from lavendertea@lemmy.dbzer0.com to degoogle@lemmy.ml on 17 Aug 14:23
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/51310046
Recently I’ve been looking for a phone that will allow me to install an google-free OS. I’ve never installed a different OS on a phone before. I’ve been looking online but haven’t really found a clearly best option.
Problem with standard recommendation
From what I’ve read GrapheneOS seems the best alternative OS. Unfortunately they only support the Pixel devices. I want to have local, offline access to my files (e.g. music files, documents) and don’t want to be dependent on cloud services. The Pixel with the most storage comes with only 256GB and no slot for an SD card.
Possible options
There are some other routes that may be feasible that I’ve listed here.
Fairphone 6
- No USB 3
- Pricey for what you get, both in terms of hardware and in terms of fairness, at least according to this post).
- It has an SD card slot
- You can order it with e/os installed, very convenient
- No GrapheneOS
Fairphone 5
- According to this post, the FP6 is a lot snappier
- Not significantly cheaper than the FP6
- It does come with USB 3
- It has an SD card slot
- Can also order this with e/os.
- No GrapheneOS
Sony
According to the Bootloader Unlock Wall of Shame Sony isn’t the worst of the bunch.
- Many Sony’s from the LineageOS list of compatible devices have an SD card slot
- Have to install the OS yourself
- No GrapheneOS
Pixel
Get a refurbished Pixel anyways and get a separate dumb MP3 player for music.
- Might be an option but 256GB is still cutting it tight with what I want to have available offline.
- The 256GB option is a lot more expensive than the 128GB option compared to the cost of a 128GB SD card
- Extra costs from buying the extra MP3 player
- Have to install the OS yourself
- Can install GrapheneOS
DumbPhone:
Get a dumbphone for calls, texting, banking, govt stuff, 2FA app, and music listening. Have a separate linux phone for all the other stuff.
- Not sure how privacy friendly the dumbphones are, might still be using Google Play services?
- Two devices instead of one to carry around
- Extra costs for two devices
- Tinkering with a linux phone could be a fun project
Bonus option: don’t get the linux phone
- Less screen time
- Only 1 device to buy/carry
- Can’t go on the internet while traveling
Questions
- What would be your recommendation that allows plenty of storage on the phone?
- Do you have good/bad experiences with any of these phones/operation systems?
- Are there any good options I’ve missed?
threaded - newest
Does your no cloud policy extend to running a nextcloud instance on your own computer and pulling data over the network when necessary?
If that’s something you are willing to do, then I would go with the Pixel and just pull data from your nextcloud device when needed. I believe you can install nextcloud through Docker to make it super quick to update and deploy.
Kind of, it seems like a lot of extra work to keep that secure and up to date, esp with having access from outside. My current solution is just Syncthing desktop <-> phone and works exactly the way I want.
In that case, I’d probably go with the Fairphone 6, since you can get /e/OS on it by default, but you can also put lineage on it, if you wished.
Personally, I absolutely hate the /e/OS launcher. It reminds me too much of iOS. And I honestly hate it.
Thank you, yes, that does seem super convenient and in case /e/OS sucks I could change it to Lineage
So I wanted to make sure before you did so, and it turns out the Fairphone 6 is not as of yet on the lineage OS website as officially supported. So you might be stuck with sl/e/OS for now. I’m fairly certain the Fairphone 6 will get lineage. It just does not appear to have it yet. So you might either want to wait or consider buying the 5 instead, which already is supported for certain.
wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#fairphone
Good catch, thanks fo checking. Another comment also mentioned that the 5 is supported by CalyxOS. Means that there is a lot of choice of OS for the FP5, which is great
I believe these six will be supported. I just think it’s new enough that it hasn’t gotten official support yet.
Also, to the best of my knowledge CalyxOS is dead for the moment. I want to say the main developer who was working on it left and they said it would be like six months or something like that before they could get a new person.
You can install whatever launcher you want. No need to stay on the default (don’t like it either). One of my old phones has /e/os and I’m using Zim Launcher.
True, but ever since Android 10, third party launchers don’t work quite as well as they used to.
Nice that you can install a different launcher
You should be able to do it in all androids.
@shortwavesurfer @lavendertea Its also a lot safer to have a backup of you ever lose your phone
Pixel + GOS - no complaints works great
They’re not new, but if you can get a Oneplus 5T or some models after that, they run LineageOS fine. With Magisk even my banking apps work. All save the finerprint reader work well. Sadly I hear OnePlus is going to stop allowing unlocking in new models.
Thanks, looks like it doesn’t have an SD card slot unfortunately. According to these specs
No, the 5T doesn’t sadly. The 128gb model I find roomy enough… but if you absolutely need an SD socket I guess that rules it out.
