This reminds me that i wanted to unlicl my bootloader on my phone...
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Hey Folks, we have "AI" for you and you will use it, whether you want it or not...
Gemini? I don't have Gemini in my pixel 8a, stock
Laughs in Graphene
Google: Laughs in "Everybody else you communicate with who has that shit enabled"
Sadly true in any situation that requires talking to anyone else.
Is it just me or does it seem slightly sus that GrapheneOS is only available for Google hardware...
There are many technical reasons why: https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
Every Android phone (besides Pixel) fails to meet the high technical requirements of the project.
Sounds like they're intentionally setting the barriers to entry too high for anyone other than Google...
Ok. Which ones, and why?
Edit: I can see the 5 and 7 year support, but what about the rest of the list?
Mainly just that one mean it will never be available on any other hardware...
All the others seem like nice to haves rather than requirements to me(the first one is half required , half nice to have "...including full hardware security functionality"), but I guess I might change my mind when I get around to building a Linux phone when I have time to do that when I'm dead... 😅
Building a linux phone: do you mean from scratch, or just installing one of the Linux phone OS's that already exist?
I've been following Ubuntu Touch for several years now and, while they have made a lot of progress, its main hurdles have the same thing in common: mobile hardware is incredibly locked down. For example, Ubuntu Touch uses proprietary Android drivers for many low level functions. Even then, there's some features that aren't stable across all devices, like VOLTE.
It sucks, I really want to use Ubuntu Touch (or any of the Linux alternatives) but I can't make phone calls or text in the US without VOLTE support. There are a few phones that support VOLTE, but the feature is either in beta, the phone is expensive, or the phone is not sold in the US.
Anyways bringing that back to Graphene: In my case, I'm using this as a stopgap until Linux phones take off (assuming they ever do). For now I guess the best thing is to just be skeptic, keep things minimal, and bloat-free.
Not a day goes by that I don't regret installing that on my phone.
This... Except for contactless payment.
I used graphene for a month. It was lovely. Even things like banking apps worked.
I don't care about absolute privacy, but I do care about controlling my privacy. Grapheme gave me that.
I had only 1 issue.
Contactless payment.
It's extremely convenient to me, from public transport to groceries. I just bop my phone.
The fact that Google has that locked down surely violates some EU laws. But I'm sure they wave away the laws because of "financial security" or some other bullshit.
As if bank card NFC/contactless doesn't suffer exactly the same issues.
I looked into some "graphene contactless payment" type systems or workarounds, and I couldn't find anything that would fill the gap.
Try Curve Pay. Just learned about it yesterday. I added my credit card and it just works. Couldn't be happier.
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This may seem like a silly solution but maybe pop your debit card inside your phone case. It should bop through it.
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I hear so many people praise paying with their phones, and there I am, so happy that I can leave my phone at home when shopping. Each to their own I guess.
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So you regret it every day? GOS is amazing in my opinion. What's your gripe with it?
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I believe /e/OS supports a broader range of devices, and it's also pretty great in my experience. The focus is on getting rid of google (replacing all services with MicroG and nextcloud integration) and blocking trackers while providing a smooth user experience, so it's security features are not as over the top as Graphene. It's still a huge freaking improvement over stock Android though, and I find it to be a joy to use.
On devices supported by the online installer it can be up an running in like 30 minutes, no technical skills required. :)
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so jealous, wish it or lineage os worked on any of my phones
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My experience with Gemini:
Hey Google, set a timer for 5 minutes.
Gemini: I'm sorry, I don't understand.
WTF is the point of it then?
Imagine taking away the only useful feature of a voice assistant 💀
My recent experience with my phone is I tell it to set a 5 minute timer and it sets one in the fucking Google search browser, and if I page away I lose the timer.
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When I first got into Android (I miss my Nexus 6 T.T ), it felt like I could do so much more with my phone than I can now. I had so much cool automation shit that leveraged stuff like Google assistant voice commands, but now it's shit on so many levels. It goes beyond the user facing side of things; I used to use the app Tasker for a lot of the automation stuff, and over the years, it seems like the dev has been climbing an uphill battle against Google gating off functionality, and generally making things opaque and difficult for developers.
Your chats are saved in your account for up to 72 hours, whether Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.
https://myactivity.google.com/product/gemini
I wonder how long before AI services are added to ad blockers and VPN privacy controls.
up to 72 hours
(then we permanently add them to our private fingerprint folder based on any google-related link or api you've ever interacted with)
The time limits on their spyware might as well be ignored.
Bwahahahah
I locked that shit out fucking day one. Fuck Gemini.
Doesnt Apple also do this with Siri and basically every app unless the user untoggles it?
Yes, for the amount of hate Google gets... Which I think it is fair to be critical of any product that compromises privacy... I recently tried helping my mom clean up her iPhone, and seriously like 100x worse. Almost everything you do on Apple demands you have another Apple device. One of the worst experiences I've ever dealt with.
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Yes and you have to untoggle it for each and every app individually
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Anyone know if this is happening outside the US and if it is whether it's happening inside the EU?
Yeah, this seems like an easy lawsuit in the EU tbh
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I switched Gemini language to an unsupported language.
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