this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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At least Android actually gives you freedom. What other alternatives (that actually work) are there? I'd rather have a phone with an OS made by an evil corp that I can actually control, than an OS that doesn't even let me install apps not approved by the manufacturer.
Using a degoogled LineageOS was great. It’s just that the world around it has changed so much that doing certain things wasn’t really viable any more. Having a phone like that in 2010 would have been awesome, but nowadays it’s really inconvenient. Nowadays, there are some highly unfortunate software needs that don’t quite fit with this philosophy any more.
I didn’t come up with the idea that my bank requires an app, and that the app absolutely requires an OEM phone with a normal Android and GAPPS. They started requiring that nonsense, which put me in a tight spot. Do I decide to live without money or will I switch to an inferior OS.
There are also some nice to have apps that came up with similar stupid decisions. Living without them means living in the past, and I would be ok with that too. Getting a minor inconvenience in return of having more privacy is ok with me. Suffering significant inconveniences is not OK. I had to draw the line somewhere, which unfortunately meant switching away from LineageOS.
I went with iOS, because IMO it’s the least bad option out there. I made some horrible compromises, but at least I can live in 2023 like everyone else. I’m not at all happy with this decision, but at least iOS isn’t half as infuriating as it used to be 10 years ago.
I use a phone with LOS and I haven't had any problems with it. Though I am 13, so I don't have to worry about stuff like banks apps yet.
LOS is good for a lot of things, so keep on using it until you run into a brick wall like I did. Hopefully, someone has already figured out a solution by then or maybe you can just choose to use a different app instead.
I'm 13, I'll probably be able to choose what banks I keep my money at and other stuff like this based on their support for my OS.
Well.. for now at least. Who’s to say that won’t be the next thing on their list. They do make a pretty penny on the play store as is, and could improve that if they banned side-loading. And let’s be honest, side-loading is probably a niche thing still.
Niche for common people, but very much used by privacy concerned tech ppl. F-droid is a thing and so is obtainium, 2 play store alternatives that are side-loaded and give access to FOSS apps.
Some manufacturers limit rooting, promote their appstores, recomend to redownload a freshly installed app but now from them, have their 'antivirus' and 'cache' scanners, randomly unload background apps they think are less valuable from RAM and revoke their permissions while their own apps require additional permissions and accounts even though they just switch wallpapers or play videos. If we look at that, Google have much to implement and still have side-loading availiable, just very disencouraged.
And when they allow “sideloading” in the next version, what will your argument be?
Who knows, I might switch.