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I am an it at a company. Forcing updates is a necessity for some of our users. We have 5 year old phones which have never been updated, and needs to be for their software to work right.
That said what works in consumer space and what works in corporate is two different things. As a consumer I’d hate this and have moved away from preinstalled android years ago. But as IT, this needs to be here.
Ultimately I just think its laziness of the company to either not have a toggle for it. Or have a corporate build for corporate customers
You’re an information technology?
Mr information technology to you
Sewer clown.
I hate that my phone is held hostage. My computer is free thanks to linux, it just sucks theres few linux phones that work in the US.
GrapheneOS is at least better than Google android.
I have a Samsung sadly
Maybe you are lucky and have a model compatible with lineage
Sadly an s23 but im saving this link, thanks!
Graphene isn’t entirely better. It makes trades. Some of those trades get you things you might like but they also cost others things they may want to keep.
For example, I want a folding phone without fucking Gemini. I cannot have this without graphene os, but that also disables other things I still wants, like tap to pay or the ability to use certain banking apps.
GOS by all its strenghts, is following the paths treat by Google and Apple on defining what a smartphone has to be and how its security model has to look like, where only the OS distributor has full privileges, and you are just allowed to use it.
If you have the same requirements for your system as the people who designed these phones assumes you have, then GOS is great for you.
But if you want to tinker and customize, like we can with Linux systems, then Android and especially locked down systems like GOS aren’t for you.
I am using GOS myself, because it is good, but I also have a separate device of tinkering.
What do you have for a tinkering device, if I may ask?
Well, my old phone, with LineageOS. It is a OnePlus 8, but I probably wouldn’t recommended OnePlus phones generally, I was hopeing that it eventually get mainline treatment, like the 6T, but that hasn’t happen yet.
I rooted it for managing battery charge limits, among other stuff. Having a root shell in termux makes debugging or fixing app and other issues very easy.
For me it’s a necessary compromise.
I’m a Linux user on my other devices and I’d love to have a fully libre and open phone, but the most important thing for getting my life tasks done is that apps work, so I’m somewhat hostage to where the apps are available and will run.
Grapahene is me trying to achieve that in the least-bad way I can.
Sure, I get that.
But there are also people that don’t use banking apps or pay via NFC, etc. They use their phone just to call and text people, browse the web and take pictures. I will not recommend buying a Pixel and putting GOS on it, if they don’t specifically ask for a high security device.
If they are in the market for a new phone, I will recommend phones that are maintained for a long time and have a good active open source AOSP port community around them. For example the Fairphone with /e/ or Lineage with MicroG. Somewhere where people aren’t funneled towards google services. Since privacy is a bigger issue for most people than security.
Here is my list of what any device really should have:
- Make me able to use my device as I want to.
If the Operating System don’t agree - there MUST be a way to install alternative OS with a SINGLE BUTTON CLICK.
Oh, god. Think of what kind of world that would open up with this simple rule. The device could be a smartphone, Windows machine, termostat, or a dishwasher. Anything would never be obsolete anymore and all users can be happy - a machine obeying the user. Wonderful. Please EU fix this!
What kinda magic fantasyland one button click smartphone dishwasher…
Finally my dishwasher and thermostat can all run templeOS
“If we let you control your phones you’ll just mess them up!”
I am reading this with a rooted LineageOS phone with MicroG installed.
Which is our right. I paid for the phone. Google, Samsung, and Apple aren’t fucking paying me.
Which is our right. I paid for the phone. Google, Samsung, and Apple are
n’tfuckingpayingme.There, I fixed it. It’s time for a new FOSS phone OS to take over. GrapheneOS looks nice, but it only runs on select Google pixel devices. Maybe if phone manufacturers were forced to let the user chose their OS?
I would love to get GrapheneOS or some other similar OS but the lack of mobile tap-to-pay support just kills the idea for me.
