I am considering iPhone as well, since it has “reputation” of being secure.
Which doesn't mean private.
Pixel+Graphene is a common suggestion.
For real privacy you can't beat these.
this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
122 points (94.2% liked)
Privacy
38140 readers
739 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Nokia 3310
I owned 4 Samsungs: S8, S10e, S22 and S24 Ultra. Their products got worse. An example is the recent One Ui 7 update, it is just terrible: My notification area that works perfectly fine before, is now changed; my battery life got worse..etc.
Even if I ignore the update, Samsung products are just not great anymore. Remember when a Galaxy can take really great photos? Those days are gone. My S24 Ultra takes the worst pictures in comparison to a Xiaomi or Huawei. Heck, even the controversial Asus Zenfone 10 takes better picture. Sure the Galaxy has better Megapixels, but the AI bullshit makes it so the colors are all wrong.
With that said, you want to go for Pixel + GrapheneOS. Anything that is close to stock Android should be ok. Oh, and stay away from anything with a lot of AI.
If you swipe down on the notifs twice, you can edit them to be similar to the previous style.
On topic of your post, fuuuuck everything about their forcing AI, but my biggest gripe is how they moved the audio display (from, like, Spotify or audiobook readers/podcast apps) to the bottom of the lock screen as a tiny bar on the bottom instead of showing me all the info as it did before. It's super annoying when I swipe to unlock and pause what I'm listening to.
yeh the other day I accidentally swiped down and touched the Media section. It automatically played my music, eventhough the music app was off lol. Luckily it didnt play any "videos"...
Lol, could've been bad. I hate the new UI.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Also, I don't think I can trust android,
Yes. Google's framework service seems to be spyware.
so I would have to install Graphene OS or the like.
GrapheneOS does seem to be the best way to address the privacy concerns with Android. There's also LineageOS and others.
In the case, app support would be lacking, though.
Uh...Android is the single most popular operating system in the history of operating systems. The app support is quite good.
If you mean because many apps require Google Farmwork Services, and GrapheneOS replaces it - I find that to be a largely solved problem. The GrapheneOS neutered rebuild of Google Framework Services now fools most apps into working.
It's been years since I encountered an app that actually couldn't run on GrapheneOS, unless the app was aggressively trying to spy on me.
The remaining issue tends to be bank and credit union apps, which aggressively spy on their users "for security". I work around this by using my credit union's mobile website, instead. It has all of the same features without the spying, anyway.
Just for clarity, Graphene doesn't provide a "neutered" version of play services - the version of play services which runs is the same code as provided by Google, with the only difference being that it runs in a sandbox which only grants it the same level of permission as normal apps (which you can choose to grant or not) rather than running as effectively root on your device like it does on most android phones.
Out of the options you mentioned, Pixel with a custom rom (GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, etc.) is probably the best bet. Seconded by any Samsung that could run a custom rom, though I agree with others here that the hardware is better on the Pixels. Plus they have extra security hardware features that will be better. Of course, if things are weird with your telecom, that might effect things (trust me, been there with an Ubuntu Touch phone before.)
Another option you could look at depending on where you are is Murena's phones. They have a bunch of options pre-flashed with their de-Googled rom /e/ os. Not my favorite rom, but still not bad! And of course those can be flashed with another rom if you want as well!
You should consider buying a flip phone and only put in SIM card when you need it, assuming you can acquire SIM card without your name on it where you live
Flipphones are just less feature, same spying.
These flip phones dont have anything other than a SIM card
No end to end encryption, it's plaintext for the service provider
Yes and that shouldnt matter because you are not supposed to use these phones for anything other than calling when you need someone
Ah, well I never need voice chat so..
For the vast majority of flip phones currently available on the market, if they’re not running some version of KiaOS, they’re running stock Android - with all the Google spying that entails - under the hood.
shift
My old phone is on its last leg, but I'm holding out for a Huawei or VIVO with HarmonyNextOS. I so want to end everything Google.
Pinephone. It is what I use.
view more: next ›