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The worst thing is the past few years android updates brought fuckall exciting new stuff and just more spyware and worse performance .
Thank God for the Bixby button though.
I returned my Samsung phone over that button. Haven’t touched their shit since.
Fuck that button. At least let me map it to something else!
You can. They did an update to the S8 (and others, I assume) that let you remap it. I used some app before that, something from the Google Play Store but it’s been way too long to remember the name. Nowadays there isn’t a Bixby button anymore for us to remap. They tried to take over the power button with AI now, but thankfully you can remap this back to power as well.
My recent (unwanted) update changed the lock screen to this weird format where the two-digit hour is above the two-digit minute instead of next to it separated by a colon like normal people use. I keep setting it back to what I want but this weird over/under format keeps coming back. Some fucking douchebag of a UX/UI designer thought this was a genius new way of showing the time and now it’s being jammed down my throat.
I always keep at least one notification so I don’t have to see that stupid format on my lock screen.
You guys do know that there is an option in the settings to just always have the normal clock?
Thanks! This wasn’t implemented when I got my phone, but it looks like they added it a couple years later. I never looked after the option wasn’t initially there.
Huh, I’ll have to try that.
Yeah, I was using stock pixel launcher forever until the most recent “update” that added yet another button to the search bar that you can’t remove, that I used daily, and the button went conveniently right where my right thumb tapped. Switched to Lawnchair, and it’s not without issue. Why can’t shit that has worked just continue to work the same way?
Why can’t shit that has worked just continue to work the same way?
Line must go up.
At the top of the world, we’re all just the bottom line.
I also swapped to Lawnchair not that long ago. The only thing I miss so far is the ability to use app shortcuts on the home screen. Like opening YouTube directly to my subscriptions, etc. It also uses black text for the status bar on the home screen making it invisible but that might be user error.
Edit: There’s a setting for “Dark Status Bar.” I don’t know if it was on by default or if I switched it. But now I can see it again.
Hey now that’s not fair, they also made the ui huge so it looks like a fisher price toy! No you can’t turn it off why would you want that??
Of course they did, the average American struggles to tie their shoes.
The recent OneUI update on my Galaxy is shit. Performance and functionality overall are worse than before. Smdh
I routinely get a Samsung notification telling me to agree to some new agreement thing. I swipe it away. It just reappears in 48 hours or so. I swipe it away. We’ve danced this dance for years.
I don’t know what it’s for, I don’t care, and things are just fine as is. There’s nothing it it for me so, no.
Please click here to agree to our new Samsung privacy policy.
I use an app specifically designed to automatically dismiss notifications and I use it to dismiss this Samsung one you mentioned and the voice mail notification, which for some ridiculous reason can’t be disabled.
Which one
This one: https://joaoapps.com/autonotification/ lots of features, somewhat confusing, but I literally only use it for the auto-dismiss, which works so well the notification doesn’t even appear so it’s effectively disabled.
I use Macrodroid for similar notification handling shenanigans. I even bought it bc it’s so beautifully customisable 👌
I legit got this notification on my phone while reading this comment. I do the same and will continue to do the same.
I have a desktop I built in 2019 with no TPM running. Windows 10.
Starting a couple of months ago, occasionally when it boots it will automatically open a full-screen ad for Windows 11.
It’s extremely disruptive because of my setup. I use my monitors and keyboard for my work laptop and have a KVM to switch between the two, and since I use that space for work I don’t like to spend much time there for recreation. So I often turn my desktop on and run it headless whenever I’m done with work, and don’t see the ad, which then messes up my attempts at streaming. So I need to walk back upstairs to switch the KVM and close out of it manually.
No matter how many different “permanent” solutions I can find on the internet it keeps finding a way to do it again every couple of weeks. I’ve moved to Linux on most of the rest of my personal machines, but this desktop has all my old music production software that needs Windows. I’m getting pretty close to just investing in a different music production platform that works with Mint though.
Or that “Let’s finish setting up your PC” box as if I haven’t been fucking using it for ten years.
Which is just fucking using Onedrive to save your personal files on Microsoft’s servers.
Fuck you, Microsoft! I don’t want to login with your fucking servers.
No matter how many different “permanent” solutions I can find on the internet it keeps finding a way to do it again every couple of weeks.
