4 ms·

The paranoia is completely warranted, but there is a solution. Just root your Android phone and put a custom ROM like LineageOS etc If you want a stretch goal

The paranoia is completely warranted, but there is a solution. Just root your Android phone and put a custom ROM like LineageOS etc If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself, I have tried but failed twice now.

qwertytyyuu 5mo ago
Do the support the razr?
ux266478 5mo ago
Easier said than done in the US. Even of the phones that allow for rooting (which is few and far between these days) you're at the complete mercy of the carrier for whether or not that ability is actually available to you. Even if the gracious lords may allow it, you have to engage in a long and drawn out Byzantine rite just for the privilege. Currently sitting on a Pixel 10 that will not let me have root. Give me a Linux phone with halfway decent modem drivers, or give me death.
- codedokode 5mo ago
  If you do not update the phone, chances are high that there is some Linux vulnerability you could expoloit. The privileged vendor software also can have vulnerabilities. For example, here [1] researches hacked the phone with Verified Boot using a boot logo parsing error. My impression that you should treat your phone as something that can be hacked any moment and not store anything important there. [1] https://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2024/SSTIC-actes/when_vendor1_meets_vendor2_the_story_of_a_small_bu/SSTIC2024-Article-when_vendor1_meets_vendor2_the_story_of_a_small_bug_chain-rossi-bellom_neveu.pdf https://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2024/SSTIC-actes/when_vendo...
- dataflow 5mo ago
  > Currently sitting on a Pixel 10 that will not let me have root. Stop buying phones from Verizon?
  - ux266478 5mo ago
    Not a Verizon phone.
    - dataflow 5mo ago
      That's surprising. Is this after you've paid it off? I thought only Verizon did this after the phone is paid off.
codedokode 5mo ago
1) My phone is not officially supported by LineageOS so I will have to port it first. 2) I did not analyze LineageOS yet and how it is different from stock Android, so I need to go through complete diff. > If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself My goal is to have an open source system that is under my full control and doesn't play tricks on my by sending telemetry or collecting forensic databases. Because now I cannot even connect the phone to Internet and it is not as useful as it could be.
- Semaphor 5mo ago
  I’d assume that with such a level of required inspection, you also have quite some security requirements. I’d say at that level nothing works as well as GrapheneOS (though you have to either delay security updates or accept temporarily closed source (they get access to the code only in exchange for not publishing it until X days or something) updates, thanks Google). As that currently requires a Google phone, the only way to get close to your price target would be buying it used.
- neurostimulant 5mo ago
  I wonder if you could ask Opus 4.7 to port LineageOS for your phone. The LLM must’ve had plenty of training data from the gazillion LineageOS ports for other devices, so perhaps it might actually work (or brick your device).
bookofjoe 5mo ago
Re: de-Googling yourself: Goldman Sachs paid $6 million to try to get its [soon-to-be] former chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler's Google search results highlighting her close friendship and many-years-long association with Jeffrey Epstein off the first few pages of results. Today, the first result on the first page of a Google search for her is the opening paragraph of her Wikipedia biography: >Kathryn H. Ruemmler (born April 19, 1971) is an American attorney who was principal deputy White House counsel and then White House Counsel to President Barack Obama.[1] Previously a partner at Latham and Watkins co-chairing its white-collar defense group,[2] Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 and was Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel.[3] She announced her resignation from this position in February 2026, effective at the end of June, over her links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.[4][5][6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Ruemmler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Ruemmler >How a Secretive Firm Tried (and Failed) to Fix an Epstein Friend’s Tattered Image https://archive.ph/Biztm https://archive.ph/Biztm
- thfuran 5mo ago
  I'm not sure what your point is.
  - bookofjoe 5mo ago
    Wrote tomaytotomato 3 hours ago: >If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself, I have tried but failed twice now. My point is that even with unlimited resources it's impossible to de-Google yourself.
    - BenjiWiebe 5mo ago
      De-Googling (in this context at least) means not running Google software on your phone. No Google Play Services always running in the background, plus not using Google apps.
      - bookofjoe 5mo ago
        Ah. I misinterpreted "de-Googling." It is refreshing, though, to know that the cranky folks of HN still downvote honest mistakes.
Larrikin 5mo ago
I recently spent twenty minutes sitting outside of an MLB stadium because MLB decided they needed the same level of play protection as a foreign banking app and it refused to work on my friend's LineageOS phone. We only got in by installing the app on my Sony and him signing into his account. They charge a fee now to get paper tickets from the box office.
- beepboopboop 5mo ago
  Brutal. I had a similarly annoying experience recently, where in order to enter my local big arena for a concert, the TicketMaster app was not enough. I had to step out of the entrance line to download the _arena-specific_ TicketMaster app to access my tickets. I hate the ticket systems that dominate the market, we deserve better.
- Hizonner 5mo ago
  ... and you continue to let them abuse you.
  - Larrikin 5mo ago
    Give a solution
    - skinfaxi 5mo ago
      Don't give your money to these places? HSBC won't let me use my rooted phone either, so guess who lost my business?
      - Larrikin 5mo ago
        Next time we will go to the professional baseball stadium across the street instead.
        ofieiehdiehe 5mo ago
        You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want this stop, you gotta stop using these services, even if it means sacrificing a hobby. If, on the other hand, you care more about your hobby than these quirks annoy you, than by all means, go right ahead.
merryocha 5mo ago
My biggest obstacle to de-Googling is the GBoard keyboard of all things. There's really no good open source alternative that even comes close.
- lsowen 5mo ago
  Have you tried the FUTO keyboard? I actually find I prefer it to gboard now. https://keyboard.futo.org/ https://keyboard.futo.org/
  - merryocha 5mo ago
    I don't think I ever tried this one. I think I tried every keyboard on F-Droid but apparently FUTO isn't in the main F-Droid repo. I'm liking it so far. I'm a swipe typer and on most keyboards the swipe functionality is much worse than GBoard but this one seems to work pretty well. I'm going to try it for a while, thanks for the suggestion!
- eskori 5mo ago
  I was in the same boat until a year ago or so. FUTO^[1] finally provided a good text prediction/correction pair + that simply better feeling the Gboard has^[2]. [1]: https://keyboard.futo.org/ https://keyboard.futo.org/ [2]: I never investigated this, so I always assumed that GBoard predicted what key I wanted to press when close to two letters. With FOSS keyboards, with a physically identical layout, I tended to make way more mistakes.
  - ezst 5mo ago
    I find GBoard to remain superior in multilingual typing, futo just can't seem to be able to switch to other languages consistently, even with the multilingual option enabled, it's also not as good at "recovering" from typing too many letters (Gboard sometimes adequately completes with likely shorter words)
- codedokode 5mo ago
  I do not type a lot on the phone (I own a laptop), so no worries.

