ghostermonster

@ghostermonster@discuss.tchncs.de

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Using stock Android w/o Google account/ Play Store worth it?

I hope this is not considered a low-effort post, but I wanted to ask if using stock Android without signing in to your Google account/ using Play Store is worth it. It should be more private, right? I’m planning on buying the cheapest Samsung phone there is (probably the A14). I currently have a stock Android Oneplus phone. I...

ghostermonster,

You can do it as a some form of a protest or just not wanting to get used to Google.

Google still would have higher privilages on the phone than you. Remember to disable location scanning in location’s settings.

ghostermonster,

Lemmy is free software licenced under AGPL and that’s what matters.

I wouldn’t use proprietary app myself, but this is individual choice and those apps won’t hurt the ecosystem because they can’t break the server’s code.

ghostermonster,

Yes! Really, how do you even calculate base64 using Windows? With freakn Microsoft Edge!

Windows don’t have preinstalled git, torrent, PDF reader, stresstest, whois tool, FTP client, C compiler, screen recorder, disk imager, markdown editor, 7zip/RAR/tar opener. Most Linux distros have it out-of-the-box and with smaller footprint.

Even Office. Office suite is not preinstalled on Windows, but on Linux is! But what is preinstalled is TikTok and Netflix download shortcut.

ghostermonster,

Oh but average person don’t care about C compiler, torrent client, blah blah blah.

Yes, they care. When they need help with their computer, call me and I have to install 10 different programs to do basic stuff. And I can’t just type names of programs into package manager and install all at once, no no no.

ghostermonster,

Office365 in the menu is just a webview.

ghostermonster,

Powershell. I checked and the command is like PS > [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String(“YmxhaGJsYWg=”))

Noone is going to actually use this. Why it can’t be just “base64 -d” like on *nix?

For whois in Windows 11 search results points to a .exe program to download manually from Microsoft site. I didn’t know they included recorder recently, my bad. FTP client I didn’t know too, still it’s a console client and no integration in Explorer.

ghostermonster,

You open a browser. Because Netflix app is just a webapp anyway.

ghostermonster,

That’s the problem with Netflix.

ghostermonster, (edited )

Good to remind that MLS is just an end2end encryption standard, not whole messaging standard. And like TLS is useless on it’s own and needs content protocol like HTTP to combine it with.

Stil really good, since this means bridges between networks adopting MLS, like XMPP, Matrix and RCS could work with full E2EE.

ghostermonster,

Only if Signal developers want to swap their Signal encryption protocol for MLS. And I doubt they will for next years, as MLS is not as battle tested yet. Signal is laser focus on security for “normies”, not interoperability or free software.

ghostermonster,

Nope. This is standard purely for encrypting messages, nothing to do with open APIs or formatting messages themselfs. Basically TLS but for E2EE instead of SSL.

ghostermonster,

Isn’t dMLS just MLS but adopted for multiple servers?

ghostermonster,

It need to talk RCS first, then it could encrypt with MLS.

Like web browser that needs to speak http and then encrypts the traffic via TLS.

ghostermonster,

Some Xiaomi phones have this:

https://discuss.tchncs.de/pictrs/image/c217b163-8879-4920-9412-0ecb52256a6d.jpeg

ghostermonster,

App.

The website, vanillaos.org(/index.html) is empty page.

ghostermonster,

Some manufacturers, like Samsung, lock up their devices more.

Sealed up phones with no way to open the case are a little harder to tinker with especially when something goes wrong.

Years ago custom ROMs was used for having more features, but stock systems matured and it’s the other way around. Now customs are mostly limited to privacy and freedom community.

And a personal opinion from me, Android is now just boring. I loved trying custom ROMs, but there is nothing more to explore with monolithic, hard to bend nature of Android. I flashed plain old LineageOS on my main device and for playing around I am about to buy a Linux Mobile phone.

ghostermonster,

tickle tickle

ghostermonster,

Liftoff, Thunder, Jabora… Infinity, Sync are working on their Lemmy versions.

ghostermonster,

Even if I don’t like my apps to contain any additional propietary binaries, I wouldn’t call this one spyware. Because of the intention, there is intention to place ads from the company that has monopoly to serve working ads on Android.

ghostermonster,

All of them.

ghostermonster,

Would you like to be hit with a full or empty glass bottle?

If you really have to use it, web application would not be that agressive to ask for permissions and that’s it. You can use app like Shelter to isolate WhatsApp’s Android app so it would not have your contact and installed apps list.

ghostermonster,

It’s really good quality. In my opinion low resolution only matters in static images or when video is paused, I’ll take high bitrate and superior sound every day instead of today’s streaming.

Sure you can just download, super convinient and gives best results. But sometimes it’s good to do things the way that can scale in society or just actually own something you like :).

ghostermonster,

I have 4k TV and 5.1 studio speakers and noone in my house can see the difference from modern streaming besides a little grain on still images. Always buy newer, at least two-layered disks, they are much better.

Of course that’s nothing compared to 4K/DTS/DA/HDR Blu-Ray rip, but it’s not that the movie is not watchable. DVD is the basic experience, 2010s cinema like, where Blu-Ray is just a crispy fresh layer added.

ghostermonster,

Comparing to max quality >10-30GB torrent is not fair. You need to compare it to other DRM-free legal options, oh, there’s none. Side to side with Blu-Ray, really bad. But Blu-Ray is many times more expensive and less freedom friendly. Side to side with Netlix-like streaming, assuming you don’t use some high-end service, DVD is just better in real watching and not pausing and glaring at pixels.

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