1k? Must be in Euros or USD.
Sounds like I’ll be using a “phone” with Ubuntu Touch or similar with a VoIP SIP app running. As long as I have 4G/5G data, that’ll probably work as well as anything I’m willing to use.
For me, this has the added bonus of being able to configure my VoIP service however I want. Mine lets me do custom menus and such, easier to filter out robots that way.
Let’s see if I have an old Pixel 3a around…
They need more donations and bug reports!
Ubuntu touch works on pixel 3s. It was incredibly easy to install. I set aside an afternoon to make it work, and I was done in line 15 minutes. I was shocked. It has some rough edges but its usable. The biggest issue is the lack of apps. Also, i couldnt figure out the sandboxing thing that lets you run any limux app. I think maybe the UI had some bugs or something, it wasnt very intuitive.
Is it offering SMS? I ported to jmp.chat recently, using their XMPP gateway for voice and SMS. They offer a VOIP option, but don’t support SMS.
I like being able to SMS, and I guess call, from my laptop. But there aren’t any Linux XMPP clients that I’m particularly happy with, so I’m just using Cheogram in Waydroid. It’s not exactly optimal.
I’m using VoIP.ms and yeah, they do SMS and MMS ($0.0075 per SMS, $0.02 per MMS). They have both an online portal and an Android app. There are a few limitations, but it seems to work pretty well overall.
While it sucks at least they say adb install will continue to work (for now)
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification/guides/faqCan we update without adb? If updating all the apps also require ADB, this will get annoying fast.
If EU doesn’t step in, I’m moving to custom ROM
Shizuku is about to get more popular, lol
Your™
Us: nope, I degoogled my Android phone. Good luck.
MicroG is amazing
On a related note, Ive always wanted to try shoving a sim card in my Linux laptop and use a voIP phone line with jmp or something.
Good way to get your laptop infected.
Take the one thing Android has over Apple away. Why go Android then? Might as well go with the device that has close ties to the hardware. Guess we are going back to the days when only nerds that knew how to flash better roms will be using Android.
Guess we are going back to the days when only nerds that knew how to flash better roms will be using Android.
Will we even have that? IIRC, Google’s changing the open source model for Android so its going to be a lot harder from ROM devs to keep up to date with security patches, and then more importantly, have access to device drivers
Many are going even further. Both my friend and I are planning to get dumb flip phones next. Forget also this smartphone always online stuff
I’m looking forward for a Sailfish OS device tbh
In the U.S you can’t buy any of these devices because the cell networks are privately owned and one of the unofficial conditions of you getting access is that you have to have government surveillance and soon censorship on your device, as well as locked bootloaders with signing and stuff. They are currently spending tons of money in Europe to get rid of freedom of thought over there as well. You guys might have 10 more years.
In the U.S you can’t buy any of these devices…
No. My Father in Law has one and they’re available from Verizon, AT&T, and others.
…and one of the unofficial conditions of you getting access is that you have to have government surveillance and soon censorship on your device…
Where are you getting this disinformation from?
I have been trying to find a single open device to replace my android phone with for over a month now. Every single one of these devices are only sold with support for European cell networks. The radios inside American cells phones are controlled by parents and property standards so that you literally cannot buy a device that can access the network without one of their radios(which is a fully programmable tracking device almost hidden to the OS BTW) you cannot reproduce or even modify the radios due to this horrible law in the U.S called DMCA, which means if a device has any drm software on it at all, which is basically everything nowadays you can get sued by the company that made it by making any modifications to the device that they don’t approve of.
It’s not disinfo, I know the facts and I don’t deal in lies and disinfo. I research everything I say extensively and verify it myself.
Okay I think I mis-handled the threading. I thought you were replying to the comment about dumb phones and those are most definitely available in the United States.
You are looking for something that runs Sailfish but that OS is meant for the Euro market so its targeted at handsets meant for use there. The entire supported device list is a measly 16 handsets and all but one of those are made by Sony! It’s a crazily niche OS.
The radios inside American cells phones are controlled by parents and property standards…
Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s literally no different for European cell phones. The Jolla C2 is a rebadged Reeder S19 Pro Max S and whatever modem is buried in that thing is going to have precisely the same issues. Patents are global and at this point even the Chinese are following them, much less a small Turkish manufacturer like Reeder.
(which is a fully programmable tracking device almost hidden to the OS BTW)
They’re all like this. All of them. Even the ones in a handset running Sailfish.
you cannot reproduce or even modify the radios due to this horrible law in the U.S called DMCA
The DMCA has very little to do with Software Defined Radios…which is precisely what the modem chips in these handsets are. Frankly I don’t WANT people fucking with the SDR in their handsets. You can do it with lots of other SDRs (GMRS, Amateur, WiFi, etc) and people inevitably abuse the ability and fuck things ups.
