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My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

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Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#31

Post by Copernicron »

kgwxd wrote: post #22
graemep wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even where its not required, it can be a lot cheaper (e.g. for international calls) and has features (conference calls) not offered by consumer phones. Whatsapp's success has partly been driven by telecoms companies over-charging.

There are thousands, maybe millions, of alternatives to Whatsapp for that purpose.

How many of those can my elderly mother use to talk to her sisters? By my estimation the answer is, "zero," and the alternatives will get even scarcer thanks to Bill C-22.

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#32

Post by aand16 »

graemep wrote: post #15
TFNA wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To expand on what the posters mentioned: HN is an international community, and the USA is an outlier in having an ample choice of banks. Many countries only have 3–5 usable banks, and all of them require a phone app for 2FA authentication in order to log into their website. Moreover, it happens that banks remove certain functionality from their websites, so it can only be done through the app. And beyond that, in som…

Even in countries where you have a wide choice of banks (the UK, for example) more and more banks are pushing people to use mobile apps. We have the problem of the government and other businesses and organisations pushing people to use apps. One example is my local bus company only selling certain tickets (monthly ones, for example) on the app. If you do not want to use an app you pay per trip which can be a LOT more…

Sounds like discrimination, no consumer's rights associations to take them to court?

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#33

Post by aand16 »

PSA: somebody put together a detailed table[1] comparing security and privacy features of most common Android-based OSes. Yes, GrapheneOS looks amazing but requires a Pixel phone, at least until the new Motorola devices come out.

1 - https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#34

Post by tim-tday »

neobrain wrote: post #19
graemep wrote: post #8

What about banking apps?

This seems to be mainly brought up by people concerned they'd lose banking apps than people who actually have issues. It's rooted phones that often get blocked, whereas those that run LineageOS/microG without rooting are largely fine. Yes, there are certainly banks that block more aggressively, but if you look at e.g. iodéOS's forums most of them work fine: https://community.iode.tech/t/banking-finance-and-insurance-…

There are real problems with banking apps on graphene. Chase app won’t launch at all the us bank app nags every 15seconds that it needs some play services privilege that’s not even in the list. Maybe they’ll work once I tear play services back out.

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#35

Post by tim-tday »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #20
neobrain wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be mainly brought up by people concerned they'd lose banking apps than people who actually have issues. It's rooted phones that often get blocked, whereas those that run LineageOS/microG without rooting are largely fine. Yes, there are certainly banks that block more aggressively, but if you look at e.g. iodéOS's forums most of them work fine: https://community.iode.tech/t/banking-finance-and-insurance-…

My primary banks apps, and websites, work fine on Graphene, with the exception of anything NFC payment related. I do miss that convenience, but I still have a debit card and cash as needed.

I’ve heard banking apps with built in NFC payments should work but I can’t get it to go.

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#36

Post by bergie »

ggm wrote: post #2

Installing whatsapp was a "wtf" moment. Degoogle but leave meta in your life? I know that it's driven in other people's communications modalities.

I resisted WhatsApp until we started cruising with our sailboat. So many processes require WhatsApp. In many places you can't do customs and immigration without it.

Well, maybe not 100% true. There might still be the remnant of an old paper-based process around, but since nobody uses it, it would be a recipe for spending days queuing in random offices.

Once we're back in Europe, it will be a happy moment when I can finally uninstall the app.

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#37

Post by thisislife2 »

g8oz wrote: post #28
thisislife2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecoms financed and built the communication infrastructure which made the internet (and thus, WhatsApp) possible. WhatsApp is also further subsidised because you also pay for the internet to use it.

Telecoms received excessive returns on their investment. Effectively acting as rentiers for long distance calls.

Ok. And do you think Meta / WhatsApp is any different from any of those Telecoms? Just because WhatsApp is "free" doesn't mean it's a non-profit service from Meta!

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#38

Post by thisislife2 »

Copernicron wrote: post #30
thisislife2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telecoms financed and built the communication infrastructure which made the internet (and thus, WhatsApp) possible. WhatsApp is also further subsidised because you also pay for the internet to use it.

This might be true in your country but it's absolutely incorrect in mine. Most of the telecoms here started as crown corporations, making them an arm of the government. Some of them have been privatized since then but they all received billions in subsidies to build out the networks to cover everyone and not just the most populated areas. An awful lot of Canadian taxpayer dollars have gone to build the internet in th…

The point still stands - Telecoms have been subsidised by public money. And we further subsidise WhatsApp by paying for an internet connection to use it.

Re: My main Android phone is now 99% Google free

#39

Post by microtonal »

troyvit wrote: post #23
graemep wrote: post #8

What about banking apps?

I don't know about LineageOS, but there is crowd-sourced list of banks that work with GrapheneOS: https://github.com/PrivSec-dev/banking-apps-compat-report More info here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps My credit union wasn't on the list, but it works.

Many do require passing Play Integrity at the basic level and/or having a locked bootloader, etc. In these cases, it works well with GrapheneOS, but not necessarily with LineageOS. If you end up using microG to do it, you just gave Google privileged access to your phone (by microG downloading/using DroidGuard).
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