I have this little offline only single purpose device that handles tap to pay for me. It is actually waterproof, survives falls, is light enough to not be noticed, and hasn’t run out of battery in a few years.
Jokes aside, what is wrong with good old plastic cards? If you don’t want an extra wallet (which I need anyway to carry ids, drivers license, cash, emergency ear plugs, a handy sticker or two…), just get a phone case with card/cash slot thingies.
As it is right now, my cell phone replaces a collection of about six plastic cards. I have not yet found a wieldy phone case that has space to store payment cards.
Realistically, this question could also be asked with cash. If you’re going to be pulling out a wallet-like item anyway, and you are that concerned with privacy, why not go with anonymous, fee-free, secure, actually offline paper money? Card processing is not offline. The card machine has to be connected to the Internet for it to work (offline card processing theoretically exists, but is not widely implemented enough to rely on and is not particularly secure).
If people are going to argue that wanting to pay with a cell phone instead of a plastic card makes me lazy because the card takes a few extra seconds to use compare to the phone, I’m going to argue in turn that they’re lazy for using a card when using cash, with all of its privacy benefits, also only takes a few seconds more.
How can you spend time thinking about phones, when there are children starving to death in Africa! See, I am can do that too.
Besides, I do carry cash for everyday expenses, and I do prefer cash. I don’t know where you got that idea from.
But the question was to replace tap-to-pay. Sadly, tapping people with a fiver makes them irritated at best.
I’ve got nothing against you. I’m just not willing to accept a lecture (from other people, not you) about being “lazy” for wanting tap-to-pay on my cell phone. My statement is that the convenience of tap-to-pay for payment cards and transit passes is not worth the otherwise marginal privacy benefit of switching to Graphene.
I’d love to own my own devices but I’m so addicted to my phone I can’t handle pulling out my lighter, smaller, always charged debit card and so will continue to give up my ownership rights so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.
Debit card? You let your bank know where you’re spending money??? Cash only for privacy
(I don’t actually follow this, I like credit cards and their rewards points, unless it’s actually cheaper to use cash)
I’d love to stay private, but I’m so addicted to giving my financial information to banks that I can’t handle pulling out a lighter, fee-free, no-Internet-access-required, and nearly universally-accepted banknote from my wallet and so will continue to give up data about my spending so I can continue to be mildly inconvenienced.
If you own a smartwatch that supports tap to pay, you can use that instead.
I was looking at that too and came to the same conclusion. I should probably migrate off apple at some point but Android in its current state is not viable for me.
What about it isn’t viable? Genuinely curious
I can’t use it stock because cell providers can push bullshit apps I don’t want without my permission and I can’t fully disable Gemini. Switching to grapheneOS addresses those concerns, but cause new problems, like killing tap to pay and triggering security flags on games and banking apps.
Yeah that’s a fair point. Some android models do have minimal or none bloatware, like Google pixel… But also then papa Google owns your ass lol
wasn’t there also some concern about messing up the radio communication for a lot of users?
the idea was that you actually can’t mess with radio communications. if you send too much data, it kinda clogs the airspace of radio frequencies and that’ actually illegal to do in many countries. rooting the android phone lets you access the radio antenna directly, and you can’t let playful nerds mess up the city’s mobile internet for a million inhabitants every other day. especially since the source of interference would be hard to track down.
Now i wonder what that would mean for mobile internet usb peripherals that you can plug into linux laptop and desktop machines. how do they solve this issue?
Rooting the phone means playful nerds could potentially mess up radio frequencies, but they can already do that because they can build radios using readily available electronic components. We already have all kinds of regulations about radio use, and we go after people who actually cause problems.
How long ago was this post? I also received OS update on my android just yesterday.
3h ago
/s
Still running good with LineageOS.
Seriously this. I don’t understand why suffering through manufacturers, customized skins and os’s makes any sense when lineage is such a solid option.
Lineage on my phone Linux on my computers degoogling services running on a micro cluster. It’s never been easier to get away from big tech.