qwertytyyuu 5mo ago

Do the support the razr?

ux266478 5mo ago

Easier said than done in the US. Even of the phones that allow for rooting (which is few and far between these days) you're at the complete mercy of the carrier for whether or not that ability is actually available to you. Even if the gracious lords may allow it, you have to engage in a long and drawn out Byzantine rite just for the privilege. Currently sitting on a Pixel 10 that will not let me have root. Give me a Linux phone with halfway decent modem drivers, or give me death.

codedokode 5mo ago
If you do not update the phone, chances are high that there is some Linux vulnerability you could expoloit. The privileged vendor software also can have vulnerabilities. For example, here [1] researches hacked the phone with Verified Boot using a boot logo parsing error. My impression that you should treat your phone as something that can be hacked any moment and not store anything important there. [1] https://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2024/SSTIC-actes/when_vendor1_meets_vendor2_the_story_of_a_small_bu/SSTIC2024-Article-when_vendor1_meets_vendor2_the_story_of_a_small_bug_chain-rossi-bellom_neveu.pdf https://www.sstic.org/media/SSTIC2024/SSTIC-actes/when_vendo...
dataflow 5mo ago
> Currently sitting on a Pixel 10 that will not let me have root. Stop buying phones from Verizon?
- ux266478 5mo ago
  Not a Verizon phone.
  - dataflow 5mo ago
    That's surprising. Is this after you've paid it off? I thought only Verizon did this after the phone is paid off.

codedokode 5mo ago

1) My phone is not officially supported by LineageOS so I will have to port it first. 2) I did not analyze LineageOS yet and how it is different from stock Android, so I need to go through complete diff. > If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself My goal is to have an open source system that is under my full control and doesn't play tricks on my by sending telemetry or collecting forensic databases. Because now I cannot even connect the phone to Internet and it is not as useful as it could be.

