this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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DeGoogle Yourself

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So, I just learned about this the very, very hard way. After buying a second hand S10 and finding american ones can't be unlocked, traveling 4 hours to buy another one after much research, much annoyances to unlock it (samsung requires you to be online, which I didn't know) and testing multiple ROMs, I finally read this page more properly https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/beyond1lte/ which says "known quirks: IMS". I thought it was just something like dolby sound.

What it means is that it doesn't suport VoLTE and most currently used phone systems. Samsung made their proprietary mess, unlike most other developers, which means it will probably never have an open source version.

And that applies to ALL modern samsung phones. I had samsung phone before with a custom OS, but didn't realize because VoLTE wasn't mandatory back then. Now it is here in Australia, and many countries. So if you ever plan to buy a samsung phone to degoogle it, know that it won't make phone calls. SMS and mobile data also doesn't work.

I don't know how I missed this. It should be talked more often given how popular samsung is. There should always be a warning "YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO MAKE PHONE CALLS IN THE FUTURE IF YOU CONTINUE".

S10 was the last decent phone ever made (for me). Not too big, SD card, headphone jack (one of the most important things for me), good camera, etc, etc... That's why I was so persistent to find one to degoogle.

So I'm stuck with my amazingly shitty pixel 5 (and other ones are even worse for me). And considering the possibility of a life without smartphones at all, since this is a losing battle. Mainstream doesn't care and evil companies have every incentive to kill freedom. It has been getting really bad and it will just get worse. But anyway... this post is not about this.

Be warned, if you care about freedom don't ever buy samsung again. Not because they are evil (they are), but because you won't be able to make phone calls on your "phone".

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[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 5 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Samsung has always been hostile af

An One UI 8.5 locks down the bootloader

I've always loved Notes and Ultra flagships, but I don't want to rep such a lousy OEM

And the new UI sucks hard. I hate it. But at least it's a work phone paid for by work and but my problem after hours...

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

They were always hostile, but it was possible. And once you finish the long and stressful fight with samsung for the control of your phone, you are left with a great phone in your hands. Depending who you ask, it was worthy.

But now they finally made it impossible. They always wanted to do this, and finally succeeded. They "won" the battle.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I had a Note 3, Note 4, S9+, S21u, S24u, My wife/kids have Note 3, s9+, s23u, A series and a tab 4.

I've had Samsung 360 cameras, tv's, galaxy watches

It stops here.

The biggest thing i'm going to miss is a decent camera. I don't feel like carying around a 5x camera everywhere I go and most of the phones i'm looking at are kinda crap for cameras

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

Yup. I bought a camera after google play killing my s21 ultra.

Paid 800 dollars for the camera. It's inferior to the old s21 in almost every way, and I could get one for 300 dollars. Inferior as in a camera, not even considering how the s21 is great as a gaming phone, computer, etc. Plus the camera is fragile and bigger, so I never carry it, so it's never there when I need to capture something nice.

It's weird how hardware wise we reached such an amazing point, but the software has enshitified to levels I would never even imagine.

We have to choose between being a slave of samsung/google or let go of amazing hardware. But they can only afford to make such amazing stuff precisely because of their evil practices. So it will get worse. Hardware will become more amazing, the more evil these companies get.

[–] dudesss@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Jiral@lemmy.org 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

A better link for Jolla is probably their store: https://commerce.jolla.com/

I have pre-ordered the Jolla Phone and am hoping everything is working out (won't see it for another 4 months at the very least I suppose). I am very excited getting to know a completely new mobile OS to me and the actual successor of Nokia's Meego. Like with any alternative system, and to some extend also with degoogled Androids it is advisable to inform oneself first before jumping ship.

[–] ericwdhs@discuss.online 9 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, technology enshittification as a whole has definitely picked up the last few years, and I find myself compromising more and more as the field of reasonable options gets narrower.