Because the majority of people (I realise that won’t be the majority of people on Lemmy due to the general user base) aren’t technologically literate enough to flash custom ROMs and the like on phones even if they want to get away from the bullshit you mention.
Graphene is the easiest for sure and when more phones are supported with that kind of easy install I believe it will embolden more people to make the switch away from crap they don’t like.
im one of those people , im using op12r though, i heard on reddit they change it, but im not saavy enough to do it.
I think a big part of the problem with wider adoption, particularly of less tech savvy people, is the documentation is often terrible. This is true of the FOSS community in general in my experience. There are many great people working on great projects for the FOSS community but when it comes to writing a guide to help people implement things they far too often assume a level of knowledge of the reader that is unreasonable to assume for the wider world of people that could benefit from their work.
If more people could write simple, broken down guides on how to implement and use their software then it would decrease the barrier of entry. Far too many things I see have instructions that include terms or processes that are too complex to expect an “average” person to know or understand and that will put a lot of people off as your average user doesnt want to try hard just to figure out the language used for a world they may not have an interest in getting deep into but those same people could probably benefit from the end result.
that is true, im not saavy enough to know what a different OS does, and how to integrate it into my current phone. my 2 bros could though, since they are in the tech industry and are able to use other OSes on thier PCs.
if it was simple as downloading a specific app and then instructions, i think people would go for it.
Tech professionals often seem to believe that anyone without their level of knowledge doesn’t want to/can’t learn anything technical. I run into people like this on Lemmy often, and it’s frustrating. Everyone I know who is less tech savvy, including elderly people, want to learn and understand, they just can’t find a source of information that’s written for someone like them.
Yup, exactly!
I’m pretty tech literate but I still come across things often within the Linux space that I have only recently been delving into properly that are just not written in a clear, understandable manner and I then have to waste hours researching additional things often many layers deep where each successive thing throws up more unknowns.
I agree it is bloody frustrating! I can only imagine how put off people are that don’t have any tech know how to begin with!
My previous phone wasn’t compatible with lineage nor any of the other popular android derivatives.
That is part of why I only buy pixel phones used these days. I can get a last years flagship for 1/2 price, and I know it will run Lineage or Graphene. Given I generally hold onto a phone for about 4 years it ends up being a great value.
Did magisk become a lot better at hiding from banking apps? Because people have been saying “it’s fine, just install magisk and use the option to hide it” but my experience is “it only works sometimes for some apps, otherwise you’re fucked or you will be fucked next time the app updates its countermeasures”. But that was a few years ago.
It’s an absolute dealbreaker though. Without reliable mobile banking and eID it’s very painful to do any kind of online payment or admin work.
No idea, I don’t use magisk. I have lineageOS installed and mobile banking set up and never had to do anything funky…
Same on GrapheneOS.
But it’s cold outside.
These criminals know that the updates will negatively impact functionality thus forcing you to upgrade. It’s theft.
They want us straight into shackles. One could say that their behavior is downright rapey, and they will probably do that as well.
The solutions to such lawlessness is obvious.
funny how a(n implicitly) rooted linux computer is fine, but a rooted handheld linux computer is the devil and insecure.
If PCs came out today there is no way you would just be allowed to install Linux on it.
New ARM laptops coming out right now have their bootloaders locked. So yeah…
Not Macbooks though surprisingly.
You mean UNsurprisingly?
No, it’s surprising that Macs are not locked. Because the Mac OS ecosystem is usually locked tighter than a vir-, er, very tightly.
Ah fuck I read that as the bootloader being unlocked. My bad. Misread the comment you responded to
I am afraid you are right
I routinely get a Samsung notification telling me to agree to some new agreement thing. I swipe it away. It just reappears in 48 hours or so. I swipe it way. We’ve danced this dance for years.
I don’t know what it’s for, I don’t care, and things are just fine as is. There’s nothing it it for me so, no.
btw you might be able to block notifications from that app with long clicking
No, it doesn’t let you disable this notification unfortunately.
