Isn’t Motorola the new msnufacturer for those GraphineOS phones? And now they do THIS???
Kinda makes them feel less trustworthy to install a security based rom on.
Ive been with Pixel for a while and was looking forward to my next phone being a Motorola but this is NOT a good look at all
From reading the article, the conclusion right now is that this isn’t a conscious act by Motorola.
My guess is they used an open source library in their Smart Feed app that has been poisoned with an affiliate link injection. Either that or someone working at Motorola slipped the code in and their quality control process missed it.
Neither one of those is a good look for Motorola. But it probably isn’t as bad as the headline makes it sounds.
On a side note, I ditched the increasingly shoddy Pixel a series for a mid-level Motorola phone a couple of years ago and haven’t looked back.
Ive got a Pixel 8 Pro with GOS and I love it
Seconded, though the sooner I’m able to get GrapheneOS on another phone, the better, as Google’s quality plunge after the Pixel 5 series was just inexcusable.
Edit: Actually, pretty much almost every Pixel phone has had some major hardware defect, including the ones before the 6 series.
The question is if the next gos phone will have a competitive camera quality in order to be a viable alternative for more people than only “high targets”
I’ve had nothing but good experiences with my pixel 9, what stands out to you?
I have a Pixel 7 from a couple years ago. Its simply an inferior product compared to other mobiles on the market. The higher price could be a more regional issue perhaps but mine still has problems with fingerprint scanner, sim issues, heating problems etc.
The only reason I bought it was for the unlocked boot loader and grapheneos.
Pixel 7 still had problems with fingerprint reader, Pixel 9 doesn’t
Haven’t had any malfunctions on the pixel 9 at all, but I immediately installed grapheneOS and put it in a case. Maybe because I didn’t grab it at launch I dodged a bullet? Odd.
My Pixel 8 Pro has been the best of the Pixel phones I’ve had, but Google’s phone hardware is rough. Contrary to my previous point, my Pixel 4 XL had the bloated battery issue, and I had to give that up for the 6 Pro, which had the shittiest Tensor chip leading to overheating and lack of reception in areas where I should have full bars. Gave that up for the 8 Pro, and it hasn’t had any significant hardware issues so far.
So yeah, Google hardware sucks, and I’m thrilled to potentially be moving to a new Moto phone that has a Snapdragon chip and improved hardware quality.
If you are running gos I am unaware of any issues, but I know that the stock os for the pixel 9 pro has a bug that stops the screen from responding, even across reboots. When I had to deal with it, I could only fix it via adb with a specific image from google that took me 5ish hours to find
Thirded! Switched a few weeks back. Feels good to be able to fight in whatever little way that I can. Though one of my bank apps stopped working so that’s kind of a pain in the ass.
How awful was moving your data? I’ve been wanting to switch, but my big hesitation is all my 2fa apps cuz I really don’t want to have to reach out to all my clients to redo those…
I just moved from a Fold 4 (hinge broke or something, when I opened it the screens would go blank and only recover on a hard reboot) so I got a Pixel 10 Pro, flashed graphene and spent most of yesterday reinstalling apps more intentionally.
Authy refused to run, which is fine as I’ve been too lazy to swap from it even though I’ve been pissed since they got rid of the desktop app. Anyway I went through the 9 sites I had setup there and swapped it over to my vaultwarden.
Other apps that didn’t install were EBay and Coinbase, both I can live with using the mobile browser instead (don’t use them all that frequently anyway).
Thanks for the heads up on authy, I’ll keep that in mind for when I swap!
Wait, why can’t you just export and import the TOTP data? You shouldn’t need to notify any of the providers…
I thought it didn’t let me, but this may just be PEBKAC…
I haven’t needed to transfer much data. Three out if my banking apps worked with their proprietary token app required for living in our transferring money. Same with my stock trading app. But I’m thinking of moving those back to an older android again because, I dunno, I just don’t feel like having it on my fault driver anymore.
I dunno what to do about Microsoft authenticator. I need it to log into my Microsoft account for managing my kids’ screen time, I think, and for playing Minecraft.
I have Google’s authenticator app which I’ve needed to log into certain services.
Sorry, I like tinkering with my devices but I’m not a very technical person, so I’m not sure if I’ve answered your question correctly.
I’ve got a Pixel 9 and at the first opportunity this piece of shit is being skipped into the river like a flat stone.
I can’t speak for the pro series. I had as Pixel 1 that was very good.
