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There's one group of Android users Google's new sideloading rules won't affect (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/android@lemmy.world
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[–] 12 points 4 months ago (21 children)

Yes. Provided you find a phone that can unlock the bootloader and you are fine in losing banking app, government issued apps and such amenities....

Given that Samsung and Xiaomi doesn't let you unlock anymore.... Unless you are ok giving money to Google to buy a pixel, new or used, there are really little choices currently. Nothing phones, a few motorola (hit and miss...).

For example, we have digital ID that you can load on the phone your ID card and driving license, which is not allowed on unlocked phones. Also, McDonald app doesn't work on unlocked phones ...

So good luck hoping people will use custom Roms, even less than before. Google is fucking us a small step a time.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    It's easy enough to work around most of it, with web apps. You can even install them to have separate icons. Granted, there are some things that are impossible, like digital ID, but there aren't any that fundamentally affect phone usability, for my personal use.

    What's holding me up is work stuff. I get a stipend to have a work phone, so I just use my personal device, but I'm getting a separate device for work soon so I can cut out everything Google/Microsoft on me personal device. Digital control and privacy matters.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    No. You cannot. The digital id I was referring to can be activated only via app, and banking apps are mandatory. You can do web banking paying an additional fee and using sms authentication, but as I said it's an additional fee. Maybe worth paying for, ymmv.

    But the real practical of the digital id is that I will never be (again) fined for driving without a driving license with me because I always have my phone with me. I usually have also my real driving license, but sometimes I leave the wallet home or whatever.

    It's just practical stuff, you can do without, but why should I.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    What banks charge fees for web banking!? That doesn't make a lick of sense, imho... That incentivizes using much-more-expensive in-person banking.

    Also, even if there are some banks that don't have web banking, it's easy enough to switch banks (at least, in the countries I know about). Some people even regularly cycle through institutions to get sign-on bonuses a couple times each year.

    But, yes. It's less convenient to use platforms that respect privacy, and requires some trade-offs.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Just lock the bootloader again? I don't have Google on my Android and can use banking apps and most others that don't have a hard requirements on some Google API.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Most phones can't even relock the bootloader. And newer Samsung ones can't even get flashed. Recent updates removed even the ability to flash a custom recovery

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Vote with your wallets. You don't own your Samsung devices.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Owning a "refurbished" (some other fediverse user told me those are shit though) Pixel 6 for a year now as I don't need the latest and greatest and wanted to test drive GrapheneOS. Previous phones were mostly new low to mid-price Motos with LineageOS. But this beats them all. The camera is great. National (FOSS) ID app works via NFC with my physical ID-card. Navigation (also offline and with integrated TTS) with OsmAnd works great. Google's camera app works even without activated Play Service. KDE-Connect works. Using the excellent Fossify apps for calendar, gallery and file manager. JTXBoard for notes and tasks where the latter are synced to my Nextcloud (as well as calendar appointments, contact list, RSS-News, podcasts via gpodder-Nextcloud sync). The exceptional FUTO keyboard supports Speech-To-Text and swiping via local AI and models (which works very good).

    I install most apps via Obtainium directly from APKs from release pages on Github and Codeberg (even the official German ID app) after vetting how many devs are working on the app, how many stars it has and how much LLMs were used in the development. Then if no APK is available the next app source is F-Droid, then if it's not on there, Aurora store for pure Play Store apps, then if it's a paid app and/or it needs Play Services, I switch to the second profile on which sandboxed Play Services are enabled and I'm logged in to the Play Store.

    Did not test banking or payment as I rather do that on the PC and via card/cash.

    Feels very good to be tracked minimally and I hope the goated GrapheneOS devs are able to provide the means to sideload apps for a foreseeable future and the second hand Pixel market is not overrun by scalpers.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    Its not much of a vote if they change the conditions after casting it. I was on a note 10+ running lineageos just fine, got the opportunity to "upgrade" to this s22 ultra for free, and got screwed over by Samsung not even a month later

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    so you're selling your right to privacy and choice for the convenience of a...banking app?

    you sound like a cheap date. wanna go grab some food from the dumpsters behind Arby's?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Please don't underestimate how fucked "modern" citizens are. Privacy is no longer an easy choice.

    You might see a banking app (including phone-based payments, using the phone as a card or using a payment app) as mere convenience, and to a large degree it is, but aside from that there are also national ID apps that are simply impossible to live without in some EU countries. There are exceptions for seniors and disabled folk, but even they miss out on some critical social access that's just not realistic for eg. parents of school-age children.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    the day I have to have a phone for an ID is the day I stop having a cellphone.

    I already get wild looks when I tell people I don't have a Facebook. I can only imagine their heads exploding when I say I don't have a phone.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Sure, you can not have a cell phone. Then you also can't communicate with your kids' teachers, or receive communication from them. Which will have.... other consequences.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Well, seems I am not a privacy freak and I like to live my life as I see fit. Yet, my back knows everything about my life already so

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    it has nothing to do with your bank and everything to do with the company your bank used to whitelabel their app.

    most banking apps are from a handful of companies. those companies scrape you for as much data as they can and sell it to other companies.

    things like, balance, location, proximity to points of interest, length of time spent in points of interest, etc.

    so you might be thinking you're just in bed with your bank, but your bank turned out the lights and has a camera streaming your private information to the highest bidder.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago*

    For example, we have digital ID that you can load on the phone your ID card and driving license, which is not allowed on unlocked phones.

    Yeah that's a problem, one only you and your government can fix, but it is indeed an issue.

    Also, McDonald app doesn't work on unlocked phones ...

    My brother the McDonald app is spyware, it only exists to sell your data to brokers who sell it to advertisers and the NSA. If you're just going to install spyware anyway there's no purpose to switch to a custom ROM. Is all your message data, files, etc, really worth $1.00 off a McChicken?

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