Posted by microtonal 2 days ago
I looked into the Light Phone and The Mudita Kompakt, but I ended up buying a refurbished Pixel 8 and putting Graphene OS on it, then I installed only essential apps I need. I keep my old iPhone 12 in a drawer at home and use it for anytime I Need any apps that don't work on a custom ROM, which includes my bank app (plus, imo, it's safer not carry around a phone that has my baking data on it in case it gets lost or stolen).
The light phones are a really cool concept but the Light Phone 3 is quite expensive (more expensive than a new Pixel 10) and the Mudita Kompakt seems to have a huge amount of grievances from users on their forum, so that put me off.
I've only ever used Cyanogen/Lineage or Graphene, so I had no idea this was a thing. I'm not surprised but ... WOOF.
This is true uninstalling, is it not?
Shizuku + ShizuTools
* https://github.com/timschneeb/awesome-shizuku
if you don't want some system app running just "uninstall" (disable) it with Shizuku + Canta on any non-rooted Android, my current phone is the first one in 15 years with Android which I didn't root since unlocking bootloader on XIaomi is pretty much impossible, but anyway I can achieve pretty much same results with Shizuku and additional apps like Canta, Hail, Shizuwall, etc.
Potential benefits:
as mentioned, Android 17 prohibits uninstalling system apps, but allows disabling disabling apps is usually safer, and they could be re-enabled from Settings in some cases many system apps run in the background after being uninstalled, but it's unknown whether they do when disabled. Neutral:
some apps might get re-enabled unless they're uninstalled (or the opposite). Potential harm:
that would make it more risky for those who prefer to uninstall instead to save storage most of the already listed apps are primarily tested for uninstalling rather than disabling disabling instead, decreases privacy by not hiding apps, keeping the device unique.
We'll see what happens with the proposed ADB changes. Lots of no one asking for this, lots of people describing how badly their phone use will be greviously impacted, and seemingly very little discussion/engagement/justification. Maybe they'll fire the bullet anyways. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/526109803
I thought it was 24 hours OR use adb?
Perhaps the problem is our desire to have everything, no matter what the compromises are. Perhaps the problem is our inability to say, I'm going to go with product X even though it lacks Y because we actually own X. There is virtually no incentive for competition to pop up in such an environment since established companies have a lead of years, decades if you consider the size of the established companies, so consumers will follow their lead.
I don't mean to suggest that buying alternatives is a solution to the problem as a whole, but doing so may allow enough niche products to survive to give those of us who are interested in alternatives and alternative to choose from.
With each new phone, the first thing I do is initiate an ADB session to begin (a futile attempt at) removing all unnecessary bloat. If I thought it wouldn't be flagged, I'd print a list of the unbelievably superfluous slop on a stock Moto (or any Android), and Moto is better than average -- but my comments have been getting flagged a lot lately and it's not worth the work.
Each year, the process becomes more and more restrictive, and what was nuke-able last year, is immutable the following. Because it's much easier and not much less relevant, I will print a list just of the Play Services festering in the background, viewable through 'developer options'. See:
CrisisAlertsPersistentServices; LifeCycleService; SndDetectionService; GmcService; OfflineBeaconService_Persistent; ContextManagerService; PersonalSafetyService; AuthenticatorService; SuggestionsProvider; ReceiveSurfaceService; SendSurfaceSrvice; IntegrityApiPersistentService; GmsCoreStatsService; LifeCycleService; EmergencyPersistentService; SemanticLocation-Service; LockScreenService; SchedulerService; GoogleLocation-Service; GoogleLocationManagerService; LocationsPersistentService; DiscoveryService; Google Play Services
Disabling as many of those as I can, the phone runs fine, with the obvious exceptions, such as google disabling certain apps that depend on the background festival.
The last I commented on this, I was attacked for being anti-Google, or something. But when I acquired this phone, if I remember correctly, I bought it, not leased it. My first smartphone was from 2017, and was a Pixel. I was never satisfied with the liberties it offered, but compared to each proceeding year, it could reasonably be considered utopic. With covid, contact-tracing, or the components thereof, were hard baked into the services suite. And then everything in general just got a lot worse.
My point here is not to rant, even if I am a bit. It's more so me sitting here in a mixture of awe, and cynical awareness, beholding how obtrusive, anti-user, brazen, opportunistic, self-serving, and ridiculous Android has become, and how little can be done about it, and how over time, the user's ability to do something about it, has been progressively chipped away, and is now essentially nothing, and this is all, by general consensus, just fine.
And we keeping getting stronger and faster phones. Imagine how strong and fast these phones would be without the festering festival in the background. And maybe, think of the landfills, and lithium mines. Or, just freedom and dignity, an endangered duo near extinction.
"If we are being asked to delete a system app for just one user set flag so it disables rather than reverting to system version of the app."
... Joy. This makes the 'nondisable' list an even more unhinged malware delivery mechanism for operators, because you won't be able to disable the carrier shitware app and it gets updates!
It's time to start cracking down on malware preloads on phones and the over-subsidization of consumer products. We need to stop accepting $50 smartphones and $100 smart TVs that are crammed with a few hundred dollars of profit for the manufacturer to shove ads and malware at you nonstop out of the box.