But then for cost and headphone jack reasons I switched to the a series when my Pixel 1 died. Both I and friends and family have had various Pixel ‘a’ series phones, and we’ve all seen the quality get progressively worse. Batteries, gyros, cameras, screens, you name it. I wouldn’t recommend that specific line of phones.
I would still shoot for that with graphene OS over other options without. I had a Pixel 6 with.no issues.
I said this in another comment, but the same app version being loaded on multiple phones and it doesn’t affect all of them, or side loading the app, or launching from a home screen all can bypass the issue, so it sounds more like malware than corporate fuckery.
Motorola is Lenovo, they are chinese. Of course they would try shenanigans like these to see if it sticks. Like I saw in my G23 with the Live Screen Locks shit, even we disabled it it would still change the screen lock wallpaper to a live one, had to remove the package from the user with adb.
the fact that they are chinese isn’t relevant here, since such fraudulent practices have been seen on Brave Browser too, for example.
Wao, what a narrow-minded way to look at it. Lenovo is Chinese, yeah, and only the largest laptop manufacturer in the world. The one manufacturer that has been historically Linux friendly. Are their CPUs Chinese developed? No, they are US made (Intel and AMD), which is arguably as bad, maybe even worse.
Lenovo used to bundle Israeli-made spyware with Windows for some of their laptops. Not exactly a trustworthy company tbh. Not necessarily politically aligned with the CCP on every decision but they’re not above spying on their customers clearly.
Yup, it was a very justified shitshow. That’s why, if I buy a Lenovo laptop (or any other mainstream brand from that matter) its with the intention of nuking Windows entirely (which I believe to be malware) and installing my choice of Linux distros. This is no different than my choice of Pixel phones (until the Motorola + GOS deal goes live) to install GrapheneOS immediately.
As for mainstream laptop manufacrurers spying on their customers or allowing others to do so from first boot, name one of them that doesn’t do this.
It’s app level injection, so presumably if you install GrapheneOS or use a different “smart feed app” (some kind of launcher for Motorola? I haven’t used one before), it won’t affect the user. Although, I agree it’s a pretty bad look on the QA of preloaded apps.
Shitty behavior on the part of Moto.
On the other hand, installing GOS gets rid of this issue. I’ll likely still buy a Moto if I have the option of installing GOS myself. I wouldn’t trust Moto to not add something to a pre-installed GOS.
Motorola primarily makes budget phones, mostly because they’re full of malware like this. Same reason some companies will offer phones and TVs completely free.
Unfortunately privacy is expensive. And the GOS phone will be as well.
Stock ROMs are removed immediately when obtaining a new phone
Not sure what happened, possibly some mim, i dont think Motorola would risk reputational damage for a merely few $ through such low level highjack.
I dont think it any ill will here by Motorola.
Good thing I don’t use Amazon.
They won’t get away with that sort of sh*t when they’re selling with GrapheneOS on them- assuming that deal continues to make progress.
The only mobile OS worth using at this point is Graphene if you ask me.Did they just not see the backlash and class actions filed against PayPal/Honey, CapitalOne, etc. for this same affiliate code swapping scheme and just decided they’d do it anyway? Surely they had to have seen that, or did they think it was a good idea done blatantly and are trying to be sneakier about it?
I knew it was Joever when my phone came with something named “MotoAI”
Ah yes one of the reasons why GrafeneOS will support Motorola devices soon /s
I would have to first have an Amazon app, or account.
Seems like their parent company hasn’t learned anything since the whole Superfish nonsense all those years ago. Glad I’ve stayed far away from them all this time.
Any chances to block that at DNS level with something like a pi hole or NextDNS ?
Sure, the domain is listed in the article. Most blocklists include affiliate and tracking passthrough domains already.
I don’t think it even needs to get that complicated.
Until they issue a patch you can just open the Amazon app from the home screen. It only does the affiliate nonsense when you launch it from the app list.
Also, you can disable the Smart Feed app. That apparently fixes it too.
No
Why should anyone install the amazon app? I mean… it’s a website (if one realy must…)
Amazon is a computer activity for sure. But I try not to use it at all. I’ve been fairly successful cutting them out of my life.
Even worse. The Amazon app is trash that sometimes doesn’t work at all, but the Amazon website works well on mobile.
I actually find the app is very nice compared to the mobile website on a pixel 9, of course I’m on GrapheneOS so I can enjoy apps from shitty companies without worrying too much about it doing shady things.
Although as of the past week, they’ve been injecting a shop with Alexa ad when you first open the app that slows you down by a few seconds, which is extremely infuriating.
I’m one of those shitty human beings who, unfortunately, orders fairly often from Amazon.
TLDW?