The DMCA is a rotten law but isn’t anywhere close to the biggest problem when it comes to SDRs and Phone Handsets.
Literally a government backed monopoly funded with trillions of take payer dollars at this point. When I run for president one day, besides things like completely banning 100% private political campaigns and proganda, one of the first things im going to do is force the FCC to create a wide pocket of bandwidth for a open source and private mesh networks with a range of around 20-50 miles between devices with fallback modes of hundreds of miles, and maybe another fall back mode for thousands if antenna size allows for this inside cell phones. That way we can control our own cell phones and have a citizen licensed cell network.
nobody’s forcing you to use those radios. you can use a GrapheneOS phone in airplane mode
No you can’t use graphene is because almost no device supports it anymore. Very few devices have an unlocked bootloader, and commands don’t work on devices that don’t have a snapdragon chip set.
Also using airplane mode completly defeats the purpose of having a cell phone.
I like the idea, but there’s a lot of things that I truly want on my phone. Like Google Maps and the Garmin app for my watch.
you can use sandboxed google maps on GrapheneOS
I don’t even know what that means, honestly.
you create a google account that is only used inside the sanboxed container and prevent your data from being mined and sent to google. you can turn off its internet access at any time in the permissions which isn’t possible on stock Android
Oh ok. Cool thanks
Can dumb flip phones provide Internet hotspots?
Yes, although generally they have less band support than “smart” phones, and with smaller batteries the hotspot tends to kill the phone pretty fast. It might end up being a case of using a basic smartphone with no software installed and as much stuff disabled as possible as a tether source.
They are going to get rid of those too, at least ones without gps and stuff. The age of cell phones is just over until we can get back control of our state from the superpacs and internationalist psychos who want to control everyone.
They are already gone. About the only dumbphones left either run a stripped down version of Android, or pseudo-custom OSes that still have some basic telemetry, and all have GPS/etc for “e911” requirements.
That’s not a bad idea.
Why not completely divorce your phone from your portable computing device?
Before smartphones, they were getting pretty small. You could probably make a phone that was just a voice activated earbud now. Then have a device that was everything but the “phone” bits. You wouldn’t have to accept the locked down aspects that the cell providers demand, you could have all the variety and functionality of your home computer or laptop.
Yeah. That’s too small.
Not enough space for an proper antenna and the battery requirements wouldn’t work plus the thermals the thing would kick off would burn your ear.
The transmission power requirements between Bluetooth and cellular is measured in magnitudes, 3-4 times the power.
The cellular modem and antenna could be fit into the charging case of earbuds but the battery life would still be terrible since most of the case is taken up by the space needed for the ear buds.
no option for secure messaging on a flip phone
You would be surprised. Most modern “dumb phones” run KaiOS which has an App Store.
Modern flip phones can often tether.
carry… TWO devices?! Like some kind of insane asshole!?
the horror
I mean, yeah.
Why would I carry one device that does everything and one device that does less and isn’t really more private, doesn’t make much sense.
Because Android is ran by a capitalist corporation that spies on you 24/7 and seeks to restrict and control their platform.
If I could make it convenient, I’d carry a flip phone and a laptop. I trust both far more than Google, and slightly more than GrapheneOS.
Downvote all you like. I’m not telling any of you to do anything. You want security? Toss your phone out of a moving car and get a notebook.
yeah, these flip phone people sound very dumb to me. you don’t like google so you’re just gonna hand over all your data and conversations by using unencrypted SMS and phone calls instead? 🤦♀️
Reject Phones
Return to Ham Radios and Morse code, with One Time Pad layered on top of it for encryption
Maybe there’s a silverlining of the custom rom scene interest growing again like when Android first came out among enthusiasts. Lot over the years just stopped flashing roms, since phones got “good enough” that it stopped being worth the hassle.
But, losing easy sideloading without need for adb is a pretty big deal for enthusiasts that more might start looking into custom roms again.
I was wishy washy on whether my next phone would be android or iOS for years, but with this change my decision got a lot easier. Was fun while it lasted, Android - but if you’re going to become a walled garden I’d rather be in the better one.
Wait a little bit longer and get a Linux phone
Purism - Librem 5 running PureOS (or whatever Linux distro you want)
Yeah, this seems crazy to me. This is a big differentiator. I still hate apple’s ui and several other things but now I can see myself being convinced to get an iPhone. There was zero chance before this decision. If apple ever allows real third party launchers and browsers that aren’t just safari skins (or if android ever disallows launchers and makes all browsers chrome skins), I’d be pretty close to 50-50.
It’s nearly impossible to even flash a rom these days, they made sure to cover that first. They want to make sure you are only allowed to watch or read what they approve of. That’s what it’s all about. Next time they get a democratic in, they won’t even give trans people their rights back, they are just going to go after gun rights hard. Mark my words.
I personally found it very easy to install Graphene and get it up and running.
