131–140 of 254 posts
Samsung also removed my flashlight recently. The whole pull-down that contained it is gone. Not sure what they're thinking over there.
I assure you that Samsung doesn't care to remove your... flashlight.
This likely just got removed from a fat finger/phone being on in your pocket/etc.
Normally, I'd go and say "vote with your wallet" - but sadly, in the tablet sphere, it's either ultra low spec Alibaba junk or it's Samsung. No Fairphone, no Pixel, nothing. Seriously Samsung, go and screw yourselves. The reason I insist on rooting in the first place is because unlike iOS which has a true full backup that you can trigger from your Mac (and restore afterwards), Android decidedly does not, and a bunch…
IMO there is kinda only one option... an iPad.
It's an order of magnitude better than anything else out there. And that's coming from someone who doesn't really like Apple products.
Given that your major reason for rooting is something that... Apple solves for. Maybe there is another option?
Normally, I'd go and say "vote with your wallet" - but sadly, in the tablet sphere, it's either ultra low spec Alibaba junk or it's Samsung. No Fairphone, no Pixel, nothing. Seriously Samsung, go and screw yourselves. The reason I insist on rooting in the first place is because unlike iOS which has a true full backup that you can trigger from your Mac (and restore afterwards), Android decidedly does not, and a bunch…
Even then, Samsung lags hard in the tablet space. IMO there is kinda only one option... an iPad. It's an order of magnitude better than anything else out there. And that's coming from someone who doesn't really like Apple products. Given that your major reason for rooting is something that... Apple solves for. Maybe there is another option?
And on top of that, there's no way to migrate the data from a bunch of these apps from the Google walled garden to the Apple walled garden, not to mention purchased licenses.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do anyone know why GrapheneOS doesn't support fairphone?
No secure element, no memory tagging support, no proper cellular baseband isolation, no verified boot, taking months to ship security updates .. the list is long. From a security/privacy perspective the fairphone is on the worse side of options unfortunately.
Compared to Pixel phones this is without a doubt true, but how does it compare against your average mid-range Android device? Do those typically have any of the features you mentioned?
Xiaomi apparently have also stopped unlocking their bootloaders, so the "workaround" was to go to an official store and ask them perform a downgrade, and before the staff can relock the bootloader, grab the phone and run: https://x.com/kobe_koto/status/1949154478298456531 Absolutely hilarious.
It's still possible outside of China but you have to have a Mi account and for newer phones you have to make some forum posts or some dumb shit.
Xiaomi apparently have also stopped unlocking their bootloaders, so the "workaround" was to go to an official store and ask them perform a downgrade, and before the staff can relock the bootloader, grab the phone and run: https://x.com/kobe_koto/status/1949154478298456531 Absolutely hilarious.
It's still possible outside of China but you have to have a Mi account and for newer phones you have to make some forum posts or some dumb shit.
Then make a request that takes 2 weeks to go through. and enter the or whatever (this was like 2016 or something).
Whole process was clearly designed to make you give up.
Their phones where junk then though and i just got something else in the end. They're a lot better now so actually unlocking it is probably worth something now.
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You cant re-lock the bootloader with a custom key which grapheneos considers a cornerstone of their security model.
Yeah, otherwise the bad guys can just wait till you're not looking at your phone, reflash your it with a backdoored version, and wait for you to unlock it (evil maid attack).
I hate it when the bad guys do this to my phone
As someone who roots single-purpose Android devices, this is one of those things that sucks big-time but makes total sense. The only reason one would unlock a bootloader is to root the system partition. It is impossible to protect data on rooted phones and makes data exfiltration attacks significantly easier to do. This is a huge problem for banking and music apps that absolutely rely on this capability. Samsung is,…
My response would be it doesn't make any sense. There are so many reasons why blocking rooting is a stupid idea. Just some of them: - If you're capable of rooting a device then you're capable of understanding the risks which come with doing so. - The number of users who root their devices will always be so comparitively tiny that the increased risk of data exfil is incredibly small. Also, similarly to above, if you'r…
I'm with you on the general sentiment, but how do the companies that block rooting benefit from any of the nefarious activities you mentioned? Those are executed by different organizations, typically.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even then, Samsung lags hard in the tablet space. IMO there is kinda only one option... an iPad. It's an order of magnitude better than anything else out there. And that's coming from someone who doesn't really like Apple products. Given that your major reason for rooting is something that... Apple solves for. Maybe there is another option?
Believe it or not I did consider going the full Apple route. The problem is, Apple doesn't offer anything in the 8 inch zone. I need a tablet that fits into my pant pockets. And on top of that, there's no way to migrate the data from a bunch of these apps from the Google walled garden to the Apple walled garden, not to mention purchased licenses.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My response would be it doesn't make any sense. There are so many reasons why blocking rooting is a stupid idea. Just some of them: - If you're capable of rooting a device then you're capable of understanding the risks which come with doing so. - The number of users who root their devices will always be so comparitively tiny that the increased risk of data exfil is incredibly small. Also, similarly to above, if you'r…
> Let's be honest and admit that the only reason to prevent users from rooting their phones is to protect companies' profits by ensuring users can't fight back against the blatant tracking, data mining, and analytics capture which is so valuable to companies. I'm with you on the general sentiment, but how do the companies that block rooting benefit from any of the nefarious activities you mentioned? Those are execute…