Large internal storage would be a compromise if there is no SD slot, but 128GB is not a lot
I have a Pixel 7 with GrapheneOS that used to be my daily driver. It’s nice, but I’m trying to move away from doing everything on an Android or iOS smartphone, so I’m going the multi-device route. I still use my Pixel for banking apps on wifi at home and as a Briar server.
I got a OnePlus 6 to install Linux on because it’s one of the more well-supported options and I got it on eBay for $80. It works okay, but doesn’t check enough boxes to replace any devices. I’m waiting on an MNT Pocket Reform computer that I hope can be a better, albeit more bulky option.
I got a Mudita Kompakt as my phone primarily because of the switch that can cut power to the GSM module and the 4-day battery life. It’s slow, but calling, texting, and Signal work fine on it. I use it with a $10/month 30GB/month T-Mobile data-only plan and a VoIP phone through JMP. chat.
I use a digital camera for photography and a Tangara music player.
I got a physical transit pass to not need a smartphone for that.
When the PocketMage kit becomes available, I hope to offload notes and calendar to that. I’m also playing with replacing other smartphone functionality with a Meshtastic or NomadNet bot hosted on a server at home combined with a T-Deck LoRa device for things like live transit schedules and weather forecasts.
It is a lot of different devices that take up a significantly larger volume and are heavier, but what I’ve found is that I don’t need all of them all of the time and more often than not I still just have the Mudita Kompakt in my pocket.
Thanks a bunch for this great overview. Looks like you keep up with open hardware. The multi-device route is something I’m considering as well, e.g. going to the gym with only an mp3 player, having a separate navigation device, etc.
The Tangara music player looks awesome, unfortunately they’re currently not available (according to this). Do you know of any other cool open hardware devices that are worth checking out?
Had a look at the Mudita Kompakt, never heard of it before. Love the idea of a minimalist eink phone. You say it’s slow, is that because of the eink display? Is it slow also when texting/using Signal or only when using more intensive apps? Do you know if the OS is open source? It looks like they have Mudita OS open sourced, but that it’s not used in the Mudita Kompakt.
Yeah I heard the Tangara team is taking a break. Hopefully they’ll start back up soon.
The other open hardware devices that I’m excited for are the Precursor once it gets more functionality and the Teufel MYND once it’s available in the US. There is, unfortunately, a lot of stuff out there that claims to be open hardware, but isn’t released under an open license or any license at all, and true open hardware end-user devices are few and far between.
The CPU on the Mudita Kompakt is a huge part of what makes it slow. There is definitely latency in Signal because of that. The OS is not open source and it’s pretty infuriating. There was an opportunity to create a device that the open source and security communitirs could rally around. Instead they decided to focus on pseudo-science and “wellness”, which is incredibly unfortunate.
Cool stuff, the precursor looks like it could end up being very useful.
I’ve an old OP7T, with 512gb. Only thing is security is no longer updated. Installing Linux is fun, sure, but security is lacking because the hardware vendors no longer updates the drivers. Meaning big security holes. At least this is my understanding, or the thing could act as cloud storage, or at least local storage.
Fairphone 5 with CalyxOS?
No updates, but you’ll have one of the best Android OSs, and a SD card slot.
Good point, CalyxOS I hadn’t considered yet. Would you say it’s comparable to GrapheneOS?
This is not the time to be considering Calyx - Calyx website
Pixel + GOS just works, even has proper sandboxed Play Services if the need arises. Never had a Fairphone myself, but I really do fancy a SD card slot and removable battery.
Words of caution on dumbphones though, especially if you live somewhere with 4G as the minimum:
Additional dumb phone warning:
SIM swapping attacks take all of 10 minutes to accomplish, and will give an attacker access to your phone number for them to use SMS 2FA codes to lock you out of your email and accounts. You will have zero access or recourse until you physically go into a carrier location and get your phone number fixed. Then you begin a lengthy process of reclaiming accounts to see how bad the damage is.
Thanks for the warning about the SIM swapping attacks. Do I understand correctly that this is an issue on the dumbphones because you can’t install a 2FA app on it but have to rely on SMS? I thought there were also some ‘dumbphones’ where you can install apps, just not browsers or social media apps. But maybe those are the ones @monovergent@lemmy.ml was warning about.
Correct. 2FA apps are the safest option.
2FA codes sent by SMS are barely better than just a password, but if your password leaks and your phone number is public info on a data broker site, it’s simply a matter of when the attacker makes it to you on a list. It’s especially bad for people who flaunt crypto or stock wins online and make themselves a target worth trying a SIM swap on.
Indeed. One of my pet peeves are services, especially from financial institutions, that force you to use SMS for 2FA with no option for more secure options.
Seriously. I’ve almost left my bank over their shit security. But they’re nearly all bad!
