this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
63 points (94.4% liked)

Android

30775 readers
297 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules


1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.


2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.


3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.


4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.


5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.


6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.


7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.


8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.


Community Resources:


We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.


Our Partner Communities:

!android@lemmy.ml


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 22 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] Ilandar@lemmy.today 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

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?

[–] throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.works 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 16 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

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.)