A community for those that would like to get away from Google.
Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!
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Ive been using google's services since 2017-2018, now its time to finally depart from that. I just got it in the mail yesterday and I'm already in love with it. So much lighter and easier to carry than my samsung galaxy. Gonna transfer everything over in a sim card, switch to Tmobile and ill be good to go. π
Lots of caveats there. To preface, most active rom development used to take place on forums, mainly XDA. Nowadays it's on telegram, which is gated unfortunately, so lot's of knowledge get lost.
First, you NEED to be able to unlock your bootloader to be able to install custom ROMs. Here is a source
Back to hardware, recent chinese bought Xiaomi are nearly impossible to unlock bootloader without paying a 3rd party. EU/Global ones can be unlocked, but it's a hassle (waiting 30 days + need to have windows). That makes finding device tree for them hard let alone, finding ROMs.
Oneplus unfortunately is getting worse. Op13 onwards has hardware ARB (which Will brick your device). OP15 onwards has a bit complex way to unlock bootloader.
If you buy it from China, it must be ColorOS version otherwise, you won't be able to unlock the bootloader. Even with COS, you need to install an app to get an unlock token from their server to allow you to unlock the bootloader (this for now, takes 24 hrs max, but this might change and could be like Xiaomi). The Global/EU ones, are fine for now.
Remember you need to have the device tree (basically all the recipes for the hardware of the device to get it to work with other ROMs). Google used to publish this for Pixels, that's why it used to be easy to build ROMs for Pixel. This has changed recently.
So it's getting gloomy for Android devices. I just wish Fairphone would actually follow their "eco" mission, and become the new Pixels. On the other hand Jolla seems to be following up with a no compromise "Linux". Time will tell.
That user said "LineageOS", not "black sky project andromeda void to infinitum nanogapps safetynet bypass v pizde optimized custom kernel gambling android read only memory: gold bar edition".
True.
Putting a custom OS on a phone is like trying to install Linux in 2004. Out of curiosity I had been looking at some phones here in New Zealand, available on Trade Me (our Ebay, basically) and some of those phones had a note that there was no guarantee that the boot loader could be unlocked :/
Thank you for saying this. Yes, its getting way harder and its not easy finding an older phone to install these ROMs. Even with what's going on with how Google is reacting with Graphene OS. They are slowly locking y'all out of the Pixels, and AOSP dropped support of the Pixels with Android 16.
(This is one example) The latest update to the Pixel 10 camera is locking out Graphene OS users cause it needs Play Services in order to work
i've installed https://f-droid.org/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera on my partners grapheneOS/Pixel. (Which is not only more private but also more customisable)
Does the update lock camera access or just the default app for the camera?
https://www.androidauthority.com/grapheneos-pixel-camera-app-3609484/
it has to do with the camera app. If you want to use it, you wouls have to install an older version. But honestly just use a different app if thats the case.
Gcam builds are still a thing. But you need to lurk on forums/telegram to find the right one. It's sad this is a thing nowadays for pixel.
Wny not just get an iphone?
Unless your into jailbreaking, don't get an iPhone. Also, as an ex-iphone user, its SUPER hard to get out of their ecosystem.
While iphone is more privacy friendluly than OEM android, it's much more restricted. You can do amazing things with AOSP Android (compile arm busybox, have a linux toolchain on it, host adblocking), and most importantly totally breakaway from big tech, much more than iphones.
... Because its an Iphone? What kind of question is that?