Yes, I wish GOS would support the fairphone, then it would be a no-brainer.
Thanks for the warning re: dumphones, I had no idea. Is there one that you think is suitable for privacy and 4G+VoLTE support?
I use the Maxwest Neo Flip LTE as my backup dumbphone
Sony Xperia with Sailfish
Are the compatible Xperias new?
Sony phones are supported by sailfish OS
Thank you, hadn’t considered Sailfish yet. Would you recommend it as a good OS?
I like it when I can get it to run on unsupported devices but I’ve never had an officially supported device.
If you pay for a license you get their android compatibility layer
Out of interest what music files and documents do you need with you at all times that will fill up a 256GB phone?
Not speaking for OP, but having a 1 TB microSD would let me:
All for under 100 USD
Fair enough, seems like a nice setup. I guess I’ve already accepted that I can’t do that on most phones and constant network access to cloud stuff is a reasonable alternative. There is no perfect device so we’ve all got to choose which compromises to make, eh?
Absolutely, everyone has different priorities. Personally I dislike the rent extraction model of cloud services, especially for use-cases like mine where local storage would suffice.
Local storage is so abundant, and cloud so expensive. We will hopefully see more innovation to bridge the gap for non sys admins. I.e. no more rent extraction!
.
How did you harden remote access filen? Unfortunately 220 gb would not cover having a real music collection, but potentially with a separate mp3 player it could work. The issue with lifetime deals is I don’t think it makes sense for them to offer a lifetime deal for something with recurring costs.
Privacy is my main priority, of course security is also important. However doesn’t it depend a bit on the threat model? I’m no celebrity or politician, isn’t “regular” security good enough unless you are a target?
The convenience of cloud is to always have access to your documents when you need them. I want that, but without relying on a cloud provider. Syncthing syncs from desktop to phone when I’m home and I always have access to everything when I’m away.
There’s about 100GB of various photos, files, documents, notes I sync. Music collections can easily grow to significant sizes if you don’t use streaming services.
Have you thought about getting a homeserver? Immich is great service to selfhost for photos, paperless ngx is a very nice selfhosted document management system and there are several options for notes. If you use a VPN to connect you phone to your home network you don’t even have to expose any service to the general web.
I do have a homeserver for hosting stuff around the house. Unfortunately am not knowledgeable enough to be comfortable opening it to outside. And sometimes I mess around and bork it, meaning I would lose access to my things until I fix it.
You could look at doing a VPN only connection to your home server - some people use tailscale / headscale to achieve this but I’ve been happily using PiVPN on my home PiHole to provide full home server connectivity from anywhere for years.
It is something I would really like to learn more about in the future, but for a variety of reasons I currently really want a device with ample local storage.
My router has a great wireguard integration, that makes it pretty easy to tunnel into my home network. I don’t open it to the outside in any other way. But yeah, it does require some maintenance and a backup strategy. I bought an unraid license back when the lifetime ones were still cheap, that makes it pretty easy to work on overall.
Do you have a route model you’d recommend? I’ve been meaning to upgrade my home networking to something that depends on OpenWRT devices.
I’m not that person, but I’m satisfied with my GL.Inet Flint 2. It runs OpenWRT, and if you keep their version of the firmware, setting up a wireguard VPN is made very simple.
@Witziger_Waschbaer @lavendertea Consider #yunohost as a starting point.
my current, somewhat curated music library is almost 500 gb (mostly flac tbf), that i copied over to my phone, a fp4 with a 1tb sd
Impressive, though do you actually need to have it all with you at all times? I’ve been there, and ultimately having everything on me all the time wasn’t worth the other tradeoffs.
You should look at Brax 3 on indiegogo right now. No telemetry tied to big tech under $300. Iode is privacy focused. Braxtech.net
Quite impressive of Mr Braxman. Third time he’s worked with an ODM to release a phone degoogled out of the box at this price point. Would love to see something analogous for GrapheneOS, though I suspect it’s been hard for them to find an OEM that meets their high bar for security.
Looks like a great option (with SD slot) and a lot cheaper than the alternatives. I can’t find the specs on their website though, am I looking in the wrong place?
I clicked a few buttons, scrolled for a while, and then found the specs on this page, including this chart:
<img alt="BraX3 specs" src="https://c1.iggcdn.com/indiegogo-media-prod-cld/image/upload/c_fit,g_center,q_auto,f_auto,w_695/woutcqntbminakkom74f.png">
The specs seem generally fine, I think. I notice a built-in minijack, which I like. Though, I also notice only 10W charging which isn’t a lot – about half the charging power of my Pixel 7 Pro – but the battery will probably last for more cycles then. What do you notice? Any numbers that seem too low/high/outdated to you?
