Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#181

Post by blablablerg » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 2:57 PM UTC

veave wrote: post #87

Daegalus wrote: post #10

The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…

The reason you don't see long term support on Android is the same reason Linux failed in the desktop: the Linux kernel developers want everything mainlined and are not interested in keeping a stable kernel API for drivers, but in the real world, drivers are closed source.

That is not why Linux "failed"(1). It is because essential software for the average PC user like MS Office and the Adobe suite is not available. For games the situation has quite improved thanks to Valve.

(1) Linux didn't fail, the desktop is already a joy to use imho. It is just waiting till it reaches critical mass, then the Year of the Linux Desktop will be nigh.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#182

Post by haspok » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 2:58 PM UTC

ludovicianul wrote: post #83

OnePlus is pretty close to stock. Very fast, very good battery. It's the only Android I've loved before switching to iPhone. I have a Samsung and a OnePlus 5T bought in the same period (around 5 years ago). The OnePlus still rocks 1 day battery with medium usage, while the Samsung is dead in a couple of hours.

The battery in my 5T is at 75%, still acceptable.

But the headphone jack socket is basically unusable, because it is so worn, and I have similar issues with the USB-C socket, although that also depends on the cable.

Not sure what I'm gonna replace it with eventually, I'd just have a new battery if it was replaceable...

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#183

Post by lawgimenez » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

I think nobody has mentioned the gaming phones like Infinix. I bought Infinix as a test device and was surprised with the affordable price and large storage. And importantly I haven't noticed any bloatware apps.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#184

Post by cookiengineer » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:08 PM UTC

leon_theremin wrote: post #74

cookiengineer wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BadBIOS Do you know a legit reverse engineered PoC of it? or a legit dump of the firmware? I mean, it's theoretically possible. I don't doubt that since vault7 malware leaks, but is there an actual copy of something like this available? If anyone knew about it, I'd assume the 1vyrain people definitely would.

It is not implemented on firmware, but as a silicon trojan. It doesn't use sound, but EMF. It won't be exposed in full easily though as criminals with access to it currently work to prevent anyone from doing so.

> It won't be exposed in full easily though as criminals with access to it currently work to prevent anyone from doing so.

Do you have evidence or links to articles supporting this?

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#185

Post by toastal » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

Daegalus wrote: post #10

The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…

I really wish there were more options than the Pixel. Ever since they removed the headphone jack it became obvious that there needs to be more device diversity in the longer-supported space.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#186

Post by phs » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

j-bos wrote: post #82

jillesvangurp wrote: post #19

The short answer is no. There is the Google Pixel. But it has limited updates and proprietary software for things like the camera. That camera is really nice though and it's as close as the Android experience Google intended to ship because this basically is Google's version of Android. I have the Pixel 6 and it's fine. Nokia stays close to that but ships their own camera app. It too has limited updates that run out…

Fairphone looks great, BUT they don't sell outside Europe.

Been using a FP4 in Washington State USA under T-Mobile for about 6 months now. Bought it from a British reseller.

Very occasionally I need to bounce the cellular connection, I suspect because I land on an unsupported band/channel. Otherwise LineageOS runs on it like a charm.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#187

Post by jonas-w » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

jcul wrote: post #71

ShamelessGenius wrote: post #61

I bought Pixel 7a and flashed GrapheneOS and running it without a single Google app. My experience has been pretty good so far.

Does the camera work as well as with the stock OS? I've used custom ROMs for years, but never used Graphene. My current phone is a Xiaomi Mi9T. With a custom ROM, to properly make use of the camera you need to flash a magisk module. Otherwise you are stuck with the stock android camera app which doesn't perform nearly as well. This phone is on its last legs, the screen was smashed so I had to replace it with a cheape…

You can use the google camera app, but they are trying to make their own Camera app as good as the official App.

> Google Camera can take full advantage of the available cameras and image processing hardware as it can on the stock OS and does not require GSF or sandboxed Google Play on GrapheneOS. Direct TPU and GXP access by Google apps including Google Camera is controlled by a toggle added by GrapheneOS and doesn't provide them with any additional access to data. The toggle exists for attack surface reduction. Every app can use the TPU and GXP via standard APIs including the Android Neural Networks API and Camera2 API regardless.

> We aim to reduce the benefits of Google Camera compared to GrapheneOS Camera over time, especially on Pixels. Many features of Google Camera will end up being available for GrapheneOS Camera in the next year or so via CameraX extensions including more aggressive HDR+, Night Sight and Portrait. Video features such as slow motion and time lapse are likely further away than within the next year. These video features could potentially be provided via CameraX vendor extensions or could be implemented via our own post-processing of the video output. Panorama, Photo Sphere, Astrophotography, Motion Photos, Frequent Faces, Dual Exposure Controls, Google Lens, etc. aren't on the roadmap for GrapheneOS Camera. Video frame rate configuration and H.265 support should be available for GrapheneOS Camera in the near future via CameraX improvements along with DNG (RAW) support in the further future.

All the info: https://grapheneos.org/usage#camera

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#188

Post by Zufriedenheit » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:19 PM UTC

Gigaset. + Stock android afaik + 5 Year updates + Swappable battery and still IP68 - a bit older hardware and higher price

It's the only smartphone assembled in Germany so not sure if its available where you live.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#189

Post by daneel_w » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

hospitalJail wrote: post #125

Daegalus wrote: post #10

The Pixel is the closest. The reason you don't see long term support on Android is because of Qualcomm. Qualcomm wants manufacturers to build on new chips, so they deprecate older chips and stop support. Most manufacturers don't want to hire kernel and hardware devs. Samsung can pull off longer support because of Exynos and they have a lot of inhouse expertise to extend support on old Qualcomm chips. It's all money.…

Samsung is terrible, do not buy ever. They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security. I would recommend against Google phones, while 'they just work', they have been forcing users via dark patterns to use their services more and more. Its quite easy to get stuck with a google drive monthly fee or use their Maps app which is full of ads.

>"They are the Apple of Android, big marketing budget, little care about performance or security."

What are you on about? Every version of iOS I've used the past 11 years, on every iPhone I've used, has been a buttery smooth experience compared to most (not all; most) things Android, and on top of that I've gotten over 5 years of OS/security updates for each model which is practically unheard of with Android OEMs.

Re: Ask HN: Stock Android phone free of bloatware?

#190

Post by progval » Fri, Jun 30, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

mdp2021 wrote: post #96

yankput wrote: post #78

Fairphone is the closest. (Only available in Europe.) https://shop.fairphone.com/en The negative is the really really awful camera.

Does the Fairphone require a Google account, or can it be used like the traditional Android systems - airgapped, never connected to the Internet? I understand that the latest Android systems require an account to initialize the device - they have disabled the "Skip" [connection to the Internet] button when you first turn them on.

On the FP3, you need to accept the Google ToU to unlock the bootloader (confirmed with FP's support), but you don't need an account.