Like you, I used to only go for phones with SD card and headphone jack support. Now, I'm on a (new but not bought from Google) Pixel 9 Fold with GrapheneOS using a DAC adapter to still have wired audio and a more deliberate storage management system to compensate for not having SD cards. (Unlike you, I need a big screen for spreadsheets and such.)

I purposely bought the newest phone I could within my budget, because I'm planning for Android to be completely unviable the next time I need to upgrade, and I want to give Linux phones as much time to mature as possible before I inevitably migrate.

It seems offline tech is going to be the last bastion of safety sooner rather than later, so I'm in various stages of migrating my digital life offline. Linux over Windows. Keepass, LibreOffice, Obsidian, etc. + Syncthing over cloud options. Keeping off-site backups with friends and family instead of in the cloud. Keeping local DRM-free media. It's time-consuming but rewarding. I should have done it all way sooner.

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I have been on the offline open source route for many years. I don't even see it as time consuming. It's so much better than relying on cloud services that it pays off. I lost count of the situations where needing cloud would have been bad. But maybe I trained myself that way, because I never liked the "cloud" idea, my data out of my control.

But the hardware to run that and the options to do that will become more and more impossible. At least on mobiles.

There will come a day when Syncthing won't work anymore on android, because of "security" (the terrorists could send files to your phone and kill children!).

[–] ericwdhs@discuss.online 1 points 2 minutes ago

Funnily enough, I've thought of the cloud as "someone else's computer" from the beginning and shun using it more than everyone else I know, but I was just getting into the space when Gmail and Chrome were the hot new things, each gradual step into the ecosystem didn't feel like a big concession, and I was too young to know to question the convenience.

In case it wasn't clear, reversing those two decades of inertia and tech debt is what I was referring to as the time-consuming bit. So far, what I've finished switching over is actually quite nice to use.

And yes, I dread the day even the fallback options start getting killed off. It's always one bad law away.

[–] Geodes_n_Gems@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 hours ago

Dumbphones are just better IMO

[–] makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml 31 points 11 hours ago

It really is time for serious linux phones

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 2 points 6 hours ago

I hope mine lasts me at least another 7 years before I have to buy a new phone, but yeah, this will be my last Samsung phone. Hopefully, by the time I have to switch to something new, there will have been enough changes made that I can get a non-american phone and still be able to use important apps without having to use Google play. Cautiously optimistic.

[–] JoeBidet@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I hope we'll have next-gen linuxphones before 2G gets fully phased out in the EU....

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 2 points 2 hours ago

You are lucky. Here not even 3G or 4G works anymore. If it doesn't have VoLTE it doesn't work. It started this year.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

It was so miserable I just gave up and bought a Fairphone. Much happier.

[–] THB@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

How's the phone performing so far and what was your previous phone? I've got my eye on Fairphone whenever it's finally time to upgrade (hopefully not for another few years)

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 7 points 11 hours ago

I am seriously hoping to be able to ditch Android entirely for something like post-market OS, Linux, in the future. And we'll be taking a look at what phones are supported when buying my next one.

[–] glitching@lemmy.ml 44 points 16 hours ago (2 children)
[–] asdasd201@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 hours ago

None of the safe phones are selled in my country 🥲

[–] Ecarus@pawb.social 2 points 9 hours ago

This right here is how i knew about my nothing phone to be relockable, good stuff

[–] hyacin@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 hours ago

Unlocking instantly and permanently breaks Knox too which destroys any chance of resale without being shady or flat out lying about it. I learned that the hard way, thankfully, with a cheapo A50 I was using as a secondary device back in heavy Pokemon Go days. That was my first Samsung since my Nexus, and my last, ever.

[–] observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Sorry man, I feel for you.

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 2 points 5 hours ago

And honour to them for sharing the knowledge here others won't fall for this shit.

