So, I just learned about this the very, very hard way. After buying a second hand S10 and finding american ones can’t be unlocked, traveling 4 hours to buy another one after much research, much annoyances to unlock it (samsung requires you to be online, which I didn’t know) and testing multiple ROMs, I finally read this page more properly https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/beyond1lte/ which says “known quirks: IMS”. I thought it was just something like dolby sound.
What it means is that it doesn’t suport VoLTE and most currently used phone systems. Samsung made their proprietary mess, unlike most other developers, which means it will probably never have an open source version.
And that applies to ALL modern samsung phones. I had samsung phone before with a custom OS, but didn’t realize because VoLTE wasn’t mandatory back then. Now it is here in Australia, and many countries. So if you ever plan to buy a samsung phone to degoogle it, know that it won’t make phone calls. SMS and mobile data also doesn’t work.
I don’t know how I missed this. It should be talked more often given how popular samsung is. There should always be a warning “YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO MAKE PHONE CALLS IN THE FUTURE IF YOU CONTINUE”.
S10 was the last decent phone ever made (for me). Not too big, SD card, headphone jack (one of the most important things for me), good camera, etc, etc… That’s why I was so persistent to find one to degoogle.
So I’m stuck with my amazingly shitty pixel 5 (and other ones are even worse for me). And considering the possibility of a life without smartphones at all, since this is a losing battle. Mainstream doesn’t care and evil companies have every incentive to kill freedom. It has been getting really bad and it will just get worse. But anyway… this post is not about this.
Be warned, if you care about freedom don’t ever buy samsung again. Not because they are evil (they are), but because you won’t be able to make phone calls on your “phone”.
I had a Note 3, Note 4, S9+, S21u, S24u, My wife/kids have Note 3, s9+, s23u, A series and a tab 4.
I’ve had Samsung 360 cameras, tv’s, galaxy watches
It stops here.
The biggest thing i’m going to miss is a decent camera. I don’t feel like carying around a 5x camera everywhere I go and most of the phones i’m looking at are kinda crap for cameras
Yup. I bought a camera after google play killing my s21 ultra.
Paid 800 dollars for the camera. It’s inferior to the old s21 in almost every way, and I could get one for 300 dollars. Inferior as in a camera, not even considering how the s21 is great as a gaming phone, computer, etc. Plus the camera is fragile and bigger, so I never carry it, so it’s never there when I need to capture something nice.
It’s weird how hardware wise we reached such an amazing point, but the software has enshitified to levels I would never even imagine.
We have to choose between being a slave of samsung/google or let go of amazing hardware. But they can only afford to make such amazing stuff precisely because of their evil practices. So it will get worse. Hardware will become more amazing, the more evil these companies get.
My brother in christ, if you cannot control the software, then you never truly had the hardware in the first place.
Yes and no. If you never connect the ultra series to the internet, you still have some great cameras and a great (offline) video game, and even a great gps and other things.
You don’t have a “phone” as samsung sold. But phones are nowadays much more than that.
Like the old film cameras. It didn’t matter how the company wanted you to use them. But yeah, it’s still something we should fight against. In may case for instance I need connection, so for the main purpose, being a phone, I don’t have the hardware because I don’t control the software.
I used to have a Pentax that would fit in an Altoids tin. Absolutely inferior to anything I have now, but I kinda miss it now.
It really is time for serious linux phones
it’s been the time for years, I highly doubt that it will ever happen. it’s been a lot of friction to get desktop users to switch, it’s gonna be 5x more difficult, considering mobile users are less tech-savvy and typically do things on their phone (rather than a computer which most people can get away with just a web browser).
Surely all or most of those linux PC users also have phones, and people already using linux should be easier to convert?
The thing that trips me up is that Android forks support most Android phones out of the box (with the obvious exception of GrapheneOS which ia a deliberate choice), while Linux Phone OSs each have very short lists of supported models.
I have four different phone models available to me, from Pixel to Samsung to OnePlus. None are supported by any Linux Phone OS I’ve seen.
I think the fact that there’s so few Linux desktop users that use Linux phones is a testament to how much friction there is.
most Linux OS don’t support mainstream phones I think for a few reasons:
- these phones were built for the vendor’s specific flavor of android, and thus already have the drivers for the proprietary hardware and everything.
- custom android ROMs are able to reuse proprietary firmware blobs from the manufacturer’s software and it will work fine with Android. On Linux however, you can’t just plug these blobs in, you’d have to rewrite everything to work with plain Linux.
Let’s not forget the biggest issue, mandatory Apps that don’t work.
I know of a few Banks that require you to use their app for online banking or as 2fa for online banking. Some of these don’t even work while the bootloader is unlocked
In addition to this, anything on One UI 8 and above does not allow the bootloader to be unlocked, regardless of region. Fortunately, I had already rooted my S23 and have stayed on One UI 7 ever since.
