I hate that. One of the reasons I dislike Samsung phones. Last phone from them was a Note 8 and unless they go back to a pure Android experience, I won’t get another. We know that isn’t happening any time soon.
Honestly I’m super over all our current choices. Im on an iPhone and while I like their privacy stuff slightly better than android, there are lots of things I don’t like.
I also hate how much metadata the big G snorts up. Even just the location data they retain is out of this world.
There just aren’t any options if you want something that doesn’t keep you boxed into a closed ecosystem or track every love you make.
You can get a Google pixel and sideload an operating system such as Grapheneos, and you won’t have to deal with any of Google’s bs spying. Highly recommend looking into it.
At that point why not just using Samsung phone and sideload the OS? Seems weird to do that on Pixel which has inferior hardware and good software (like its camera apps), and then remove the software
Simple reason being that there’s no notoriously good OS for Samsung phones.
Graphene is highly focused on not being annoying while keeping privacy intact. You can, for example, have Google Play Services, within a sandbox. Everything can be denied network access, or any access really, on a per app basis.
It also relies on Google’s security chip to keep the chain of trust intact. The boot sequence and your private keys are kept intact that way. Not everyone documents and opens their hardware as well as Google. Samsung is notoriously terrible and full of it when it comes to allowing you to do your own thing.
I recently just bought a pixel 6 and have been interested in Graphene OS, but would I lose features like live translate and the hold for me feature?
live translate
What is that? Google translate listening and translating live? Google lens translating images? Both work.
hold for me feature
No clue about what that is.
In general most things work just the same, and things that do not tend to be listed in the Graphene docs.
The fact that one of those is some sort of a gambling app promotes that to very infuriating! 😡
I’m amazed by how many gambling ads and games are pushed these days. Really horrible imo.
Yeah but the Cesar’s app let’s you play without paying. You can, but it’s not necessary. Besides some of the games are fun to play without spending any money
It just seems like that might really be not cool to force such apps on someone struggling with a gambling addiction.
Disingenuous. What has that got to do with anything?Are they specifically targeting those people? Do you have proof they do? I thought the discussion was about the apps themselves, not the people getting them?
Straight up gambling apps too
Samsung has been a malicious bad actor for a while now. It’s not just phones; they also pulled shit like retroactively adding ads to people’s smart TVs etc.
(Also, even their “dumb” products, like appliances, are designed to fail just outside warranty. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my washer’s spider arm, which failed catastrophically due to corrosion even though nothing else in the machine had so much of a speck of corrosion on it. Samsung is clearly capable of specifying corrosion-resistant materials and chose not to on purpose in order to create a failure point.)
Everyone should completely boycott Samsung.
Your corrosion issue is due to dissimilar metals which, when in contact with one another, begin corroding immediately. They chose those materials knowing full well what would happen.
Their appliances are absolute garbage and I’ve read that many repair places refuse to work on them because they’re built so poorly.
Ah, that’s where you’re wrong: it’s not your phone.
At this point I only buy Smartphones with Android One label (Stock Android without anything changed). Samsung especially is full of bloat.
At this point I only buy Smartphones with Android One label (Stock Android without anything changed). Samsung especially is full of bloat.
Bloat is bad enough but Samsung devices now have ad/crap/spyware baked into them and you can’t even disable some of it.
I had been using Samsung for the longest time before my current device and lemme tell ya, even with their flagships they pull this shit, I’m always having to go in and delete whatever shit they download, like, no, I have no desire to play fucking ROYAL MATCH please stop asking me
I disabled my DNS block-list for 5 minutes to test something, and my Samsung TV used its newfound freedom to immediately go and automatically install the TikTok app from its app store. It no longer gets the privilege of an internet connection.
What smartphone brand is safe to buy nowadays? It feels like every single one is terrible and anti-user.
If you want a nice user experience, Google pixel line is pretty good.
If you want privacy, etc. there are better options.
Actually, Pixel is the go-to choice for privacy-concious folks as well. That’s because the two most secure and private mobile operating systems, Calyx and Graphene, support only the Pixel lineup.
Is it weird that I’m partially relieved seeing this post? I found all these weird apps on my phone the other day and thought I had been hacked or something. whew…?
You were hacked by the manufacturer.
There are a lot of negative things that I will say about Apple and iOS, but this would NEVER EVER fly on an iPhone. The fact that we just kind of accept it on Android is infuriating.
Never again Samsung. Never again.
Remember when Apple put a U2 song on everyone’s iPhone and people went nuts about it? How dare they do that! That was just a song.
Now companies just install whatever apps they want. And people just accept it.
This has been a thing since before smartphones and the U2 stunt though. The PC manufacturers started doing it back in the early 2000s.
Yeah Android manufacturers been doing this since its inception. I remember having to remove the Blockbuster app from my Droid X lol
Didn’t Windows put a Weezer video on there or am I remembering something wrong?
There were some videos on some of the installation CDs…that’s all I remember. I don’t think they were automatically installed on your hard drive, but I could be wrong.
Yeah the video for Buddy Holly was on the Windows 95 install disc.
If one of my relatives showed me this screen appearing on their phone I’d assume they have malware
It’s carrier based. I’ve had Samsung phones almost exclusively and as long as I buy unlocked I never get unwanted apps.
Nah. My $2000 CAD unlocked directly from Samsung device had ads and bullshit pre-installed apps before I even inserted my SIM into it.
I returned that phone so fast. Never seen anything like that on my Pixel.
Jeez. Who spends $2000 on a phone?
That’s how much Samsung S22 Ultra sells for. Or I guess did, before the S23 Ultra came out.
