Phones

[anonymous_]

On a related note, I was also looking at GrapheneOS as everyone kept talking about it, but lost interest in it as I heard some sketchy stuff about it lately. For now my focus is exclusively back on Sailfish.

Can you share the GrapheneOS sketchy stuff? A lot of people here use it, so any info is good. If it's major start a new thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6dsshMYj9c



Regarding the "best" phone:
The best phone is no phone at all, they are translatable unless you turn off cellular, the modems may have backdoors, and the processors may as well.
If you have to have a phone (most people do if you have a job) then GrapheneOS (on a Pixel until the Motorola ones come out) is the least worst option.

There's also the Librem "freedom phone" and Pinephones if you want more customization and essentially desktop linux, typically provided by postmarketOS (also look into SXMO). However this route looses you pretty much all access to the Android app ecosystem.

There's also "dumb phones", however most phones that appear or claim to be dumb AFAIK are not really, for example KaiOS is garbage (and GerdaOS is dead). There's some obscure stuff like John's Phones, Punkt, MuditaOS etc but they all have limited functionality, end up abandoned, or their primary objective is preventing "phone addiction" not actually being useful or providing nanonymity.

You can also go the full SIP route, such as using jmp.chat, run an asterisk server (connected to landline?), connect over wifi (WiPhone) or lora in some kinda wild custom setup but this would only have local usability. See Linphone and Twinklephone for clients.

Radios as an alternative (note: encryption illegal).
You could also put a cellular modem in or cellular modem to your computer.

[TechLord]

Sadly, patent and copyright laws in their current form thwart any competition to the smartphone oligopoly.

Even established smartphone vendors like Samsung and Apple had heavy legal battles because Apple accused Samsung of "stealing" (copying is not theft) from Apple, and to the end user, all that matters is who builds the better product, not who "stole" from whom. And in the early 2010s, Samsung objectively had the better product.

Also, most people just care about their daily dose of TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, ..., not about computing freedom and ownership.

[mocheryl]

On a related note, I was also looking at GrapheneOS as everyone kept talking about it, but lost interest in it as I heard some sketchy stuff about it lately. For now my focus is exclusively back on Sailfish.

Can you share the GrapheneOS sketchy stuff? A lot of people here use it, so any info is good. If it's major start a new thread.

I encourage someone more enthusiastic and knowledgeable to open a new thread. I’ll just write how I see things based on recent anecdotes.

First thing, who is behind this system? A company? A group? What’s their background and what is the accountability? What’s stopping them from just dropping the whole thing one day? If this happens to something that is not essential to me like a music player, it’s one thing, but a mobile phone is a bit more sensitive matter. I could end up with dead software that has potentially unresolved security issues and I would rather not relive the Symbian experience.

Then they say it’s ungoogled. Ah, yes. That word again that is thrown around like a buzzword. Just how ungoogled is it? It runs exclusively on Pixels (Google’s phone). Supposedly because it’s the only one that has some specific hardware that is required for the system to run. Personally that doesn’t bother my all that much, because I was going to get a Pixel anyway, but it already puts a dent on their ungoogled claim.

Every now and then I read how people found out that the system contacts Google services. Recent one was that it downloads some static content from their servers (some kind of list of certificates; I forget exactly). Developers just shrugged it off as not being a big deal. Not a big deal? Are you kidding me? Your whole sales pitch is about not being attached to Google and then you start pulling double speak. Eventually they corrected this behavior, but not because it’s the right thing to do, but because they didn’t want anymore public outrage. This just reeks of unprofessional attitude.

LibreWolf’s team never claimed to be “unmozillaed”. They openly disclosed what their custom build of Firefox does and what it doesn’t and they even provide workarounds if you truly want to be disconnected from Mozilla. This is the kind of transparency I appreciate. I’m sure users would understand if GrapheneOS’s team did something similar, but they didn’t. That’s why I find this sketchy.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying the system it’s either good or bad. I would probably also use it as it’s the least bad choice (according to some other post in this thread I’m not alone in this opinion). However the first impression I got makes me want to approach this OS with caution. Who knows what else they incorrectly consider “not a big deal”?

Also, GrapheneOS and Google both start with the letter “G”. Coincidence? I think not!

[moeloli]

Also, GrapheneOS and Google both start with the letter “G”. Coincidence? I think not!

Their logo also kind of resembles a star of David, and I think "graphene" was something they put in the covid clotshots (or at least was theorized to have been).