Can I ask which version of Win 10 are you running? I have never run into this with Windows 10 Enterprise (or Education) versions.
Alas, I am running the Home version. I did find in my research posts from sysadmins running the Enterprise version who seemed to have more luck permanently disabling it than I did.
My undergrad university offers licensed Windows desktop OS to Alumni free of charge. This is how I’m legally using Windows Education version (which is the same as Enterprise). I got the sense it was part of a packaged software benefit program MS offers to educational institutions. You may want to see if yours does the same so you could get it free too.
Have you heard about out lord and saviour the Linux kernel?
Hail to the minty freshness
I know it’s been rough for a buddy in a similar situation, but if you’re an ableton user, he’s found bitwig to be the closest thing to come to what he needs. But I believe he’s still had some driver trouble in places. I don’t do much myself as a full-time linux user, but what I ave done of late I’ve used in-the-box deals like an MPC Live for the heavy lifting, then recorded into
Microsoft Paint for AudioAudacity on my actual machine from the box.I can’t remember the drama with audacity, the usual over reaching and collection of data type shit I think but you should check out Tenacity instead which is a fork of Audacity.
I actually use Cakewalk Sonar X2 mostly. Cakewalk went out of business and has been bought-and-sold and resurrected multiple times since I bought it back around 2014-ish. Whenever I built my desktop in 2019 it was kind of a miracle I was able to get the license activated- I forget what ended up working but I remember having to do a bunch of online searching through forum discussions to get it done.
I downloaded the trial version of Reaper on my Linux Mint machine and it’s… Okay. And to be fair at $60 it’s a lot cheaper than the $150 or so that I paid for Cakewalk. Considering I’m not doing anything professional that’s probably what I will go to eventually.
Sometimes I look at the pace of technological progress and think that humanity is moving too fast for its own good. There’s constantly new companies and new products starting up and then going bankrupt and obsolete in a couple of years. The Cakewall software I have is perfectly fine- it could run just fine on far weaker hardware, there aren’t any features in other modern software that I feel like I’m missing. It just feels so wasteful to have to spend time, energy, and money to switch to a new platform because capitalism dictates I must.
Check out Ardour as well!
If it’s supported by your hardware and software you’re still using, I’d be tempted to blow away Windows 10 and put Windows 7 on there. I ran Windows 7 for several years after support ended - best Windows experience ever. Rock solid stable and no hassles of having to deal with updates. I eventually moved onto Linux after continuing to run Windows 7 for general desktop usage started to become unfeasible, but for something that just needs to run Windows to do some specific things, I’d definitely consider it.
Have you tried GRC’s InControl? Supposedly helps prevent the win11 update attempts.
Oh thanks I’ll have to give that a shot later!
idk what you are using but bitwig runs well on linux and is pretty modern and good, reaper is a little uncomfortable to use but extremly powerful
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I hate that my phone is held hostage. My computer is free thanks to linux, it just sucks theres few linux phones that work in the US.
GrapheneOS is at least better than Google android.
GOS by all its strenghts, is following the paths treat by Google and Apple on defining what a smartphone has to be and how its security model has to look like, where only the OS distributor has full privileges, and you are just allowed to use it.
If you have the same requirements for your system as the people who designed these phones assumes you have, then GOS is great for you.
But if you want to tinker and customize, like we can with Linux systems, then Android and especially locked down systems like GOS aren’t for you.
I am using GOS myself, because it is good, but I also have a separate device of tinkering.
For me it’s a necessary compromise.
I’m a Linux user on my other devices and I’d love to have a fully libre and open phone, but the most important thing for getting my life tasks done is that apps work, so I’m somewhat hostage to where the apps are available and will run.
Graphene is me trying to achieve that in the least-bad way I can.
Sure, I get that.
But there are also people that don’t use banking apps or pay via NFC, etc. They use their phone just to call and text people, browse the web and take pictures. I will not recommend buying a Pixel and putting GOS on it, if they don’t specifically ask for a high security device.
If they are in the market for a new phone, I will recommend phones that are maintained for a long time and have a good active open source AOSP port community around them. For example the Fairphone with /e/ or Lineage with MicroG. Somewhere where people aren’t funneled towards google services. Since privacy is a bigger issue for most people than security.
