this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
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Privacy

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Stock Android users, are you considering switching your phone to another OS such as /e/os, GrapheneOS, LineageOS? (piefed.zip)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by Blaze@piefed.zip to c/privacy@programming.dev
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[–] cloudless@piefed.social 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Had been Android user for more than a decade. Switched to iPhone last year.

[–] technomad@slrpnk.net 19 points 3 days ago

No, not like that! Lol

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Really interested hearing why.

[–] cloudless@piefed.social 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wait, you are that Cloudless! I only realize now, I only remembered the dog profile picture

[–] cloudless@piefed.social 4 points 3 days ago

Yeah 90% of the threadiverse is from our multiple accounts.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah, Android has been getting worse. I still remember when I could still install apps on an SD card. Suddenly, the next version of Android just removed that feature, and I was stuck with the pitiful 16 GB of onboard storage even though I had a 32 GB card at the time.

[–] ahornsirup@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm contemplating making the same move. Google killing sideloading also kills the last reason for me to stick with Android, so I may as well go with the phone by the company that hasn't based literally its entire business model around harvesting user data for targeted advertising.

[–] Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Years ago, I switched to an iPhone. It’s awful, but the alternatives were even worse.

Before that, I experimented with everything: full de-Google setups, vanilla Android approaches, and compromises like LineageOS with Gapps. None of them were good enough for me. The middle ground (LineageOS + Gapps) served me for years, but eventually, essential apps started requiring vanilla Android, which I refuse to use due to privacy concerns.

At this point, I still prioritize functionality and reliability, so stock Android and iOS are the only realistic options. I’m not a journalist in a dictatorship, so my data leaking isn’t a life-or-death issue, but Google’s data-exploitative business model makes Android the worse of the two evils. Both platforms have major flaws, but blatant privacy violations are a dealbreaker for me.

In an ideal world, LineageOS or GrapheneOS would work seamlessly with all apps, but that’s no longer the case. The perfect OS is out of my reach.

If my needs were still limited to calls, SMS, and email—like in the 2000s—there’d be plenty of great FOSS options. But the 2020s demand more, and the FOSS world hasn’t kept up.

I’m seriously considering using my laptop for 99% of my computing needs in the future.