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Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

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Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#181

Post by imwillofficial »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #26

To be honest... None. It's a choice. You might wholly disagree, but recent events aren't enough to get me to switch yet, because I think the competition has too many tradeoffs. I can get my photos scanned against a CSAM database... or I can have Google tracking my location constantly regardless of what they say (as they've been proven to be misleading in the past)... or I can use a Linux phone and say goodbye to batt…

It never will be there. A focused group of devs who care about details will always beat design by committee. Always.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#182

Post by ho_schi »

Desktop/Laptop: Already using Archlinux for many years

Phone: Pixel 4a (only regular sized smartphone available not from Apple)

Carplay? Never used.

Apply Pay? Never used.

Maps: Garmin, which works autonomous minus the GPS. Or OSMAND or OrganicMaps.

The problem with Pixel is, it is from Google therefore you don't have GNU/Linux but Google/Android. Which comes with a lot drawbacks, for example you need to switch on Miracast support in the bootloader.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#183

Post by scoopertrooper »

jrockway wrote: post #130
scoopertrooper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes. Of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is ridiculous. I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick th…

Apple's using my electricity and my silicon to call the cops on me. We have no idea what hashes they're checking images against; we can't see the raw data, and we can't see the hashes, and we can't see what they're sending to their servers. There is no technical reason why this needs to exist. If they want to scan iCloud photos for something, they can do that on their servers. iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted. Law…

> Apple's using my electricity and my silicon to call the cops on me.

Okay.

> We have no idea what hashes they're checking images against; we can't see the raw data, and we can't see the hashes, and we can't see what they're sending to their servers.

Apple is getting the entire image regardless, this happens as part of the iCloud upload process.

> There is no technical reason why this needs to exist. If they want to scan iCloud photos for something, they can do that on their servers. iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted. Law enforcement can do whatever they want with the data you send there. Since they chose the client-side route, they have to be up to something, and it all smells very fishy.

It's a hell of a lot cheaper to distribute the load onto the device than to do it on GCP. However, this whole line of thinking is ridiculous, iOS is your operating system, it can send what it likes where it likes without you knowing about it. Why does this particular thing cause concern?

> Tomorrow, it will be for any discontent against whatever government wants to oppress its people this week -- and as time goes forward, that is not just third-world countries where you don't live, it could be your own.

> Do you really want to explain to the police at your door at 3:30 in the morning why you read a website called Hacker News? This is the first step towards that reality.

https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definit...

> Imagine I wrote a program that contained the phone numbers of people I don't like. The database is encrypted, and the only way to see if you're on that list is to install the app on your phone. The app does two things -- nothing if you're not on my list, or it sends me your location (at your expense!) if you are. Would you install that app? Absolutely not, that would be crazy. But that is basically what is bundled into iOS now.

Again, your overlooking the fact that this app is already coming from Apple the company that made iOS. They already control your phone, why would they need some additional app?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#184

Post by imwillofficial »

system16 wrote: post #174
redisman wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it funny how many people pick a random Chinese phone in their bid for privacy (???)

I think it's less about privacy and more about what the invading actor will/can actually do. People are less concerned about the Chinese government's reach vs. the NSA or other three letter agencies in the US. I suppose if you are important enough to the Chinese government whatever they have on you could be used as blackmail, but most 'regular' people don't fall into that category.

> People are less concerned about the Chinese government's reach vs. the NSA

Wait what? You’re 180 degrees wrong.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#185

Post by ByteWelder »

swozey wrote: post #165

Hackernews is by far the worst place to ever come for this advice. You're going to get the range of basically "use emacs, newb" to stupidly random Ebay laptops nobody has heard of. Roll your own thing and don't worry about what others use. I use void linux and I would never use hn for *nix advice.

I'm already using Emacs, so that's alright :D

I noticed a couple of comments where people were wondering what the alternatives were. With this thread, we can possibly save people some research time, as I've spent quite a few hours in the past week or so.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#186

Post by withinboredom »

tpush wrote: post #114
carnitas wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple hashes all of your photos offline and then pinky promises to only check the hashes against the official on phone database when the user initiated an upload. The problem isn’t about wackos it’s about governments forcing Apple to do things with this new weapon

> Apple hashes all of your photos offline [...] No, only the ones designated for upload to iCloud. > [...] it’s about governments forcing Apple to do things with this new weapon Governments can already force Apple to do any kind of scanning, "weapon" being built already or not.

Says who? Apple? How much is that worth?

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#187

Post by pshirshov »

Phone: Google Pixel 5 plus CalyxOS at the moment. Probably will switch to pure LineageOS due to call recording support. The bootloader is locked so the phone is secure and does not call home. Highly recommend. Some apps and in-app purchases doesn't work well on microG, also there are some issues with paid apps. And Android UX sucks but it's a reasonable price to pay for privacy. In fact I've been suprised - with this phone I don't feel as bad as I expected.

I really hope that Pixel 6 will have better camera and bigger screen and also would be supported by Lineage.

PC: I have an AMD desktop with Gentoo and going to buy Purism laptop later.

Watch: I don't use them. Actually was going to buy next Apple Watch but...

Apple Pay: no good replacement, though contactless cards aren't THAT bad.

Apple Carplay: phone+organic maps.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#188

Post by entropy1111 »

forgingahead wrote: post #30

How are you finding Manjaro for dev work? I set up Ubuntu 18 on a desktop build last year, it's decent but it's still finicky to be my daily driver, so I still use my MBP for work. I think for a phone I may just drop back to a Nokia 3210 and buy a camera for family pictures. Whatsapp will be a loss, but hey, maybe it'll be nice to not have my phone as a distraction during the day.

> Manjaro

- https://github.com/arindas/manjarno

- https://manjarno.snorlax.sh/

There are only 3 distros worth using. Fedora KDE Plasma upgrading after stabl-er point releases, Arch and openSUSE Tumbleweed.

Everything else is very unprofessional or full of technical or human issues. I'm not trying to gatekeep newbies, like, if you use elementaryOS or Linux Mint you're still using Linux. No elitism intended I'm just giving you my opinion.

For exploration or self inflicted harm you can also use NixOS or weird small distros. Although I like Nix' concepts I don't like their implementation or approach to users.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#189

Post by gjsman-1000 »

mateuszf wrote: post #148
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't anonymous microG accounts illegal though? (Or at least a violation of the TOS.) Also you can't use any paid apps with this method.

Maybe a violation of TOS, but I guess it's one of these things that would not be enforced at all. Same way as Oracle can't do much about Google using Java or Microsoft doesn't do anything about Wine. Regarding the second point - that's true. I've heard there are some plans to add payments to the Aurora store/F-Droid (which are alternative app stores) but right now you can't use paid apps. I consider this to be a plus…

There isn't always an open-source alternative to what you need. Especially for people who use their computers for work.

Re: Ask HN: What Apple alternatives are you switching to?

#190

Post by anonuser123456 »

jrockway wrote: post #130
scoopertrooper wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I think people are just getting a little too worked up over this whole thing. Apple computes a hash of each image you upload to iCloud then check it against a list of CP hashes. Of all the things in the world to get worked up over, this is ridiculous. I get it, the mechanism they're using has apparent flaws, and maybe some whacko could somehow get access to your phone and start uploading things that trick th…

Apple's using my electricity and my silicon to call the cops on me. We have no idea what hashes they're checking images against; we can't see the raw data, and we can't see the hashes, and we can't see what they're sending to their servers. There is no technical reason why this needs to exist. If they want to scan iCloud photos for something, they can do that on their servers. iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted. Law…

> But I can't accept this. It's a step too far.

So turn off iCloud photos?

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