With the recent changes to how Google is doing things with Android, is it even worth it anymore? Should I just accept whatever version of Android comes with whatever phone or are custom ROMs still worth it? Assuming they still exist after all of this, idk what’s going on.
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I went the pixel and graphene route and I’m pretty happy with it. if Google locking out drivers means there won’t be graphene for the next line of pixels, I’ll probably just see what phones calyx or lineage support and roll with something from there.
I’ve been fortunate to not have any issues with banking services. the only big thing I lack is maps. there’s not a one to one replacement for Google maps, so I just use a dedicated GPS in my vehicle. (before folks start typing at me, yes I’m aware of organic maps and etc but they absolutely lack a lot of data, especially in my semi-rural area)
Agree 100%.
And re maps they are hardly in my country let alone my region. I’d be the only one “helping” the mapping so I’d be doing my own maps.
Really n wish there was an alternative (yes some address searches > open maps exist but its not seamless)
kagi’s map feature seems to have a bit more detail than the usual osm wrappers but it is a paid service and i still haven’t figured out how to get directions to work (that last part is on me, though).
I already gave up. Don’t get me wrong GrapheneOS is great but it’s getting harder and harder to keep working around security measures employed by my banking and government apps. Plus when my Pixel’s screen broke and the price to fix it was the price of a new one I just said fuck it and went back to Samsung.
Might I suggest having a government/banking apps phone and a separate personal phone? Is this feasible for you? I don’t really have government apps, my separate flip phone is just for calling and 2fa sms messages
If you count Grapheneos, absolutely. I still regularly flash Lineageos to older devices too.
The custom rom scene isn’t what it used to be, but these two in particular are absolutely carrying the community on their backs.
After using GrapheneOS for about 6-8 months now, I can never go back to stock. If it dies, I’m just gonna get a linux phone for something at this point
FYI, Google’s recent decisions only affects pixels. Android is still open source (for now at least).
Even if they close source it for the future, any code already released is already public forever. Customs roms can just continue on from the latest open source code and works their way into what’s effectively a linux phone OS.
In the end, everything becomes
crabLinuxIsn’t android basically just heavily modified and corpified linux for phones?
At this point that feels like the argument that macs are just Linux/bsd there’s an argument to be made ona. Technical level.
But I’m unless you want to be disingenuous then practically no not really.
It makes sense if your phone is well supported in the custom ROM comunnity and doesn’t receive feature or security updates from the manufacturer anymore. I am already 3 Android versions past the last supported Android version by the manufacturer thanks to community maintained ROMs. (Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC).
Uhm, what’s the alternative? I don’t want my phone to send my location 24/7 to Google or Samsung, whom I talk to and what websites I visit, maybe every single keystroke if the keyboard does weird things for machine learning or backing up word lists in the cloud… I want an operating system that has all of this disabled per default. And as far as I know that’s some custom ROMs and there is no other alternative.
The alternatives are:
Pinephone - which is, IMO, insecure because it lacks a user relockable bootloader with a custom key for verified boot (making it suceptable to evil maid attack and malware would persist through reboots)
Librem 5 - which is sold by a shady company (search “Louis Rossmann Purism” and you’ll see why), and it also has terrible specs for the price.
Well, I already own a Pinephone and I can tell you it’s not a viable alternative. It’s awesome and great for tinkering. But try and use it for 2 days in real life and you’ll buy another Pixel and fit it with GrapheneOS, just to get on with your day. At least that’s what I did. It has minor hardware woes, major software issues, there is no modern standby and you just won’t get a notification if your friends change plans. And it’s 50 more annoyances like this each day. You constantly need to work around things like not being able to buy a train ticket. And the browser is as sluggish as on a first/second gen Android from 18 years ago. And a Librem isn’t substancially better, just 3x the price.
(And I’m not sure about Rossman’s take on Purism. They definitely made some bad decisions and severe mistakes. It is hard to do this. Projects run over budget. But it’s not necessarily all malice. I think Rosmann exaggerates it a bit for Youtube clicks. It’s more some stupid (and very questionable) business decisions. But there is more nuance to it.)
whom I talk to and what websites I visit, maybe every single keystroke if the keyboard does weird things for machine learning or backing up word lists in the cloud…
None of this has anything to do with custom ROMs vs stock Android. These are all problems at the application and settings level and can be solved without changing the operating system.
Idk, can you easily replace the Location Services? The captive portal checker? GCM with a different push service, or the built-in Webview with a better version, and have the permission system and the firewall of the operating system prevent proprietary apps from having too much access and phoning home, unless they’re designed to allow it? …I mean sure, you can replace the default keyboard without much effort. But I thought all of the other things were impossible on a stock ROM and then you don’t even have things like storage scopes and so on?
I honestly haven’t even felt the need to root my phone, let alone install a custom rom, for the past 10 or so years. Uninstall all the crap with ADB, toggle on Sensors Off from the hot bar, and don’t worry about it.
Custom ROMs were always a pretty niche thing, and they’ve become much less worth it since:
Stock Android doesn’t suck as much as it used to
Banking Apps aren’t guaranteed to work
VoLTE doesn’t work (this might depend on phone model)
Most manufacturers now offer software support for a reasonable length of time
So unless there’s an old feature you want to keep (LG Quad DAC diehards represent), or you’re super privacy-conscious, most people aren’t going to bother.