Please click here to agree to our new Samsung privacy policy.
I’m sure that they would choose to interpret the swipe to clear it as a click
but yeah my last phone I did that for several years. nope, no thank you.
every time I start my TV I have to say I don’t want the new firmware because it comes with a new privacy policy / user agreement
I will need to buy a new TV soon, and the single biggest factor won’t be price, features, or quality, it will be the absolute minimum smart features available. I’m fine with a sleep timer, and built-in audio smoothing would be great, but I can add anything else I want with a dongle that costs less than $100 (or just attach a full-blown computer to it). I’m not made of money, but I’m fortunate enough that I can afford to buy a TV with something other than an opportunity to invade my private life for marketing.
The other thing I’m looking for is a decent non-Google/Apple smartphone with an eye to privacy. A decent Linux phone would be great, Sailfish OS looks promising, maybe there are other options. Hopefully my Samsung lasts until then. When one of their updates came out whose main feature seemed to be the ability to spy on you everywhere, I closed my account and don’t even have that logged in anymore. There are a number of interesting features I can’t use, and a lot of terrible features I don’t want, that aren’t available to me anymore. A smartphone that belongs to me, and not some corporate conglomerate would be nice. We’ll see.
Sailfish isn’t bad but its a compromise. I don’t like that it’s not open source. I’m happy to pay for it, but I’d prefer if it were a community project rather than something buiut behind the closed doors of an understaffed company.
That said I’m using it to type this comment so I must still think its better than the alternatives.
We bought a smart TV a couple years ago, and it was so hard to find a model without a built-in microphone… No I don’t want my fucking TV to listen to every word said in the room.
I do the same. I’m close to just delete my samsung account because I don’t really need and/or use it.
My Samsung forced update and installed bloatware. I’m looking forward to going back and getting a clamshell phone from
tothe 2000’sI use an app specifically designed to automatically dismiss notifications and I use it to dismiss this Samsung one you mentioned and the voice mail notification, which for some ridiculous reason can’t be disabled.
Which one
This one: https://joaoapps.com/autonotification/ lots of features, somewhat confusing, but I literally only use it for the auto-dismiss, which works so well the notification doesn’t even appear so it’s effectively disabled.
I use Macrodroid for similar notification handling shenanigans. I even bought it bc it’s so beautifully customisable 👌
The owner of Macrodroid has started cramming third party trackers into the app to cash out on it. When I started using the app a few years back, the Exodus privacy report for the app counted 2 trackers on the app, one for ads for the free version and one for crash reporting. Now it counts 30 of them, almost all analytics and telemetry. This is an insanely high number. Considering the amount of access and permissions Macrodroid needs to function, this is terrifying.
ugh, thanks for the heads-up!
Same with WhatsApp for me, there are new terms and conditions that allow engagement with businesses and sharing some personal data with them, I’ve been rejecting that shit for four years now, they still keep asking.
And the app still works? Mine told me it was compulsory and would stop working if I didn’t agree
Sometimes it’s true but they’ll always let you agree later if they do disable things, so always reject them the first time, in case its an empty threat.
At some point it annoys me so much I just hit accept. It’s probably nothing anyway.
That’s what they want, so spite fueps my resolve to reject it repeatedly
Win11 When i hit “restart” after work to boot into Linux: “You mean log off … You wanted the log in screen right?”
What version of windows 11? I’ve been using Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC and haven’t had too many issues.
You dont own something unless you install linux on it
this can be easily remedied by killing all of humanity except yourself
Are you telling me Linux doesn’t have automatic updates?
Sure it does, if you turn them on. Here’s the relevant screen in Linux Mint Cinnamon.
Do note the bright orange warning!
It does not. No normal Linux distro installs updates without user consent. You can turn that feature on though if you like.
I have a desktop I built in 2019 with no TPM running. Windows 10.