What do you have for a tinkering device, if I may ask?
Well, my old phone, with LineageOS. It is a OnePlus 8, but I probably wouldn’t recommended OnePlus phones generally, I was hopeing that it eventually get mainline treatment, like the 6T, but that hasn’t happen yet.
I rooted it for managing battery charge limits, among other stuff. Having a root shell in termux makes debugging or fixing app and other issues very easy.
I have a Samsung sadly
Graphene isn’t entirely better. It makes trades. Some of those trades get you things you might like but they also cost others things they may want to keep.
For example, I want a folding phone without fucking Gemini. I cannot have this without graphene os, but that also disables other things I still wants, like tap to pay or the ability to use certain banking apps.
Stories like this is very much why I severely limit the amount of time I spend on Windows. Having been with Windows nearly since the beginning of its history, it’s insane to see the amount of reduction of user control that’s gone into it.
One of the most egregious things is the lack of control around updates. Often I’ll finish a session with my laptop and go to store it in the bag. Windows will cheerfully inform me that there is a forced update and then I end up having to wait for my machine to finish its shit while I sit around tapping my toes.
Meanwhile, in Linux-land, I have as much control over updates as I wish. I almost breathe a sigh of relief when I reach my Linux desktop, because it’s still a place that feels like MINE. I feel like I’m some kind of sharecropper or temporary house guest when on Windows 11. It doesn’t feel like “my” environment. It feels like it’s Microsoft’s computer and they just let me use it occasionally.
For myself, I was lucky(?) enough to have wasted my best years playing with Linux and running Linux boxes is no problem now. For the average Joe that needs to mess with computers, I feel bad for them. Windows 11 feels like shit, MacOS sure isn’t great either, and that’s pretty much the only choice.
No wonder I’m seeing less and less households with PCs and laptops. I think the average person in 2025 has just given up on computers and makes do with their phone or tablet.
Thank fucking god for Linux, because if I was forced to use Windows 11 full time, I think I’d snap and go live in the middle of the forest or something. It’s actively annoying to even look at at this point, and I only see things getting worse. For example, the troubles with Windows “Recall” have barely even started.
I loathe to see what Microsoft has in store for us next, and I would guarantee it’s not user friendly.
I use my laptop for data processing, but most of my tasks can be adequately handled from my phone. There are days when I don’t open my computer when I get home from work.
“If we let you control your phones you’ll just mess them up!”
Which is our right. I paid for the phone. Google, Samsung, and Apple aren’t fucking paying me.
Which is our right. I paid for the phone. Google, Samsung, and Apple are
n’tfuckingpayingme.There, I fixed it. It’s time for a new FOSS phone OS to take over. GrapheneOS looks nice, but it only runs on select Google pixel devices. Maybe if phone manufacturers were forced to let the user chose their OS?
I would love to get GrapheneOS or some other similar OS but the lack of mobile tap-to-pay support just kills the idea for me.
I’d love to own my own devices but I’m so addicted to my phone I can’t handle pulling out my lighter, smaller, always charged debit card and so will continue to give up my ownership rights so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.
I’d love to stay private, but I’m so addicted to giving my financial information to banks that I can’t handle pulling out a lighter, fee-free, no-Internet-access-required, and nearly universally-accepted banknote from my wallet and so will continue to give up data about my spending so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.
Debit card? You let your bank know where you’re spending money??? Cash only for privacy
(I don’t actually follow this, I like credit cards and their rewards points, unless it’s actually cheaper to use cash)
I have this little offline only single purpose device that handles tap to pay for me. It is actually waterproof, survives falls, is light enough to not be noticed, and hasn’t run out of battery in a few years.
Jokes aside, what is wrong with good old plastic cards? If you don’t want an extra wallet (which I need anyway to carry ids, drivers license, cash, emergency ear plugs, a handy sticker or two…), just get a phone case with card/cash slot thingies.
As it is right now, my cell phone replaces a collection of about six plastic cards. I have not yet found a wieldy phone case that has space to store payment cards.
Realistically, this question could also be asked with cash. If you’re going to be pulling out a wallet-like item anyway, and you are that concerned with privacy, why not go with anonymous, fee-free, secure, actually offline paper money? Card processing is not offline. The card machine has to be connected to the Internet for it to work (offline card processing theoretically exists, but is not widely implemented enough to rely on and is not particularly secure).
