I hate that. One of the reasons I dislike Samsung phones. Last phone from them was a Note 8 and unless they go back to a pure Android experience, I won’t get another. We know that isn’t happening any time soon.
Honestly I’m super over all our current choices. Im on an iPhone and while I like their privacy stuff slightly better than android, there are lots of things I don’t like.
I also hate how much metadata the big G snorts up. Even just the location data they retain is out of this world.
There just aren’t any options if you want something that doesn’t keep you boxed into a closed ecosystem or track every love you make.
You can get a Google pixel and sideload an operating system such as Grapheneos, and you won’t have to deal with any of Google’s bs spying. Highly recommend looking into it.
I recently made the switch and it’s great. Definitely takes a bit of understanding and research to know what you’re getting into, though.
Yeah. That’s what I’ve been looking into. I used to root and do roms and stuff. Back in the day I was pretty involved in the XDA community.
At that point why not just using Samsung phone and sideload the OS? Seems weird to do that on Pixel which has inferior hardware and good software (like its camera apps), and then remove the software
Simple reason being that there’s no notoriously good OS for Samsung phones.
Graphene is highly focused on not being annoying while keeping privacy intact. You can, for example, have Google Play Services, within a sandbox. Everything can be denied network access, or any access really, on a per app basis.
It also relies on Google’s security chip to keep the chain of trust intact. The boot sequence and your private keys are kept intact that way. Not everyone documents and opens their hardware as well as Google. Samsung is notoriously terrible and full of it when it comes to allowing you to do your own thing.
I recently just bought a pixel 6 and have been interested in Graphene OS, but would I lose features like live translate and the hold for me feature?
live translate
What is that? Google translate listening and translating live? Google lens translating images? Both work.
hold for me feature
No clue about what that is.
In general most things work just the same, and things that do not tend to be listed in the Graphene docs.
Apple’s biggest success is convincing people they care about your privacy.
What about the fairphones? I was reading up on them and might get one. I like that they come with an android fork and open-source apps so you don’t have to deal with Google. Plus being fully repairable and sustainably-made. Does anyone have any experience with them?
Straight up gambling apps too
One of the many reasons I will only ever buy Pixel phones. No bloatware.
Thinking about making the jump to grapheneos, the only thing holding me back is my addiction to Android Auto
GrapheneOS is pretty damn great. But yes… Android Auto is something I do miss :(
I agree. This is my work phone so I had no choice. My personal phone is the Pixel 5a.
Samsung has been a malicious bad actor for a while now. It’s not just phones; they also pulled shit like retroactively adding ads to people’s smart TVs etc.
(Also, even their “dumb” products, like appliances, are designed to fail just outside warranty. If you don’t believe me, take a look at my washer’s spider arm, which failed catastrophically due to corrosion even though nothing else in the machine had so much of a speck of corrosion on it. Samsung is clearly capable of specifying corrosion-resistant materials and chose not to on purpose in order to create a failure point.)
Everyone should completely boycott Samsung.
Your corrosion issue is due to dissimilar metals which, when in contact with one another, begin corroding immediately. They chose those materials knowing full well what would happen.
Their appliances are absolute garbage and I’ve read that many repair places refuse to work on them because they’re built so poorly.
and you might think their TVs would be ok, but search for “Samsung TV vertical shadow” or some variant and find endless results for failed LED strips or power supplies. trash.
This is why I don’t buy my android devices through carriers. Unlocked/Pixel gang only. Or iPhone since Apple also managed to figure this one out.
I’m looking for a new phone and was eyeing off the pixel, is there no bloatware at all on it??
As long as you buy it unlocked, yes, I’m not sure about buying it from a carrier
Yeah sweet I always get unlocked. I guess pixel it is
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As long as you buy unlocked straight from Google it’s pure android with no bloat. Easy as can be to unlock the bootloader and root. I don’t see myself going back after have a pixel for my last four phones. I wish the custom rom scene was as popular as it used to be. But even still with pure android and AdAway and maybe a couple other magisk plugins I’m very happy.
I have had several pixels now and they are amazing, no bloat at all if you buy unlocked.
In the case of pixel or apple they don’t care because they get 30% of all app purchases anyways
Is this a regional thing? None of my Samsung phones (Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S23) ever installed apps like these automatically. They did come with Microsoft apps bundled in, and I believe Facebook too, but after deactivating them they never came back. Never games though.
yes specifically a us or canadian carrier thing
Ah… So not a Samsung thing, but a carrier thing. I should have guessed, carriers are disgusting. Nowadays it’s rare where I live, but not so long ago they even got in the middle of Android updates and replaced the bootlogo with their own branding, I even know of some devices stuck on old Android versions because while the official release is available the carrier never bothered shipping the update.
