, unless somehow they gain market dominance.

searchableguy 6y ago
I can use banking sites on desktop. The same functionality via app require my phone to pass safety net. Even games, social, and news apps use safety net now. Google should discourage blatant misuse of it which they don't. If Google cared about security, they would push OEMs to provide proper security updates which none of them do. > Almost all budget and mid range android phones come with invasive tracking, bloat, and ads now. This is what tempts me to install a custom rom. Solving this could be great for security.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Of course they don't discourage it. It keeps their hold on the Android ecosystem. I'm sure they're not worried about lineageos and other aosp niche roms but they will be about Huawei and Amazon and their forks without play services.