[–] wltr@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Thanks for letting us know. I was thinking of getting a used Galaxy S9 or S10 for a degoogled Lineage OS phone. Now, it looks like the Pixels are the only modern phones that are compatible with this. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs, I’d say.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

fairphones also support it, and a few other relatively popular ROMs

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 12 hours ago

Motorola is coming in soon, fortunately

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

In addition to this, anything on One UI 8 and above does not allow the bootloader to be unlocked, regardless of region. Fortunately, I had already rooted my S23 and have stayed on One UI 7 ever since.

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

That's good to know. Although that's a more difficult, if not impossible, mistake to make. If you search on installing something different on those phones, as most people will do, they will find that it's impossible before they even start the journey. Buying a phone to degoogle without researching if it's even possible is a bad mistake.

But the older ones it's worse, because not only every research will show it's possible, most reviews I found of the S10 with Lineage were actually very positive, saying everything worked great. Because VoLTE being mandatory is something new, and many countries will still work but not for long.

So it's really bad because if you don't pay attention to the IMS thing you will have no reason to think it won't work. It is possible, it works great, it just doesn't make calls. Silly detail that isn't mentioned well enough.

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 2 points 10 hours ago

Dunno how it is over Australia, but in my country, finding information is hard if the problem it solves isn't on the nose of the population already. So if Australia's anything like that, your failed quest may not even be your fault to begin with.

Still, failure is just another form of confirmation, so even if you yourself went through it, sharing it as a cautionary tale is extremely helpful. 🙏

[–] john_t@piefed.ee 9 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (3 children)

New hosts/adblock/pihole/adguard filter/rule:

#GOOGLE===============================  
0.0.0.0 google.com  
0.0.0.0 googleusercontent.com  
0.0.0.0 googleapis.com  
0.0.0.0 gstatic.com  
0.0.0.0 android.com  
0.0.0.0 google-analytics.com  
0.0.0.0 googlehosted.com  
0.0.0.0 googletagmanager.com  
0.0.0.0 googleadservices.com  
0.0.0.0 pki.goog  

Phone now degoogled.

[–] guismo@aussie.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

That won't get rid of the google/samsung crap constantly running on your phone and trying to phone home.

I tried on the american s10. Most unnecessary google and samsung stuff is disabled or blocked. The phone hangs on almost everything. Every time you try to open something, do something, it hangs. It becomes unusable. Spyware is an integral part of modern mainstream systems.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

You don't sign in to your phone, like straight lineage with no microg?

[–] ozymandias117@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Not OP, but for me, yeah

Almost all apps come from F-Droid, with two apps from Aurora that I needed for work

Why would I sign into a proprietary network for a computing device?

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

I was just checking, I think a lot of ppl forget how tightly integrated the google+android thing is.

[–] inari@piefed.zip 4 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Do you use this yourself? I wonder how much stuff breaks if you use it.

Also YouTube URLs are conspicuously missing...

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 3 points 12 hours ago

As someone that has a similar list but not exactly that... A lot. A lot of stuff breaks but! You don't see ads in shitty mobile games anymore.

Another thing you find is how many links go through a google analytics or seems to be sponsored

[–] john_t@piefed.ee 1 points 9 hours ago

Indeed it breaks everything. I've only it tried it for a couple of days. It's just an extreme example of degoogling. But if you wish to really degoogle, this would be a small part of the effort. The list is mostly what I picked up of google apps calling home in the background in my phone. I didn't include youtube because I don't have the youtube app installed on my phone, so it's not calling home.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 3 points 12 hours ago

I had a A53 5G which only outdated Android ROMs like TrebleDroid support.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 12 points 18 hours ago (13 children)

Who makes phe calls anyways nowadays?

But yes: The best phones for degoogling are the Google phones.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Technically, the brands that offer already degoogled android (fairphone) or Linux directly (jolla) are better.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 6 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Ethically, yes.

Technologically, no. By magnitudes.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 10 hours ago

For security and privacy (by extension), Graphene is king.

For freedom, Graphene has some lacking things.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

I call my wife everyday on my way home from work.

Also I have to make phone calls to get ahold of doctors and such

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