51–60 of 231 posts
I tried one of these lists on a (just factory reset) Xiaomi. Ended up breaking on reboot - immediate crash after login, and it was unusable. Managed to fix it, but learned to be careful - what might be critical for one model might be bloat for another.
Could you share logs with uninstalled packages led to this, please?
I'll try to reproduce if I get time.
I bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through th…
> First, please note that unless you have opted in to use a Microsoft SwiftKey Account on your Android device, all personal and language data generated by Microsoft SwiftKey is stored locally on your device and is never transferred.
I use it since it seamlessly swaps between enabled languages. I can write something like "meet me at Østerport Station" smoothly.
I bought -- full price, retail -- a midrange Samsung phone for a relative recently. The amount of bloatware was incredible. Various social networks and shopping apps were preinstalled. In addition to all the Samsung apps that more or less duplicate the Google stack, poorly. The entire setup process was full of dark patterns designed to extract as much data from you as possible. No way a regular person gets through th…
The first time I had a samsung phone I noticed after about two weeks that every single word I typed into any application was being collected and sent to a third party whose privacy policy said it was used to collect data about my interests, my social life, to make guesses about my intelligence level and education, and that the data would be sold for "market research" among other things. No user would ever suspect tha…
Maybe Google broke some API endpoint and the old keyboard didn't do the update grind.
No warning what so ever for their spyware taking over the keyboard functionally.
The need for some FOSS mobile is really over due by now.
Edit:
> I immediately found an open source keyboard to replace samsung's with
Which keyboard did you pick?
IMHO better to root if you can, since then you do get full control as the rightful owner.
In some countries (Scandinavia...) not having the banking app is inconvenient, as it's used for authentication with many other services.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was furious when I found out that the default keyboard was infested with Grammarly, sending all my keystrokes without consent. Embarrassing for a $1200 flagship device.
This is a user/psychology problem. No one in their right mind is suggesting Samsung. Heck, similar to Apple, you have swaths of people warning you about Samsung. Samsung lives and dies off their huge marketing budget. Buying their phone is more of a psychology thing, than 'I did lots of research and I bought a high quality phone'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you share logs with uninstalled packages led to this, please?
Probably something on https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OSw05IqGrIJSEi4xcEMiV56xw4t... . I'll try to reproduce if I get time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The first time I had a samsung phone I noticed after about two weeks that every single word I typed into any application was being collected and sent to a third party whose privacy policy said it was used to collect data about my interests, my social life, to make guesses about my intelligence level and education, and that the data would be sold for "market research" among other things. No user would ever suspect tha…
Oh dear. I had disabled the Samsung keyboard for some other, but it seems it got reenabled again. Maybe Google broke some API endpoint and the old keyboard didn't do the update grind. No warning what so ever for their spyware taking over the keyboard functionally. The need for some FOSS mobile is really over due by now. Edit: > I immediately found an open source keyboard to replace samsung's with Which keyboard did y…
Why is it not possible to compile and install a complete clean Android directly from the sources on your phone? What are the things that prevent that?
You might be able to install a third-party, community-maintained OS, like LineageOS, though, if your hardware is supported. The downside is that I believe apps like Google Pay won't work anymore, since they require Google's SafetyNet attestation system to pass. Sometimes there are ways around that, but they always seemed like unreliable hacks to me.