Thanks for the link + graph. I’m definitely not an expert, but the SD card slot only accepts up to 512 GB according to the website, which is a shame. Additionally, @lemmyng@lemmy.dbzer0.com posted this warning by the Graphene OS team.
Brax is a grifter selling insecure devices and services
thanks for the warning!
It’s nice to see how many people wants alternatives to Google and Apple… I just wonder what would have happened, if so many people had actually supported either the Ubuntu phone, or the Firefox Phone?
No idea, this is the first I’m hearing about either of them. Sometimes a great idea can fail because it is too early. A lot of people around me who have never been interested in tech are messaging me asking about what browser is most private, what social media alternatives there are, etc. Maybe there is more momentum now?
That’s my experience… And I really hope it is true, everywhere else too…
We still have a chance with Linux mobile.
I got my FP6 with /e/os a few weeks ago and I love it so far! Only downside is the camera which will apparently get a software update eventually.
Edit: someone told me to enable the HDR setting which wasn’t enabled from the start. So there’s hope for the camera yet! I haven’t had time to try it out but it sounds promising.
Nice, good to know. Have you run into anything with the USB 2 connection?
fyi it’s usb-c 2, not old usb 2
Which is completely not confusing to anybody
yeah i was confused at first too, i just had a conversation about it here recently
I only use it to charge the phone, so nope. Works just as expected. I rarely even have to charge it, the battery is awesome compared to my old iPhone!
On the FP5 with /e/OS there's an option in the settings to enable the official Fairphone camera app, which improves picture quality by quite a lot. There's no such option for the FP6?
Thanks for the tip! I can’t find such a setting. Do you find it in the general settings app somewhere?
If I were you, I’d wait until Aug 20, when the new Pixels get announched; they might have one with 512GB and you should be able to install GrapheneOS a bit after launch.
Is GrapheneOS even a good recommendation at this point? I won’t be surprised if changes Google makes to Android will effectively kill it, as soon as this year.
Welp, that’s a good question, but the Graphene folks seem confident that they can support it for now.
Good idea, I’ll definitely wait and see what they come out with. A 512 GB Pixel + separate MP3 player might be a good option. Thanks.
The simple fact is a Pixel + GOS will be the most secure option by far and is going to be the most frequently updated.
I have installed Lineage on all my families phones.
all with android 15
Oneplus 5T; still going string after 8 years use
motorola edge 20 128GB 8GB RAM; I had to buy it for £20, fluff in the charging port. fabulous phone.
motorola edge 20 pro 256GB 12GB RAM: My daily driver.
Samsing SM-T500 Tab: As an Ebook reader.
Android 11. no longer supported Samsung S4 with E/os: my alarm clock and stop watch for the kitchen.
There is a New samsung Heimdall firmware flasher called Heimdall-Grimler for installing custom roms on samsung phones. A much improved Heimdall.
I only use Heimdall-Grimler especially on linux where there is no Odin only Jodin3-bin which is a pain to use.
aur.archlinux.org/packages/heimdall-grimler
git.sr.ht/~grimler/Heimdall
thanks for the tip about Heimdall, and for reporting re: Lineage. It seems like Lineage is a really good option for you
my pleasure
volla.online/en/index.php
This might interest you. Comes with own google free android OS or Ubuntu Touch.
I have no experience with it though, just stumbled upon it when looking for alternatives.
thanks, it seems like there is definitely a few devices being developed for use with alternative operating systems
Regarding Fairphone, I found modularity to make their phones cheaper than the competition in the long run, even though the initial cost is slightly higher.
I have not experienced any performance issues on my FP5 with /e/OS, so unless you plan to do something crazy with it I don't think it being snappier should be the reason to opt for a FP6 instead.
That’s very useful info, thanks for sharing. How are you liking /e/OS?
I'm liking it a whole lot. I think for my purpose it strikes a pretty ideal compromise between supporting parts of the Android ecosystem (I could easily install banking and public transportation apps) and avoiding Google and a lot of the things that were increasingly present in Android and that increasingly annoyed me.
It also integrates really well with Nextcloud out of the box, which I appreciate. Basically when setting up the phone instead of being asked to provide a Google account you're asked if you want to either sign in to Nextcloud or to sign up to their instance of it. You can of course choose to do neither and to keep your stuff away from the cloud.
I have had trouble using a couple of apps - most annoyingly I can't manage to sign in to AirWallet, which I need in order to do laundry - but for the most part it's been a really smooth experience.
The default camera app can be a bit hit or miss, but on FP5 there's an option to use the stock Fairphone camera app, which works just as well as in normal Android. If I didn't have that option this would probably be my only real complaint.
Nice, that sounds pretty good. Would love to get away from Google as well and sounds like /e/OS might be a good option esp with the FP.