Starting a couple of months ago, occasionally when it boots it will automatically open a full-screen ad for Windows 11.
It’s extremely disruptive because of my setup. I use my monitors and keyboard for my work laptop and have a KVM to switch between the two, and since I use that space for work I don’t like to spend much time there for recreation. So I often turn my desktop on and run it headless whenever I’m done with work, and don’t see the ad, which then messes up my attempts at streaming. So I need to walk back upstairs to switch the KVM and close out of it manually.
No matter how many different “permanent” solutions I can find on the internet it keeps finding a way to do it again every couple of weeks. I’ve moved to Linux on most of the rest of my personal machines, but this desktop has all my old music production software that needs Windows. I’m getting pretty close to just investing in a different music production platform that works with Mint though.
Or that “Let’s finish setting up your PC” box as if I haven’t been fucking using it for ten years.
Which is just fucking using Onedrive to save your personal files on Microsoft’s servers.
Fuck you, Microsoft! I don’t want to login with your fucking servers.
I know it’s been rough for a buddy in a similar situation, but if you’re an ableton user, he’s found bitwig to be the closest thing to come to what he needs. But I believe he’s still had some driver trouble in places. I don’t do much myself as a full-time linux user, but what I ave done of late I’ve used in-the-box deals like an MPC Live for the heavy lifting, then recorded into
Microsoft Paint for AudioAudacity on my actual machine from the box.I actually use Cakewalk Sonar X2 mostly. Cakewalk went out of business and has been bought-and-sold and resurrected multiple times since I bought it back around 2014-ish. Whenever I built my desktop in 2019 it was kind of a miracle I was able to get the license activated- I forget what ended up working but I remember having to do a bunch of online searching through forum discussions to get it done.
I downloaded the trial version of Reaper on my Linux Mint machine and it’s… Okay. And to be fair at $60 it’s a lot cheaper than the $150 or so that I paid for Cakewalk. Considering I’m not doing anything professional that’s probably what I will go to eventually.
Sometimes I look at the pace of technological progress and think that humanity is moving too fast for its own good. There’s constantly new companies and new products starting up and then going bankrupt and obsolete in a couple of years. The Cakewall software I have is perfectly fine- it could run just fine on far weaker hardware, there aren’t any features in other modern software that I feel like I’m missing. It just feels so wasteful to have to spend time, energy, and money to switch to a new platform because capitalism dictates I must.
Check out Ardour as well!
I can’t remember the drama with audacity, the usual over reaching and collection of data type shit I think but you should check out Tenacity instead which is a fork of Audacity.
idk what you are using but bitwig runs well on linux and is pretty modern and good, reaper is a little uncomfortable to use but extremly powerful
If it’s supported by your hardware and software you’re still using, I’d be tempted to blow away Windows 10 and put Windows 7 on there. I ran Windows 7 for several years after support ended - best Windows experience ever. Rock solid stable and no hassles of having to deal with updates. I eventually moved onto Linux after continuing to run Windows 7 for general desktop usage started to become unfeasible, but for something that just needs to run Windows to do some specific things, I’d definitely consider it.
Yea, that’s a Windows Home thing.
Upgrade to pro, where that stuff doesn’t exist.
Not to justify it, but the thinking by MS is “this OS is free, so you get ads”, like commercial TV or the rest of the nonsense on the internet.
Also, I’ve run Windows with updates disabled since Windows XP, and have rarely run into problems. I say this as someone who’s been in IT since the early 90’s. I’ve seen 10x more problems caused by updates at work than anything else.
At home I enable updates every 6 months, then go manually grab the updates I need, or else it’ll update things that will break my system.
Is Windows Home free? I’ve certainly never seen it be free. I’m ok with free stuff needing to make money somehow, within reason, but the second they start asking for creditcard information that shit better be clean as a fucking whistle.