I also dislike how SIM cards run independent from the main CPU and can spawn their little Java applets whenever they want, my carrier used to randomly display ads as full prompts that got in front of any other app with highest priority using the “SIM toolkit” feature of Android, which you can’t disable. Only stopped after I gave them a call claiming if I see another one of those I’d report them to the consumer rights watchdog from my region.
Holy shit. The only time I’d be ok with my carrier doing that would be if I didn’t have to pay them a single fucking dime. You don’t get to double dip, carriers. You’re already over charging for data use.
I’d argue that it is a Samsung thing. They let carriers do this. Just like they host ads in the notification shade and first party apps in some markets.
To Samsung. One of the largest companies in the world. Samsung chooses to allow this because they get money for it from the carriers.
Let’s also not forget Samsung are the ones who give you the privilege of getting built-in ads on your expensive new TV. Ads and bloatware absolutely are part of Samsung’s business model.
I’m pretty sure it’s a Samsung thing. I’m located in Sweden and they’ve done this on my unlocked (not locked to a specific operator) Samsung phones ( S5, S8, S20 and S20FE 5G).
I ordered mine directly from the manufacturer and it doesn’t install stuff. However, I also declined to agree to any of the Samsung ecosystem helper apps like the Store or Bixby.
I also have a S20 FE and can attest to the bloatware they install with each software update.
Unlocked phones still have carrier bloat if you got them from a carrier
Australian here. Never happened… yet
Ooh, it had to be them
It is probably what they are allowed to do according to the law.
Same thing here with s21 ultra on tmobile. Just went looking and have a bunch of samsung/tmobile/microsoft stuff built in but that’s about it. Have been asked I think once or twice with certain app store updates if I wanted to install game apps but declined them and haven’t seen any since.
edit- am US based
It’s illegal where I’m from and I imagine many other places. I assume OP is from the US where the voters tolerate this sort of stuff more.
I wouldn’t be able to handle this. Been running GrapheneOS since last year, and I don’t think I could go back to anything else.
Same lol, maybe a Linux phone one day so I don’t have to buy another Google phone but unless it runs all the same apps it’s unlikely
The only app I need to work on a linux phone is google maps. Although I haven’t checked how good openstreet map is now. Everything else has a linux alternative
What phone, if I may ask?
Do you know if it works with an S22?
It’s only for Pixel phones
Bummer. I guess I should start looking for a new phone.
It’s carrier based. I’ve had Samsung phones almost exclusively and as long as I buy unlocked I never get unwanted apps.
There is still a lot of stuff preinstalled which could be considered unwanted by a lot of people (TikTok, Netflix, Spofify, multiple MS apps, Disney+, Facebook, Meta Services, …)
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Nah. My $2000 CAD unlocked directly from Samsung device had ads and bullshit pre-installed apps before I even inserted my SIM into it.
I returned that phone so fast. Never seen anything like that on my Pixel.
Might be the wireless carrier bundling it in with the firmware on an update to the android OS?
It isn’t a universal bundling across all devices.
Samsung will load shit on devices made by them if they feel regulators won’t care. This is why I will no longer by Samsung. I wish LG still sold phones, but the Pixel isn’t horrible.
I swore off Samsung for this reason after I had the S3. I thought the bloatware situation had gotten better over the years…
Had a few devices with stock Android that I really liked (such as the Nexus 5 and Moto X) over the years, but even then it’s difficult to escape some of the built-in bullshit.
Kind of gave up on that and switched to iPhone a few years back… You still get the mandatory vendor apps, but at least now I also get the ecosystem benefits.
Samsung makes nice phones that I don’t buy for this reason. Apple doesn’t allow this. Pixel is another option if you don’t wanna go through the hassle of changing ecosystems.
That’s why I quit Samsung, too much bloat.
I love my Pixels. Just solid, clean Androids.
I think I’m going to switch back. The rooting process for Samsung phones seems super annoying.
Proprietary software moment…
This should be illegal!
T Mobile keeps trying to have me install their crappy suggested apps every time they do a software update. And I cant make the pop up go away till I go through their shit and uncheck everything.
Was wondering if I’d see this comment. Had the same thing with my phone. Fuck no I don’t want T-Mobile to automatically install bullshit recommend apps! The audacity.