To my complete surprise, I was gifted a very expensive phone by a friend of the family for no real reason. This is a flagship model that is less than a year old.

Aside from feeling uneasy about this, there's no way to unlock the bootloader and therefore no custom firmwares for it yet.

I was willing to accept it, especially since I do like new technology like this, but I also would like to have privacy, which I don't have with stock Android.

Just what should I do...? As uncomfortable as it is, I probably have to have a serious talk with the person who gave it to me.

#personal #technology #privacy

@okabe_rintarou Yeah. That's kind of an awkward situation. I would just keep it locked in somewhere soundproof and wait until you can install CFW on it.

@xianc78 Just think about it: It did cost around $1200 when it came out.

Just putting such a device away in the hopes of it possibly being unlocked someday makes me uneasy.

Selling it would also be a terrible look.

I have to look a bit later whether or not the previous models were ever unlocked, but I doubt it.

@okabe_rintarou Is it an obscure brand? I'm pretty sure the most common brands are cracked within a year, depending on the security.

I never de-googled any of my phones because I'm required to use two Google Play dependent apps for my job so I don't know how many phones are able to be de-googled but I think the most common ones are cracked.

You could try asking online to see if there is any progress on trying to get it de-googled and see how long you have to wait.

@xianc78 You should get a second phone just for work and de-google your personal phone. Or just don't use your phone for anything overly personal.

@okabe_rintarou I try to avoid using my phone as much as possible. I already have a second phone, but I use it for 2FA to login to my university account. It's pretty old and low on memory (most of the space is taken up by the OS itself) so I can't install those two apps. When I do get a new phone, I'll keep my current one just for the two apps.

I'm still leaching off my parents and my Dad has the first and final say in what kind of phones we have. He only trusts Motorola and Samsung. Though given that he's a die-hard Trump supporter, I wonder if he would fall for the Freedom Phone scam. But I don't expect myself being able to get something like a PinePhone anytime soon.

@xianc78 >Though given that he’s a die-hard Trump supporter, I wonder if he would fall for the Freedom Phone scam.

Oh, please educate him about it, just in case.

>Samsung

Some older Samsung phones can be rooted and therefore CFW’s installed on them. I usually just look if a model supports LineageOS: https://download.lineageos.org/

@okabe_rintarou My current phone is a Motorola phone. That's his favorite brand.

@xianc78 I know little about Motorola, except that Google purchased them in 2012 and also let them go just 2 years later.

I personally really liked Sony’s older Xperia line, that still had the 16:9 aspect ratio. The Google Pixel line is the one I would recommend to most people, since they’re, ironically, extremely easy to root.

#hardware

@okabe_rintarou I think he likes them because they prioritize reliability over features. Plus, they seem to last pretty long without issues compared to other brands. I did try to install Lineage OS before my boss said that we needed to install a messaging app on our phones.

@xianc78 >I think he likes them because they prioritize reliability over features.

I see. I’ll definitely keep it in mind for the next time I have to recommend a smartphone to someone.

>I did try to install Lineage OS before my boss said that we needed to install a messaging app on our phones.

Most apps work just fine on LineageOS. If necessary, there’s also microG, which emulates Google Services to some degree (for working notifications, for example): https://microg.org/

#privacy