That is a way to steal it(I ain’t no snitch, though) but it doesn’t actually refute my point.
not exactly, see here for an example:
https://feddit.org/comment/7945682
you’re not stealing anything using the script
Microsoft being bad at their jobs and leaving huge holes in their software does not mean you aren’t getting something for free that you’re supposed to pay for.
Microsoft Home does cost money, and therefore should not have any ads. That’s it, that’s the end of it.
At this point I don’t even know what I’m supposed to pay for. I had two Windows 10 Pro licenses, transferred those with Microsoft on the phone from OEM to virtual machines, then reinstalled them with Windows 11 and had to activate them with Massgrave scripts. Am I supposed to be paying for those? I don’t want to hire a lawyer.
I paid for my Windows license already, I think it was like $110. I’m not really interested in giving Microsoft any more money to continuing to use a product which is worse than the one I already paid for.
Windows Home isn’t free, though.
I don’t use my Windows 10 desktop a ton, but I’ve definitely gotten the full page “Update to Windows 11” screen a few times, and it has Windows 10 Pro installed.
Even better if you can get your hands on an Enterprise key. Even more configurable and is doesn’t have some of the annoying items.
Have you heard about out lord and saviour the Linux kernel?
Hail to the minty freshness
Have you tried GRC’s InControl? Supposedly helps prevent the win11 update attempts.
Oh thanks I’ll have to give that a shot later!
No matter how many different “permanent” solutions I can find on the internet it keeps finding a way to do it again every couple of weeks.
Can I ask which version of Win 10 are you running? I have never run into this with Windows 10 Enterprise (or Education) versions.
Alas, I am running the Home version. I did find in my research posts from sysadmins running the Enterprise version who seemed to have more luck permanently disabling it than I did.
My undergrad university offers licensed Windows desktop OS to Alumni free of charge. This is how I’m legally using Windows Education version (which is the same as Enterprise). I got the sense it was part of a packaged software benefit program MS offers to educational institutions. You may want to see if yours does the same so you could get it free too.
if you wanna switch to the pro version, which should also be better in this regard, here’s a handy link:
https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
turns out the windows activation is extremely insecure and easy to fool ;)
i’ve read somewhere that the microsoft activation support, if you have strange issues with activating your product, at times referred you to that page lol
edit: found it: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-support-cracks-windows-for-customer-after-activation-fails/
Stories like this is very much why I severely limit the amount of time I spend on Windows. Having been with Windows nearly since the beginning of its history, it’s insane to see the amount of reduction of user control that’s gone into it.
One of the most egregious things is the lack of control around updates. Often I’ll finish a session with my laptop and go to store it in the bag. Windows will cheerfully inform me that there is a forced update and then I end up having to wait for my machine to finish its shit while I sit around tapping my toes.
Meanwhile, in Linux-land, I have as much control over updates as I wish. I almost breathe a sigh of relief when I reach my Linux desktop, because it’s still a place that feels like MINE. I feel like I’m some kind of sharecropper or temporary house guest when on Windows 11. It doesn’t feel like “my” environment. It feels like it’s Microsoft’s computer and they just let me use it occasionally.
For myself, I was lucky(?) enough to have wasted my best years playing with Linux and running Linux boxes is no problem now. For the average Joe that needs to mess with computers, I feel bad for them. Windows 11 feels like shit, MacOS sure isn’t great either, and that’s pretty much the only choice.
No wonder I’m seeing less and less households with PCs and laptops. I think the average person in 2025 has just given up on computers and makes do with their phone or tablet.
Thank fucking god for Linux, because if I was forced to use Windows 11 full time, I think I’d snap and go live in the middle of the forest or something. It’s actively annoying to even look at at this point, and I only see things getting worse. For example, the troubles with Windows “Recall” have barely even started.
I loathe to see what Microsoft has in store for us next, and I would guarantee it’s not user friendly.
I use my laptop for data processing, but most of my tasks can be adequately handled from my phone. There are days when I don’t open my computer when I get home from work.
