this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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Privacy

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Whenever people ask about ways to make their smartphones more private or which is the most privacy-respecting phone to get, there's always a few people confidently asserting "all smartphones are spy tools, get a dumbphone with no apps if you want to be private". Which is ridiculous advice for a few reasons

  • Dumbphones usually run either proprietary operating systems or outdated forks of Android. They're almost never encrypted. They rarely get security updates. They're a lot more vulnerable than even a regular Android phone

  • With dumbphones, you're usually limited to regular phone calls or SMS/MMS messaging. These are ancient communication standards with zero built-in privacy. Your ISP can read any text message you send and view metadata logs of any phone calls you make. In lots of places (like Australia where I live) ISPs are actually required to keep logs of your messages and phone calls

With even a regular Android phone you at least have access to encrypted messaging apps like Signal or Session so your conversations aren't fair game for anyone who wants to read them. Of course there are better options. iOS (not perfect but better than most bloatware-filled Android devices) and a pixel with GrapheneOS (probably the best imo) are much better options; but virtually anything out there is going to be better for privacy than a dumbphone

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[โ€“] artyom@piefed.social 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I would argue that phone that a phone that runs Android is not a dumb phone. Not having a Google account logged into your phone is a huge step towards privacy.

See:

  • Mudita Kompakt
  • Punkt MP02
  • etc.

Also don't fall into the trap that privacy is a binary issue. There's a massive spectrum.

[โ€“] swelter_spark@reddthat.com 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Yes, I've only ever seen the term dumbphone used to mean a phone that's just a phone, not a computer. No OS, software, internet, etc.