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I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

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Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#21

Post by aidenn0 »

superasn wrote: post #17

Also these updates drain the battery all the time and there is no way to tell them to please stop. At least on Android you can install "greenify app" but for that to work properly, you need to have root and for that you have to unlock the bootloader (for which you have to wait 14 days and also void your warranty). I mean wtf, it's my phone but the design is such that a shit ton of crap always needs to run in the back…

My android phone was configured out-of-the-box to only run autoupdates when plugged in and on wifi. It's easy to see because if I haven't plugged my phone in for a few days, as soon as I do it starts updating like crazy.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#22

Post by pishpash »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #3

And the DMCA prevents you from repairing the problem. Ostensibly to protect copyright, but instead used to deny you ownership.

Just like you use software by license and don't "own" it, hardware makers have realized they can bilk with the same business model. It's no coincidence that slime software companies are the ones making the current hardwares that have such "features" -- Apple and Google chiefly among them, along with the ecosystem they created in their own image.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#23

Post by alfanick »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #13
baseethrowaway wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up Librem 5. Doesn't exist yet, but might soon.

I was just looking at that. I also learned that the Ubuntu OS is still community driven and has ports for several common phones, like the Nexus and OnePlus One phones. https://docs.ubuntu.com/phone/en/devices/devices https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Devices

Except the baseband is still a binary blob, rendering your phone just as closed and unsafe as it was before.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#24

Post by suprfnk »

tpaschalis wrote: post #8

I understand that powers have shifted, and the majority of the people prefer "free" email/chat/spreadsheets/storage, when "free" means "welcome to our own special walled corner of the internet, give us your personal data and watch these ads". But why should in 2018 be so hard for one to be able to simply pay once for hardware or software, that puts the user first? Is it impossible for such a company to succeed at sca…

> But why should in 2018 be so hard for one to be able to simply pay once for hardware or software, that puts the user first? Is it impossible for such a company to succeed at scale?

Apple seems to follow that plan. For your "email/chat/spreadsheets/storage", they have iCloud mail, iMessage, Numbers and iCloud Drive. You pay once, and get software support quite a lot of years later. They don't seem to be selling or gathering much data. They won't show you ads.

Now, it won't be RMS approved, but that's another debate.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#25

Post by Hasknewbie »

> "Thankfully, running a System Restore worked and the next update didn't have these problems, but since then I stopped allowing automatic updates"

It is now possible to disable automatic updates in Windows 10? (Asking because forced updates is what made me switch to Linux in the first place.)

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#26

Post by therealmarv »

Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I really like the Chrome OS approach where it's done continuesly in the background. Not all people want to know what's going on under the hood and how the motor of their car works exactly. Some people just want to drive securely from A to B.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#27

Post by jimmies »

dmix wrote: post #16
jimmies wrote: post #7

>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…

> I was so worried the phone would die before the car arrived. I've had my phone die well before the Uber arrived and it wasn't a problem, it showed up at the place I requested. Once the ride is initiated the drivers phone becomes the primary client. It seems quite flexible with devices going offline (as it should, mobile networks are unreliable). > use some of the apps nowadays that wouldn't work when you haven't up…

Everything you said about it being dead before the car arrived is true. However, it was not the point. What if the phone died before it could update? What if the driver couldn't see me so they had to call me, or I forgot the license plate? What if I was roaming on expensive data? What if that was a more critical app?

All of those things shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#28

Post by platinum1 »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #5

So, back to land lines with analog phones? Serious question, do any phones exist that can fully owned by the user? For a period, I was excited about the Ubuntu phone because of the fact that I could have full control over it. Sad to see that project terminated. I'm also interested in "dumbphones" that can use CDMA or GSM networks.

For the majority of the history of land lines and analog phones, the phones and lines were owned by the telephone company, and leased by the consumer. This change happened in 1982, 10 years AFTER mobile phones were invented.

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/16/business/new-era-for-the-t...

In fact, some people still lease their phones: https://consumerist.com/2012/04/30/hundreds-of-thousands-of-...

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#29

Post by cesarb »

jimmies wrote: post #7

>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…

> I turned off auto-updates on my phone.

Even if you turn off auto-updates, some things still auto update silently. A long time ago, I wrote a small utility which listened to the PACKAGE_ADDED and PACKAGE_REMOVED events (I don't know if it's still possible to listen to these events on recent Android versions). IIRC, there were two packages that always updated silently (wihout a notification icon) and automatically, even with automatic updates disabled: com.android.vending (Android Market/Google Play Store), and com.google.android.gms (Google Play Services).

Re: I've never felt less in control of my own hardware

#30

Post by moonbug22 »

jimmies wrote: post #7

>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…

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