If people are going to argue that wanting to pay with a cell phone instead of a plastic card makes me lazy because the card takes a few extra seconds to use compare to the phone, I’m going to argue in turn that they’re lazy for using a card when using cash, with all of its privacy benefits, also only takes a few seconds more.
How can you spend time thinking about phones, when there are children starving to death in Africa! See, I am can do that too.
Besides, I do carry cash for everyday expenses, and I do prefer cash. I don’t know where you got that idea from.
But the question was to replace tap-to-pay. Sadly, tapping people with a fiver makes them irritated at best.
I’ve got nothing against you. I’m just not willing to accept a lecture (from other people, not you) about being “lazy” for wanting tap-to-pay on my cell phone. My statement is that the convenience of tap-to-pay for payment cards and transit passes is not worth the otherwise marginal privacy benefit of switching to Graphene.
I was looking at that too and came to the same conclusion. I should probably migrate off apple at some point but Android in its current state is not viable for me.
What about it isn’t viable? Genuinely curious
I can’t use it stock because cell providers can push bullshit apps I don’t want without my permission and I can’t fully disable Gemini. Switching to grapheneOS addresses those concerns, but cause new problems, like killing tap to pay and triggering security flags on games and banking apps.
Yeah that’s a fair point. Some android models do have minimal or none bloatware, like Google pixel… But also then papa Google owns your ass lol
I am reading this with a rooted LineageOS phone with MicroG installed.
I am an it at a company. Forcing updates is a necessity for some of our users. We have 5 year old phones which have never been updated, and needs to be for their software to work right.
That said what works in consumer space and what works in corporate is two different things. As a consumer I’d hate this and have moved away from preinstalled android years ago. But as IT, this needs to be here.
Ultimately I just think its laziness of the company to either not have a toggle for it. Or have a corporate build for corporate customers
You’re an information technology?
Mr information technology to you
Sewer clown.
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locked bootloaders and complicated processes to getting phones changed are crimes against humanity layman can’t really perceive.
wish i had solutions.
We’re getting close to the point where “running a stock ROM” is on the same level of inadvisable as “using a web browser without ad blocking”. The latter of which was, btw, also not that big if a deal like ten or fifteen years ago.
Praying for some stronger ROM support for foldables. As soon as ATT lets my phone go free (2 year contract) installing one would be the first thing I do, except my phone is a Razr Ultra 2025 and I can’t even find much for the Z flip let alone the razrs.
For now though mullvad stays on with dns blocking and I just keep to Fdroid and Aurora store if needed, not sure what else I can do
We really do need more viable open phone options. We are well past the point in hardware capability that we could have a linux phone that turns into a desktop when you plug it into a docking station. USB-c connections handle everything for my work laptop.
I have reverted back to using my Linux PC for most screwing around online. My phone, for the technological wonder that it is, is for communicating with family, listening to music, GPSing, and then occasionally computer stuff, looking things up, etc.
Canonical tried years ago and just didn’t get the funding they needed to release an Ubuntu phone. It would have been a dreamy device, especially in today’s tech market.
I can’t wait until a PinePhone comes out that I actually want.
I’m impressed it’s only $200
Sailfish OS existst, but it is far from beeing nice. Look out for Jolla OS too
You dont own something unless you install linux on it
this can be easily remedied by killing all of humanity except yourself
As a security and privacy minded person im glad i CAN keep automatic updates enabled on GrapheneOS without having to worry about some crappy forced features being added.
I see windows users have to disable them too, its so crazy to me that people tollerate this stuff instead of just switching… Like yeah automatic updates that break things are annoying but “linux is too complicated”, so instead of learning to adapt to a new system, you adapt to just accepting that you dont fully get to control your devices a they will get progressively worse until eventually you have to get a whole new device. SMH
Good luck keeping root access with your GrapheneOS auto-update.
Your comment doesnt make any sense, i wouldnt want root access from GrapheneOS, that would break pretty much all of the security benefits.
The point is to not need to use expliots and break security just to configure your device how you want in the first place.
The post was about someone losing root access via an auto-update which they disabled because it might remove their root access.
