this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Android

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (16 children)

Honestly, Custom ROMs have been in decline of usage since few years. There are also Other ROMS like Pixel Experience, PixyOS, Havoc, evolutionX, PixelOS, Paranoid, Derpfest, CrDroid and lot more.

The reason for the drop is due to a combination of reasons like better OEM UI, unpublished Kernel code (Chinese OEMs, Mediatek), locked bootloaders and Safetynet issues.

I'm currently rocking CrDroid it has currently ~85K active devices (https://stats.crdroid.net/).

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Before i got my Pixel 6 Pro, i've been running Custom Roms on everything. The Pixel 6 Pro is probably the first device, i'm actually okay running Stock. It just does what it should. And i'll be honest, the hassle of getting it to work properly (Banking, Netflix, etc) is just too much for my everyday phone...Google really did a number on that one, both positive and negative. I kind of hate it...

[–] [email protected] 30 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Ironically that's one of the only phones that you have the choice of not running stock

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I know - which was the reason i got it in the first place.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

I used to turn to custom roms to extend the life of my phone. My first smartphone didn't get an official update after I purchased it for example. The custom roms often made the phone snappier too.

These days I'm on a mid range Samsung phone released almost 4 years ago and it's still getting updates.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ditto on a Pixel 6 Pro. There were a ton of people with issues when this thing came out, but I was lucky enough to dodge all the issues.

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (15 children)

Lineage OS is really great, I recommend the forked version with MicroG bundled to use google apps.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Depends on how pure you want to be. If you are a purest, that is a bad thing to do.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Well yes you are right, but being completely pure is borderline impossible IMO, and most people transition slowly.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

True. I have been using Lineage with no gapps package for a bit over 4 years now. I no longer even have a google account as of almost 2 years ago.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

It's a podcast. Most people listen to it while doing other things and don't watch it in a single sitting.

If you don't want to watch it, then don't, but it really is a great podcast.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I used LineageOS before switching to GrapheneOS

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (3 children)
  1. Quarantined google play services on an alternate profile was a big sell for me. I don't use anything google related in my day to day but occasionally I need traffic updates or alternative routes and I'm forced to use google maps. There's a few other exceptions where I very rarely will need to use google play services.

In those situations, I can boot to an alternate profile for each app I need to use, and I know google is unable to harvest the majority of my data.

  1. GrapheneOS has hardened security compared to lineageOS.

  2. LineageOS did some type of takeover on cyanogenmod and I forget the details but I remember the whole situation left a sour taste in my mouth.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago (14 children)

Considering the lead developer of GrapheneOS bans anyone from their chat for asking how an Android phone with GrapheneOS compares to a non-android phone, such as a PinePhone or Librem 5, in terms of security, because, according to said developer, PhonePhone and Librem5 are "scam products" and even asking questions about them is "spreading misinformation" and "promotion of fraud", I'd be quite, quite vary of the claims GrapheneOS developers make about its security.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

The lead dev stepped down months ago, and the main thing with non-Pixel phones are the lack of security which is why only Pixels are currently supported.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

They forked it when it was announced they were going to shut it down. Not sure what the issue with that is.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Here you can take a look at popularity by device

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And it could've even been useful, had they not chosen to show the code names instead of the make and model...

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Daaamn sagit (xiaomi mi 6) number 3. Writing this from a sagit with LOS, such a great phone. This is why it's great to have community supported roms, this phone hasn't been updated for many many years and would be close to being unusable if it wasn't for them.

I have this phone since December 2017 and I've had no issue so far to make me change. I've thought many times about upgrading, but it's so smooth, camera with gcam is great and new things like quick charging and 5g are things that I don't really need, so I haven't changed yet. I'm afraid of choosing a device that won't be as good as this one and that it won't last as long.

It's sad that community made Roms are less and less popular, I feel like phones are evolving less each year and Roms are a great way to have more control and extend the lives of your phone.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I'm obstinate as fuck, and I have a downright unhealthy resentment of having software capabilities taken away. As long as there's a single setting or feature that I can get from a custom ROM that I can't get on stock, I will use them.

Many versions ago, Google removed the "hold back button to kill foreground app" functionality, and I'll use LineageOS soley to keep that (but there's plenty of other reasons). The ability to restore useful features that Google and OEMs take away is an absolute necessity for me.

It's almost enjoyable; I get a kick out of telling Google to fuck itself and restoring my device's capabilities.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

There are DOZENS OF US! DOZENS!!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Lineage os is great

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

It's hard to find estimates of android devices, but most reports I found indicate around 3 billion, and this makes us around 0,05%. I expected it to be low, but not like that...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (2 children)

But how much of that is phones? There's a lot of other devices running Android.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

See the calculator some guy made run doom or a barcode scanner at my job.

Android is a fairly good target development platform, it's still getting updates, apps built for older versions of android still work on newer versions, large active tallent pool both perfessionally and hobbyist, absolute metric fuck ton of tutorials. Yeah, if you're making a new product it isn't hard to just make it an android computer and throw am app on there that you make that does the thing.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I recently used a Holter monitor that was an Android phone.

I've seen many, many handheld devices in retail environments that are clearly Android based.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Good point. I found no data making that distinction, so we can't really know.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

I've been using LineageOS on my OnePlus 8, after a couple buggy updates from the manufacturer. I haven't looked back once.

I use my phone pretty averagely and never run into bugs or problems, and the added features make it a no brainer.

I've rarely run into app compatibility issues, but there's usually a simple solution available. Or a different app!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How did they measure this?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I don't know the exact modus operandi, but usually this is achieved by using some "phone home" mechanism which sends a device identifier (to ensure uniqueness) along with an OS version (and maybe some other fingerprints to ensure integrity of the data - like a hash of CPU hardware, etc).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (5 children)

do banking apps work on it again?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

It's a constant cat and mouse game with Google. You can use Magisk with Zygisk enabled, Shamiko, and Play Integrity Fix (there's also a few other combos that work) to get baking apps to work. I have no issues on my rooted Pixel 8 Pro, but it's always a gamble if Google updates their end and then you get locked out of Google Wallet for a day once you update your fixes (not banking apps).

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Will be +1 when have official support for the poco X5 pro. (If I can pay with mobile)

πŸ€“

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I wish I could install lineage on my s10+ snapdragon. I just got this phone and now I just ordered a pixel to get grapheneos. I was willing to pay this guy on telegram to unlock my phone so I could try to get lineage to work or at least a custom rom, but my bootloader is one update off, I have v6 but he only supports up to v5. I hate ordering new devices when my current ones are still functional. I also am getting rid of my fitbit I also just got and replacing it with the amazon band 5 since it can connect to gadgetbridge. Degoogling is expensive, it shouldn't be this bad just to get privacy. I'm not sure what to do with my devices I am replacing, but I hate that they had to be replaced in the first place. I also switched from google services to proton mail/drive/vpn.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Keep them forever like I do! Just start collecting smartphones because it's better for the environment. I have like 10 of them never going into a landfill. Maybe find people who actually need phones idk.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I had LineageOS on my Nexus 4. Every damn phone I've had since hasn't had any custom ROM available (and one couldn't even be rooted; fuck Samsung). I want it back.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Here bro, once you get to choose a new device, you know where to look for

Https://lineageosdevices.com

All these are excellent rootable devices

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Does this include devices running unofficial ports of lineageOS?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Lineage is fucking Awesome. I fucking love android without google crap

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