alt Hacker NewsI have a motorola smartphone. I don't have google play installed. I mainly use obtainium for app installation. Its a bare bones phone and it drives my business partner crazy.
"Just log into our instagram account and. . .right, you don't have insta installed on your phone."
"Can you log into our scheduling app and. . . right, you don't have that installed on your phone either."
Some of the more painful things you have to deal with:
- Chromite and Iron Fox filtering out a ton of stuff so a lot of sites simply don't work
- Organic maps is slow and hard to use compared to Google and Apple maps.
- Fairmail that blocks a ton of images and other code - which is good, but had to get used to seeing everything blocked visually.
- Not having any banking apps on my phone. Every time my son needs a few bucks in his account, my wife has to do it if we're out.
- The open source weather apps are not very accurate. Usually within a few degrees, and the radar is hit or miss.
Kind of odd that we have to try so hard to ensure our own privacy. I'm up for a new phone this Fall so I'll most likely be moving to a newer Pixel and will get Lineage or Graphene installed on it.
Replies
> Every time my son needs a few bucks in his account, my wife has to do it if we're out
So the burden is on her?
> The open source weather apps are not very accurate. Usually with a few degrees, and the radar is hit or miss.
If you are in the US, check out wX: https://f-droid.org/packages/joshuatee.wx/
It's fairly technical and it is very configurable (so it can take some fussing to get it set up the way you like), but it pulls data directly from NWS and has been very accurate for my family.
Business requires sacrifice. I'd get a separate business phone for your business's Instagram and your business's Facebook and so on. You have to have Instagram the same way you have to have an accountant - hold your nose and do it anyway - refusing either one will just ensure your failure.
To each their own, but this seems more like purposefully handicapping yourself (and annoying those around you) over a very much false sense of privacy or “disconnection”. If it works for you then kudos, but I personally see this as an increasingly futile exercise with very little to no positive net return.
> - Not having any banking apps on my phone. Every time my son needs a few bucks in his account, my wife has to do it if we're out.
This is the most tyrannical things about smart phones -- banking apps. I get it, the bank wants to ensure the platform is not a liability. But it forces most of us to use one of the only two "trusted" mobile providers on earth: Google or Apple, both of which are American (and I'm an American.) The only alternative is a browser which comes with its own set of problems.