Hard if you don’t have a snapdragon device. Mediatek processors have all kinds of stupid bullshit that makes it really hard to flash a file without their key. We really need to start sharing key generators for things again, especially for the bootloaders for our computers we buy.
Guess we are going back to the days when only nerds that knew how to flash better roms will be using Android.
Google is closing those gates as well. Pixel 10 drivers aren’t in the new AOSP build. Graphene has been updated to the Android 16 core, but as Google tightens the leash, it will be more difficult. Google’s plan to combine ChromeOS and Android into a MegaBloat will further make it so AOSP is useless.
Every time Google releases a new app for the core OS, they stop supporting the open-source flavor of it, which is why apps like the AOSP messaging app can’t do RCS. Eventually all that will be left of AOSP is a mostly useless husk.
Google’s intended use case for AOSP going forward is for vendors to be able to test pre-release things, primarily in an emulator environment.
Couple that with things like Samsung’s Qualcomm phones can’t be bootloader unlocked, and less and less phones in general can be bootloader unlocked, it is going to be an uphill battle for alt OSes.
Hopefully, this will drive enough dev time towards getting a proper Linux-based mobile device in the works, but even that will be problematic as most modems/chips available for that kind of project are inferior, slow, do not support all the bands/modes of modern carrier networks, and even after all of that, the carrier can still reject to certify the device for the network.
It isn’t hopeless, but everyone is going to have to get creative and driven if we have any intention of retaining free and open mobile devices.
There is still this. SONY’s phones are expensive, unfortunately.
Yeah, I’ll never buy another Sony phone or Sony anything if I can help.
I bought one and used it to miracast to various devices.
With an update, they removed miracast capability on the phone. The same way they removed Linux from the PS3.
Will never trust them or buy Sony anything again.
I won’t trust them to not screw me over for things outside of my control.
I was looking into Sony for my last phone, but one of my friends ended up getting one before I did and he hard pushed me away from it. He said it was a hassle for him to unlock it, and that they moreorless said that the act of unlocking the bootloader will void his warranty (which is not legal in the US) and that after 2 tries of unlocking and having it not unlock, he returned it and went to another company (I think it was oneplus?), he also wasn’t impressed with the performance vs price that he was getting out of it.
GrapheneOS said they are working with an unnamed OEM to make devices compatible with GOS. Hopefully they are good, because Pixels may indeed be a dead end.
If they do and it’s a good phone, I may literally move back to Android just for that after 3 years of daily driving iOS. Right now choice is between giving my money to Apple vs Google so I might as well go with the one that has tighter hardware-software integration.
Well said, and you’re right, it’s not hopeless. Most people don’t need the latest superphone, personally I want to carry around a good music device, that I can read books on, and preferably have maps. Many like cameras, but I like the idea of a devoted one. The communications (/surveillance) device is a separate thing and perhaps we should think seriously about breaking these things apart, hotspot that you turn on when needed for example. How about a nice general purpose pocketable linux gadget and a secure simple telecom to give it a connection?
this is honestly my ideology at the moment… like freedom was the main reason I’m on android. Price wise it’s already getting close, and most flagships have removed microSD card support by now. I’m seriously debating my next phone being an iphone just because most of my family uses them, and my convenience being on android is being actively removed anyway.
I can’t even imagine that transfer, I’ve been android my entire life but, every time I talk to my family I list what I want in a phone, and every time I talk to them it seems apple has marked another issue off the list with an update.
I went Apple for a bit around iphone 6. then back to Android. But Apple has solved most of my OS complaints since and I’m still Android mainly because it’s open. I already know Google is making bank off my info, if they do this bullshit, I’ll go Apple until Linux is baked.
TBF, I could also see myself with a mobile access point and a small linux tablet but I don’t see much in that realm either. .
Take the one thing Android has over Apple away. Why go Android then
They’ve passed the critical mass wherein they can dictate anything they want without losing any significant userbase. The only people that this is going to affect is a tiny minority of people who even know what sideloading is. If you don’t think so, you’re in a bubble.
These fuckers never wanted to be user centric opposite to apple, they wanted to be alongside apple in telling users what they can or cannot do. They’re worse because of the whole advertising monopoly but most people don’t even know what any of the above matters. They’ll continue on like everyday.
The EU would like you all to bend a little lower and gag
https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification/issues/18
Maybe this would be a push for a real open source based phone. GNU/Linux phones needed this push to really get more popularity
You can’t sideload on Linux.
…because why "sideload"when frontload works directly? I guess…maybe it’s your cuckold fetish to watch someone else nerd your box…
Don’t even try to get me started on windoze until the fucking Epstein files are releeased.
Not if age verification apps have any say.
https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification/issues/18
Well, I never gave them permission to install Google Chrome. Maybe they should start thinking about their self first…
I hope this means the resurgence of cheap flip phones. I have no use for a pocket computer that I can’t use like a computer. I went with Android because iOS was useless, and now Android is about to be made equally useless.
