this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
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Privacy
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I jumped through hoops with the Samsung. ADB-ed the hexk out of it and broke functionality in so many ways.
If I can save you the effort - DON'T even bother trying. There is just too much interconnectedness to undo without breakage.
I moved to a hunch of Pixels running Graphene and have lived happily ever after.
With the added Israeli spyware coming to Samsung, I cannot think of any reason to put any effort into it.
Additional info: Skip the Pixel 6 and 7. Its better to spend a little more in the Pixel 8. I got mine used and its brilliant. I also liked how the Pixels 4 and 5 were as well. Very good devices.
Very wierd of you to assume there will be spyware on samsung but not google phones
They aren’t running Google software, they’re using GrapheneOS. And the spyware they’re referring to on Samsung phones is very pubic knowledge, just as the data collection and surveillance in stock Pixel software is. But that’s not relevant
Ever heard of hardware backdoors and spyware?
Perhaps you have some useful suggestions to share. Always happy to listen and learn.
I honestly dont know at this point. but my point is, people buying phones of THE evil company that takes our freedom and privacy away, to get freedom, and think that a company as evil as google will just let you have actual privacy, is kind of absurd. But, it seems like you people have done more research on this. You say there is and havent been evidence of spyware on google pixels, and I will accept that. But deep down Im pessimistic.
Truth is, most of us feel the same way you do. You are not alone. What is being shared by the community is the "best options of what we have" at the moment.
This tyranny is by design. But this also means we can design ourselves out of it. Its just slow process.
We are starting to see new models of communication be develop, and in some cases we are seeing convergence of these efforts into very exciting solutions.
We'll get there. Its a lot of work and we have to keep doing whatever we can in our capacity to help that process along.
Just know we all feel the same way you do, and this is the best we got for the time being. We have to stick together and keep talking all this.
Power to us!!
If you install Graphene OS on the Pixel you will start with 0 bloat wear.
Seems people are pretty confident about that. I guess I am too pessimistic in tech to accept governments and big tech will allow you to have a spyware free phone by any means, but I havent done actual research (Im not a security researcher anyway) into it. So I accept the wisdom of people here.
I'm just learning Graphene...but my God all of the handles that I'm looking for are there. I can turn off network access for any app I don't want tattling. I'd say it's definitely worth 100 for a pixel 6 to play with and learn.
Samsung phones have hardware kill switches, so it is impossible to turn the spyware off without fully breaking functionality. Older pixels are fully rootable, so you can fully remove any spyware from the root level, not just disable at the os gui level like samsung