To be completely honest, if Google kills ROMs, I would probably just get an iPhone…
No way apple suck
If they kill grapheneos I’m switching to a raspberry pi zero 2W with a touchscreen.
I don’t know about others but I like my phones to actually last.
My previous phone was a Sony Xperia z1. It went with me for more than 7 years working great until I accidentally dropped it and the screen cracked. Changed the screen but it wasn’t the same thing and the battery suffered too so decided to get another one, a Xperia 1ii. This november it’s going to be 5 years since I got it and it’s still going absolutely great.
But on both times they went great not only because Sony happens to make great hardware but because LineageOS - I’ve used it on other phones since it was CyanogenMod. As not everything in the world is perfect Sony gives no flying fucks about updates so in two years your phone is not going to get more official updates - enter LineageOS, GrapheneOS or what you like. I’m grateful those things exist, have donated to them and it will be very sad if one of those Google stupid movements make them vanish.
I have no alternative but used phone + lineageOS; the stuff you’re mentioning (new phone with whatever crap they installed on there) isn’t even on my radar as an option.
as to longevity, it’s a stop-gap to hold us over until postmarketOS or any of its brethren are ready. banking on the benevolence of evilcorp to give us this thing for free for ever isn’t a viable strategy.
I want VOLTE on postmarketos sooooo badly. Grab a 6T and just run it into the ground
I remember my first custom ROM on a HTC and it was amazing ! Soooo fast, new features etc. Samsung s3 was pretty good & really fast, s8 was ok but it did make the camera crap. S10 really quite bad camera plus thanks to google play stuff I can’t run most of my tasker stuff.
I still use 3.5mm headphones, aux cables etc so that will be the deciding factor in my next phone. If I can run a custom ROM thats a bonus in my eyes (tho if the camera is bad I’ll go stock)
I would probably hold off on buying a phone specifically for the purposes of installing a custom ROM on it, but existing users are fine for now. If you have an older phone that is no longer receiving updates then it is still worth seeing what’s out there. Custom ROM installation is generally extremely simple and quick these days so there is little in the way of risk or time commitment.
I would probably hold off on buying a phone specifically for the purposes of installing a custom ROM on it… Custom ROM installation is generally extremely simple…
Hahaha, nice joke:
That’s just confirming it’s generally extremely simple.
Last month I tried to unlock a Motorola phone. Guess what: There is no option to unlock the bootloader because it’s one of the models that can’t.
The year before a Huawei phone: I had to disassemble half the device to shortcircut something while running a custom made software on the PC.
Yeah now try to get an average user doing this… good luck.
And I’m not even scratching the part where some of your devices hardware is not working properly because the closed source firmware is not available.
A quick look at which recent phones (since 2022) can install LineageOS: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ Just 35 phones (Pixels exluded), including only a single Samsung phone!
Now compare that to installing Windows/Linux on a PC where you literally plugin a USB and hit install…
So it’s hard on some phones. Lineage OS support also isn’t any indication of how hard it is to unlock. The more popular devices are all easy to unlock.
Most of those are extremely simple. I don’t get why people shit their pants when they see the words “command line”. You are following basic instructions and copy/pasting text; you would need to be illiterate or braindead to get tripped up by it.
As someone who used to change ROMs and kernels almost weekly back in the day (when I had more time lmao), honestly, not really.
Stock android already provides so much these days that used to take a custom ROM to obtain. And what isn’t, can be provided via a LSposed module or Magisk Module, which is MUCH easier to handle than a full tilt custom ROM
There’s, one, exception though. If you want a custom ROM for a specific purpose then there might still be some utility there. Like GrapheneOS for privacy focus
Oh yeah, I used to absolutely wreck my battery life with custom ROMs that weren’t optimized well.
But they had “kernel tweaks for buttery smooth performance!!! *”
* oh yeah bluetooth, wifi, fingerprint sensor doesn’t work, camera takes green tint pictures, phone app crashes, and I’ve had some hard lockups, but it’s been my daily driver for two hours now and it’s awesome!!1!
This is pretty accurate lmao
We’ve all been there, back in the day haha
I think the ideas that android is an open os died a long time ago. If the android flavour doesn’t have the Google Play binaries it is next to useless
I mean, even without FOSS zealotry there are plenty of Android derivatives without Google services in them on weird Chinese emulation handhelds and SBCs and the like. Never mind fricking Huawei, at least until last year, and depending on how much you think their newer one counts as not-Android.
I really enjoy graphene and the separate user profiles with no google integration.
If a google app, or something from play store is needed they’ve developed a compatability layer and sandbox for play services and store.
It’s a lot of security toggles and permissions.
But not having Google sucking your data at every level of the OS is great.
Wirh the isolated profiles, you can still have a fully googled system which you can fully lockdown at anytime, while having a pure aosp high security profile.
It’s fdroid and Izzy/codeberg and ironfox and termux and a few other repos on main.
I don’t do snap/insta/meta/etc and have no need for apps that drain my soul, anyway.
Anyway, yeah, google fucking sucks.
