Other people have already mentioned this, but Google absolutely spies on the whole OS when it makes the OS, either Android or Chrome OS, Google Play Services are spyware and also required for full Android functionality
And Apple aren’t that much better. They make a lot of privacy claims, but are still pushing hard for their online services like iCloud, and their hardware is designed to hide what it’s doing from the user. Apple is still collecting user data. They might be sharing less with third parties, but they are still collecting it.
We need to support Ubuntu Touch. It’s such a promising alternative and it would be a dream to have it at same level and app support as current major platforms.
Should I pull the trigger on the Pixel 8 listing I’ve got up on eBay right now? My level of tech savvy is ‘I installed Bazzite on my gaming laptop and it’s mostly just worked’, I think I should be fine with Graphene but…
(Also, anyone know if Tuta is good? I’m looking for a replacement for Google calendar and Gmail and that seems to fit the bill.)
Do banking apps work well? I used to be pretty into custom OSes on my phone (it was the cyanogen mod at the time, I believe?). But banking apps are notoriously bad with anything they deem non-“standard”…
I am considering switching phones (or rather, my phone is considering dying anytime soon and so I want to get ahead of it) and if any custom rom works well with banking apps and whatnot, how easy it would be to flash a new rom would definitely factor into my decision
Flashing GrapheneOS is pretty easy. On Linux you may have few complications: you must install Chromium or Chrome in order for the USB flashing to work (feature not available with Firefox). You may have to also manually set some permissions for the device in order for it to be detected in Chromium/Chrome.
Tuta is good, free plan to try, 3 euros a month for the cheapest paid plan, they are supposedly adding a “cloud drive” to store some files
GrapheneOS is amazing, easy to install, you control all the permissions if you want, and it’s the most plain and basic Android out there (they don’t make decisions for you out of the box, it’s the realest Android)
Other people have already mentioned this, but Google absolutely spies on the whole OS when it makes the OS, either Android or Chrome OS, Google Play Services are spyware and also required for full Android functionality
And Apple aren’t that much better. They make a lot of privacy claims, but are still pushing hard for their online services like iCloud, and their hardware is designed to hide what it’s doing from the user. Apple is still collecting user data. They might be sharing less with third parties, but they are still collecting it.
We need to support Ubuntu Touch. It’s such a promising alternative and it would be a dream to have it at same level and app support as current major platforms.
GrapheneOS my beloved
Should I pull the trigger on the Pixel 8 listing I’ve got up on eBay right now? My level of tech savvy is ‘I installed Bazzite on my gaming laptop and it’s mostly just worked’, I think I should be fine with Graphene but…
(Also, anyone know if Tuta is good? I’m looking for a replacement for Google calendar and Gmail and that seems to fit the bill.)
The Pixel 8 is great with GrapheneOS! You don’t need to be very tech savvy to use it.
Just keep in mind that Tuta does not support PGP or S/MIME.
Do banking apps work well? I used to be pretty into custom OSes on my phone (it was the cyanogen mod at the time, I believe?). But banking apps are notoriously bad with anything they deem non-“standard”…
I am considering switching phones (or rather, my phone is considering dying anytime soon and so I want to get ahead of it) and if any custom rom works well with banking apps and whatnot, how easy it would be to flash a new rom would definitely factor into my decision
Flashing GrapheneOS is pretty easy. On Linux you may have few complications: you must install Chromium or Chrome in order for the USB flashing to work (feature not available with Firefox). You may have to also manually set some permissions for the device in order for it to be detected in Chromium/Chrome.
Biased answer but:
Your tech level is more than sufficient. Just follow the install instructions on the official site.
Tuta is alright. One of many good alternatives. Just try it out in parallel.