Semaphor 5mo ago
I’d assume that with such a level of required inspection, you also have quite some security requirements. I’d say at that level nothing works as well as GrapheneOS (though you have to either delay security updates or accept temporarily closed source (they get access to the code only in exchange for not publishing it until X days or something) updates, thanks Google). As that currently requires a Google phone, the only way to get close to your price target would be buying it used.
neurostimulant 5mo ago
I wonder if you could ask Opus 4.7 to port LineageOS for your phone. The LLM must’ve had plenty of training data from the gazillion LineageOS ports for other devices, so perhaps it might actually work (or brick your device).

bookofjoe 5mo ago

Re: de-Googling yourself: Goldman Sachs paid $6 million to try to get its [soon-to-be] former chief counsel Kathryn Ruemmler's Google search results highlighting her close friendship and many-years-long association with Jeffrey Epstein off the first few pages of results. Today, the first result on the first page of a Google search for her is the opening paragraph of her Wikipedia biography: >Kathryn H. Ruemmler (born April 19, 1971) is an American attorney who was principal deputy White House counsel and then White House Counsel to President Barack Obama.[1] Previously a partner at Latham and Watkins co-chairing its white-collar defense group,[2] Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs in 2020 and was Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel.[3] She announced her resignation from this position in February 2026, effective at the end of June, over her links to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.[4][5][6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Ruemmler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Ruemmler >How a Secretive Firm Tried (and Failed) to Fix an Epstein Friend’s Tattered Image https://archive.ph/Biztm https://archive.ph/Biztm

thfuran 5mo ago
I'm not sure what your point is.
- bookofjoe 5mo ago
  Wrote tomaytotomato 3 hours ago: >If you want a stretch goal try and de-Google yourself, I have tried but failed twice now. My point is that even with unlimited resources it's impossible to de-Google yourself.
  - BenjiWiebe 5mo ago
    De-Googling (in this context at least) means not running Google software on your phone. No Google Play Services always running in the background, plus not using Google apps.
    - bookofjoe 5mo ago
      Ah. I misinterpreted "de-Googling." It is refreshing, though, to know that the cranky folks of HN still downvote honest mistakes.

Larrikin 5mo ago

I recently spent twenty minutes sitting outside of an MLB stadium because MLB decided they needed the same level of play protection as a foreign banking app and it refused to work on my friend's LineageOS phone. We only got in by installing the app on my Sony and him signing into his account. They charge a fee now to get paper tickets from the box office.

beepboopboop 5mo ago
Brutal. I had a similarly annoying experience recently, where in order to enter my local big arena for a concert, the TicketMaster app was not enough. I had to step out of the entrance line to download the _arena-specific_ TicketMaster app to access my tickets. I hate the ticket systems that dominate the market, we deserve better.
Hizonner 5mo ago
... and you continue to let them abuse you.
- Larrikin 5mo ago
  Give a solution
  - skinfaxi 5mo ago
    Don't give your money to these places? HSBC won't let me use my rooted phone either, so guess who lost my business?
    - Larrikin 5mo ago
      Next time we will go to the professional baseball stadium across the street instead.
      - ofieiehdiehe 5mo ago
        You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you want this stop, you gotta stop using these services, even if it means sacrificing a hobby. If, on the other hand, you care more about your hobby than these quirks annoy you, than by all means, go right ahead.

merryocha 5mo ago

My biggest obstacle to de-Googling is the GBoard keyboard of all things. There's really no good open source alternative that even comes close.

lsowen 5mo ago
Have you tried the FUTO keyboard? I actually find I prefer it to gboard now. https://keyboard.futo.org/ https://keyboard.futo.org/
- merryocha 5mo ago
  I don't think I ever tried this one. I think I tried every keyboard on F-Droid but apparently FUTO isn't in the main F-Droid repo. I'm liking it so far. I'm a swipe typer and on most keyboards the swipe functionality is much worse than GBoard but this one seems to work pretty well. I'm going to try it for a while, thanks for the suggestion!
eskori 5mo ago
I was in the same boat until a year ago or so. FUTO^[1] finally provided a good text prediction/correction pair + that simply better feeling the Gboard has^[2]. [1]: https://keyboard.futo.org/ https://keyboard.futo.org/ [2]: I never investigated this, so I always assumed that GBoard predicted what key I wanted to press when close to two letters. With FOSS keyboards, with a physically identical layout, I tended to make way more mistakes.
- ezst 5mo ago
  I find GBoard to remain superior in multilingual typing, futo just can't seem to be able to switch to other languages consistently, even with the multilingual option enabled, it's also not as good at "recovering" from typing too many letters (Gboard sometimes adequately completes with likely shorter words)
codedokode 5mo ago
I do not type a lot on the phone (I own a laptop), so no worries.