Privacy

Second hand and refurbished is a thing

Just don't buy them new, and it becomes far more ethical.

(US perspective disclaimer)

It's unfortunately a lot more involved and a lot less stable/reliable to install graphene on non-pixel phones. Most of the big names are extremely locked down on the hardware end, and for a good few years Google was basically the only big tech hardware manufacturer that still let people root their devices. They were consistently better than Samsung, Motorola, and of course Apple in this one category and so were the go-to despite it giving money directly to Google in the process. I get that giving money to big tech in general was part of the problem but there were legitimately few to no good alternatives until pretty recently.

If you check the officially supported hardware list for GrapheneOS, you will find that it's exclusively populated by different Pixel models :/

Last I remember (before writing this) FairPhone was an exclusively EU product and wasn't available in the United States, mostly for environmental reasons surrounding shipping. I just checked and it appears they are now available over here via Murena which is really good to know; if/when the time comes where I need to replace my current phone I'll be strongly considering them as an option.

There are also the Chinese smartphone brands which are increasingly becoming compelling options. I'll probably be looking into some of those too but the govt here seems very trigger happy on banning Chinese manufacturers, and I think several of them also don't allow rooting either.

They won't let me because my email address is for my personal website... How stupid is that‽

it will not come with system updates, but with updates to the google play services package. you can't disable that. how else would they lock down most phones if manufacturers only supply updates for such a short time, if any.

Right but its official, so its safe. That's what matters. Not whether it has malware or not.

It'll be like Edge, where you can uninstall it in certain EU countries, but nowhere else. It won't really change anything on the grand scheme

Given who is winning european elections I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I hope they push this out and spark the ire of the EU

probably will take a bit longer because it will happen in certain countries like Indonesia and Brazil first (i.e. not EU countries)--basically the countries with rampant apk scamming, unfortunately. I think this move is also partially forced by the government in those countries, but that's just my conspiracy hat talking, note that I'm also against this move and much prefer a scam education (I'm in Indonesia).

Techradar Article

Is this the Honey scandal all over again? Motorola phones caught adding affiliate codes to Amazon orders

I have a motorola, absolutely no clue what anything else you wrote means.

Purism is a grift, should be removed.

Many people are still waiting on phones they ordered years ago.

Graphene is by far the best. I highly recommend it.

Right now you need a Pixel to run it but soon you can get a Motorola that works with it.

Graphene is only of help (today) if you buy some shit from Google namely a Pixel. If you have another phone, step numero uno is always to learn what custom ROMs are available for your make and model.

Ethics and morals are irrelevant when the entire economic paradigm is designed to reward whatever makes the most profit regardless of ethical considerations.

Buy an unlocked phone and tether a laptop to it, only use the phone for calls and sms.

pissed-tier: take it off on your taxes out of spite

I really hope the Motorola thing actually pans out. Based on the general state of things I’m done with both Apple and Google.

For anyone who hasn't heard, Motorola is partnering with GrapheneOS to release compatible phones in 2027.