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Help with a simple and private phone (lemm.ee)

submitted 10 months ago by loopy@lemm.ee to c/foss@beehaw.org

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Hi everyone, I’m looking to possibly simply my smartphone setup. I would really love to keep it as a utility: phone, text, camera, GPS, web browser, notes, email, music player. Im think of switching to local NextCloud backup system as well. I currently have an iPhone but used to flash ROMs on Android phones, so I would be willing to do that again for more privacy options and less unnecessary changes to the OS.

I have looked a little into it, and I’m wondering about getting a couple year old Pixel and putting GrapheneOS on it. I also searched a little and came across the Purism Librem 5 that has physical kill switches and sounds neat; a little pricy but I’d be willing to pay if it lasts a while and has good privacy options.

What are your thoughts? Are there other hardware suggestions or setups that you like? The idea of FOSS is appealing because it seems like the money aspect seems to skew the priority of smartphones.

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[–] Adanisi@lemmy.zip 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Obviously these phones aren't as good as megacorp-backed Androids yet, they're much newer and the software is being developed by the community for fucks sake. And the manufacturers haven't had so many design revisions to recognise and fix all the issues.

They're development/early adopter devices. And the killswitches aren't pointless, because while you can enable airplane mode, that's a software mechanism which can be maliciously changed, either by the manufacturer or an attacker. A kill switch will 100% cut you off.

[–] IcyPenguin@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago

Airplane mode exists because it is mandated by law that every handheld cellular device needs a reliable way of disabling the cellular modem to prevent interference with airplanes. When airplane mode is turned on, the cellular modem actually needs to be turned off. Otherwise, the device is not compliant with regulations and can't be sold. Obviously, this is not a 100% guarantee, but the chances that the cellular modem randomly turns on while in airplane mode are very slim. And the Wi-Fi switch isn't really useful, because GrapheneOS and even Stock Android use Wi-Fi MAC address randomization. On GrapheneOS you can also fully disable Wi-Fi scanning.