Your post was about GrapheneOS. If you rooted it, for whatever reason (maybe you need it to have privileged access to the apps on the hardware that you own), you will lose root access when you update it.
How does that not make sense?
I would rather think your post doesn’t make so much sense, because GOS doesn’t solve the root access issue when auto-updating, but it might honor the disablement of updates, I guess.
I am using GOS as well, but I wouldn’t suggest it to someone needing root access for whatever reason.
If i wanted root i wouldnt be using GOS, but its been years since root was needed for much other than than debloating devices without custom roms. There are custom roms that have root if its really what you want.
Me? Who is talking about me?
Granted I used and I am still using a phone that is rooted next to my GOS phone. Rooting makes it easier to backup app data, cleanup the device, customize battery charge settings, patch apps, edit app memory, and, debloat, I guess, but I never have done that. I just wasn’t assuming that the person rooting their android did it just to debloat, they might have more/other use-cases. But it is their device, they should have the freedom to do with it, whatever they want in all cases. How much security and against which kind of attacks and which attacker one might want to defend more or less and to what cost of personal freedom is a personal question, that cannot (and should not) be answered by some outside entity for an individum, if breaches only affect them.
Was it IRobot where the intelligence decided that in order to keep every human save, they are all placed under house arrest? Security has its cost, that shouldn’t be ignored.
If someone wants root access, the reason doesn’t matter, it is their device, they should get it. Asking that is like asking why someone want to leave their house, and were they want to go before letting them or trying to convince them that they don’t actually need to leave because it isn’t save for them and that they should be happy with what they have.
Rooting modern android essentially breaks the security model on a system wide level. Im not disagreeing with your sentiment, if someone wants to do that, they should be able to, but its not something needed on modern android for backups or anything else.
5+ years ago it was a different situation, apps like titanium backup back in the day would require root but in 2025 this is no longer the case with modern android versions.
The important feature is bootloader unlocking, if you have access to that then you have root access. Just as you wouldnt stay logged in as root on a PC its also not what you should be doing on a phone.
Am I the only here that smells bullshit/ragebait? When your phone has the bootloader unlocked and you’re rooted, you simply cannot receive official software updates. That only works in custom roms.
EDIT: It seems that for several people this is not the case. Guess I’m wrong then, but personally I’ve never received software update requests after rooting. Right now in my xperia 5v I literally can’t even check to see if there is one. The only way to know is to look up my model in xperifirm.
I have a pixel 4a (yes, ik its eol, i use it more as a backup) that used to be rooted, until i got that shitty battery update, immediately switched to graphene. So yes you do still get updates on rooted
Weird. Also a Pixel4a user (condolences to both of us), but I had LineageOS on mine and was rooted, but I’ve had no software updates. I get reminders from LineageOS that a new build is available, but I just swipe right because if it ain’t broke don’t fix
Lineage and graphene don’t force updates. They could but that’s not their mo. If they did they would presumably lose 90% of their users.
Stock android even if rooted easily can and does force updates.
oh right true, that’s the issue – stock android
I think it depends on the device. I remember rooting my s7, or maybe it was the grand prime? I cant remember the exact model, but it was samsung and around that time period for those two models, and any software update i wanted to apply, including security updates, had to be manually installed/side loaded.
Why not? I remember buying phones that could be unlocked and had no issues with them updating after doing so.
Same. Why should bootloader unlock stop OTAs? Sure, i dont doubt that some manufacturer somewhere does this, but I would not expect it to be the norm.
Normally that is true but they just forced one on Pixel 6a. I had the same thing happen to me and had to reroot my phone at like 6am before work.
It seems they are being significantly more aggressive about it with their battery failure updates.
sometimes it tries to automatically update, fail and mess up the OS (happened to me with earlier versions of Moto G)
- “Yes”
- “No, but thank you soooo much for asking anyway! You’d be welcome to ask again and I am soooo thankful. It’s a great thing that you filled the screen with this pop up for a thing I do not want. No, but thank you.”
Corporate machines stole my voice that’s MY VOICE give it back I have THOUGHTS to say with MY VOICE give me my voice back you ass give it back let me say what I want I need to tell them to fuck off
Hmm… The tech industry looking a little rape-y…