Will be interesting to see how many people move over to iOS now that Google is trashing Android’s redeeming feature.
I’ve enabled the advanced protection and it’s so easy to turn off to install a single app and turn back on but I haven’t seen it as an issue. Is there something new now? Because I’m not seeing an issue here.
Yes they are, for all intents and purposes, making it impossible to turn off advanced protection. The only way to install unverified apps will be via developer mode and if you turn that on a bunch of apps refuse to run until you turn it back off
Well fuck that then. I guess I’m going to have to get a graphene OS put on this mother fucker.
That’s really too bad because I did appreciate all the other features of advanced protection except for that.
Presumably, rooted users/custom ROMs should be able to get around this, but how many developers are going to continue to support development and/or release .apk files if it’s only a tiny subset of the userbase they can reach?
The only way to install unverified apps will be via developer mode and if you turn that on a bunch of apps refuse to run until you turn it back off.
Wait, when did this become a thing? I’ve had developer mode turned on on my phone for ages without any issues.
Not sure when exactly but some banking apps in the UK refuse to run if they detect developer mode is enabled and, given the general trend towards locking everything down, I expect many other mainstream apps to enforce these checks at some point.
I guess one could run two phones, an official phone for banking etc and another one with dev mode for pissing around but these rules will reduce the number of people who install unverified apps to a very small number
Build up graphene and Linux phones!
Lineage OS works for me
it is not secure for modern threat models… even of basic normie. unlocked bootloader with ice around is unacceptable.
Can you explain why? Does your threat model involve nation state actors compromising your phone physically?
The core problem isnt nation state actors. Could just be your local police department searching your phone with tools built by those nation-state actors. Cellebrite documentation gets leaked from time to time, and iOS is safe if it’s off and gos is safe with default settings, everything else is breakable.
And that is local podunk cop who just takes a interest hooking up your phone to a cracking tool…
Now every police contact becomes a opportunity to leak all of your digital life
- traffic stops
- DUI checkpoints
- boarder crossings
- witnessing a crime (phone is now evidence)
- protests
- contempt of cop, etc
Bootloader is for defence against Evil Maid, and Afaik, ICE is just gonna snatch you, not do a “Evil Maid” attack, so just get it rebooted before you get taken and they shouldn’t even be able to decrypt it since its BFU. (You’ll need a long password/passphrase tho since PIN Limits can be bypassed because bootloader is unlocked)
Edit: Also reboot your phone before going to sleep in case you get raided midnight.
GrapheneOS is probably not long for this world with how much Google has been fucking with AOSP’s source code releases. We need full-fat mainline Linux on our phones, with no Android code included.
I have a question for all Pixel/Graphen OS users. Will these changes affect new users (I am currently interested in purchasing a Pixel 8 to install Graphen OS for the first time and want to use apps from outside the Google Store) and current users (if I want to install an app on GraphenOS, e.g. via F-droid or Aurora Store, will I be able to do so in the future, or is there no information on this and only time will tell)?
Not a GOS user, but as far as I know, you will still be able to install shit on GOS
This linux phone by Liberux seems like the most promising option in the near future. The crowdfunding campaign failed this summer but the project is still moving forward, just waiting to hear more from them @Liberux
Also GrapheneOS but not sure how far along any of this is: “We plan to partner with OEMs to have devices produced meeting all our requirements, providing additional privacy/security features beyond them and ideally shipping with GrapheneOS rather than massively lowering our standards.”
Edit: here’s a recent post from GrapheneOS from August 2025:
So any rumors on that major Android OEM?
That Liberux phone looks pretty cool, though I’m not sure how Linux apps would work. Does it just use Android apps? I can’t imagine too many Linux programs would work well on a phone, both because of the size as the screen as well as battery usage/background sleep.
Linux phone OSes can usually run Android apps through a VM but generally you want to avoid it for performance and privacy reasons.
There are apps available for mobile Linux that are optimized for small screens and touch. Just not a ton understandably due to low userbase.
Isn’t Liberux a crowdfunfing scam?
Why do you make baseless claims like that? They refunded everyone when they didn’t meet their funding goals, and also committed to creating a special edition phone in the next campaign for everyone who supported. You can see the campaign here on indiegogo
Edit: Librem and Purism the controversial ones, not Liberux
LMAO
Unfortunately for the US (possibly other countries?) we’ve shut down 2g/3g. 4g/5g here don’t support calling only VoLTE and Vo5G and as far as I know Linux phones haven’t figured those out meaning calling on Linux isn’t currently a thing.
Of course they have. We even have the Librem 5 that’s sold here. The big problem the linux phones face is the cost of getting certified by all three carriers here — and without carrier cert, they just don’t work.
