this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
86 points (97.8% liked)

Privacy

31975 readers
231 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

My phone is no longer getting updates, so it's time to buy a new one. The hardware could easily last 1-2 more years but I'd have to replace the battery, which is a pain on my phone.

I'm looking for something that has long firmware support and some good privacy roms while not being worse than my current Oneplus 8 in any way. I don't care about cameras at all and I'm still mad about the missing headphone jacks, but unfortunately those don't seem to be coming back and I can survive without one.

So, the options are Fairphone 5 and Pixel 8 from what I found out. The Pixel 8 is a little small for my taste and with 256GB storage it's more expensive, but it does have grapheneOS, which I'd prefer because the app sandboxing would allow me to have peace of mind even if I have tracking apps sitting on my phone. I could use the proper play store and do IAPs without fiddling with aurora store. I use it already and it isn't great.

With the Fairphone, I'd get a replacable battery so I can buy a spare and swap instead of charging my phone. I used to do that with the good old S3 and it was great. MicroSD slot is also nice. But the ROM options are CalyxOS and /e/OS. I know Calyx has a nice firewall to keep tracking at bay and /e/OS is an LOS fork mainly focused on getting rid of google from what I know, but neither has as much protection as grapheneOS.

My main goal is to become less dependant on google while still being able to use google maps for my way to work. The traffic aware routing saves me 10 minutes every day so letting google know when I go to work is a fair deal.

So, any opinions or experiences with either? TIA

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'd get the Pixel because of the long, not to mention timely software updates and security patches, better hardware and GrapheneOS. If you do get the Fairphone, use DivestOS. See this comparison

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thanks, I've been looking for a comparison like that but search engines have just gotten ridiculously bad. /e/ slacking on the webview updates is interesting and steers me away from it.

I'm leaning towards the fairphone right now because it's cheaper at 256GB and not smaller than my current phone. DivestOS looks like it does most of what grapheneOS would do for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Glad I could help!