Privacy

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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.

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What phone brand do you like the best? (midwest.social)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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*In terms of privacy, customisation, camera quality, and battery time.

For the longest time I have only used either iPhone or Samsung. I plan on switching to Android for the next phone I get, but I find that Samsung phones are often too big for me and put too much energy on camera quality (I don’t take many photos). I have started to look into brands such as Nokia and Motorola, and I would like to know what you guys think of them. Additionally, do you suggest any other phone brands aside from them? My biggest priorities are privacy and long battery time. Bonus if the phone can run LineageOS (I have excluded Graphene as they are only compatible with Pixel phones).

Thank you for any answers. Cheers!

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

iMessage and FaceTime are really not that relevant outside the US and, as you said, can be relatively easily replaced by Signal. As another commenter pointed out, it’s more about little things like Airdrop or iCloud’s all around seamlessness that cannot be matched by anything else I’ve tried. Family sharing alone would be a major loss if I were to switch. What Google or Microsoft have to offer in that regard is laughable in comparison (not that they’re any more “private”), and AFAIK, there is no FOSS alternative all of the iCloud family sharing functionality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Makes sense, thanks for elaborating.

I'll have to look into the FOSS tools to see what could be a reasonable set of alternatives. Some initial thoughts:

KDE Connect - connects phone to Linux computer in an interesting way - easy to send files, see SMS, and a couple other things; it's a bit chunky, but maybe something I could help with
restic - automatic backup for desktop; pair with Syncthing to automatically keep stuff on your phone synced with your desktop
Steam now has better family sharing, and you could set something like Plex up to handle video streaming for owned content

But each of these are a bit inconvenient compared to what Apple offers. I'll think about it some more, and maybe I'll try building something. My kids will be getting old enough to have phones in a couple years, and I'd really rather avoid Apple's ecosystem, but their friends will likely all have iPhones so I'll want a reason for them to prefer something else.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I already use KDE Connect to exchange files with my Linux laptop and it’s not the best, but it’s good enough for the occasional thing.

Steam is not a solution IMO because it locks you in just as much as Apple while being clunky and giving you the illusion of choice. And it’s only for games. Family sharing on Apple products is more than games. If you’ve bought apps or subscriptions, you can share them with family members at no additional cost (if the app opts into that which is disclosed to you very clearly in the App Store). Screen Time is great to block apps above a certain age rating and to restrict or outright block purchases for children. Another thing is location sharing in the Find My app. I know there are many solutions for that, but I just like the UX in the Find My app a lot more.

About the Plex server, I’ve heard they’ve changed their TOS and are now pretty shady or something. Also, if I were to make a server like that, I’d be pirating stuff anyway which I already do through my go-to pseudo-streaming piracy sites.

I could see myself hosting a Synology NAS in the future, but that is still not as convenient or well thought out as the iCloud services tbh.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

sharing apps

Yeah, unfortunately that's not possible (legally) without being the digital store owner (like Valve for Steam) or the seller of the app. Fortunately, we don't buy apps, so it's not an issue (everything we want to share is a free download, like Netflix or whatever).

But I think the rest should be possible, there just isn't a nice, FOSS ecosystem for it.

Plex

I've never actually used it. I just configured minidlna to stream in my home, so I put my movies and whatnot on my NAS and it's available on my TV. I set up a Samba share for my wife so she can upload/download whatever she wants, and it's working well.