That’s good to know. Although that’s a more difficult, if not impossible, mistake to make. If you search on installing something different on those phones, as most people will do, they will find that it’s impossible before they even start the journey. Buying a phone to degoogle without researching if it’s even possible is a bad mistake.
But the older ones it’s worse, because not only every research will show it’s possible, most reviews I found of the S10 with Lineage were actually very positive, saying everything worked great. Because VoLTE being mandatory is something new, and many countries will still work but not for long.
So it’s really bad because if you don’t pay attention to the IMS thing you will have no reason to think it won’t work. It is possible, it works great, it just doesn’t make calls. Silly detail that isn’t mentioned well enough.
Who makes phe calls anyways nowadays?
But yes: The best phones for degoogling are the Google phones.
I call my wife everyday on my way home from work.
Also I have to make phone calls to get ahold of doctors and such
Technically, the brands that offer already degoogled android (fairphone) or Linux directly (jolla) are better.
Ethically, yes.
Technologically, no. By magnitudes.
For security and privacy (by extension), Graphene is king.
For freedom, Graphene has some lacking things.
what are the fairphone and Jolla phones lacking?
GrapheneOS hardware requirements, for starters.
Linux on servers does not have the same hardware requirements as GrapheneOS.
Please never reccomend google phones for de googling ever again
Get a used one if you don’t feel comfortable giving your money to Google (a good idea IMO)
And by buying used Google gear You increase the value of used market making them a better deal for people looking to buy new because they will keep in value more than other phones
And how do you people talk to other people? Whatsapp? Apparently that’s how it is in brazil, even to call companies or support.
About the second line, “best” is being generous. I guess you mean better supported. Although for some very odd reason the internet seems to love pixels. While they are the worse phones I’ve used for the price after apple phones (for similar reasons).
But above all, the fact that other phones support for open source is even worse than google is why I’m considering to learn to live without smartphones. If we have to rely on google for our freedom and privacy, we are well and truly fucked. And we deserve to be if that’s the case.
Instead of whatsapp, I use signal. I explained to my friends that I moved to it. Some installed the app for me. Others didn’t. I accept that.
Pixels are “loved” because they can run grapheneos and others. Not because they’re technically superior phones.
They’re the opposite of fucking samsung. In that one single regard though.
Attach phone, click install, wait, google gone. All others are getting harder and harder to even root.
That’s the only reason why I bought the pixel 5. It’s easy to remove google stuff. But I see people praising the phones, as if, once you have installed your custom software (ignoring graphene), it’s better than the alternatives.
Once/if you do manage do install something else on other phones, almost every other option of similar price is better than a pixel. But it seems that most things I read disagree with that.
But yeah, getting to the point of installing something the pixels are easier. But there are others like fairphones here that match that from what I’m told.
I’m surely no pixel fanboy. I bought the 6 pro when it came out only because it was ironically more open than the others. I’m actually still pissed at how incredibly bad the fingerprint sensor is for a 1200,- flagship (of that time). My 100 bucks banking-phone beats that by a large margin.
And I would really say that “is better” is very subjective. To me? Openness, large good oled screen, modern WiFi and good camera. In that order. Is my old pixel good? Yes. Is it better than others of the same class? Yes. For me. But it looses in pure numbers and benchmarks. I just couldn’t care less, personally.
And jup, my next one (whenever this sucker dies, it’s still running solid) will be Linux. Or whatever semi decent alternative will be current then. I’m done with big tech
Have you dismissed Fairphone for some reason?
It’s very, very expensive for what it is. But I guess I just meant “mainstream” androids.
Going on alternative land there are options, like I used to have a phone with sailfishOS. But they will never have the adoption of mainstream phones, and it will probably be less and less with time as google tries to make people’s life harder. And that means they will never have the same finance and support.
It’s nice to support those companies, but like I said, I think it’s a lost battle and I probably should focus my energies on learning to not rely on smartphones. Then it doesn’t matter what feature apple or google remove, it won’t affect me.
The trouble in Australia with the Fairphone models is that some/all networks are blocking them due to a perceived/actual risk they may not work reliably on Australian networks, and Fairphone has not done what the networks demand for that approval. (There’s a heightened risk-aversion here at the moment due to a few highly-publicised emergency-call routing/connection/fallback failures).
It’s a work in progress though, and it should work already/eventually:
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/3g-network-closure-australia/109696I bought a fairphone 3 last year for £100 with e/os pre installed which works fine for me. I changed to the Lime booter for a better interface. It’s not very fast if you want to game & the speaker isn’t very good, but otherwise does all the basics I need or find handy asides from internet banking. Could be good if you want a basic smart phone for occasional use?
It will be pretty hard to find around here. But yeah, I’m considering. That and Jolla and dumbphones.
The issue is; they will die. Someone will try in their place, and then die too. There will always be rebellion, but always crushed by the empire (and lack of financial support).
I may find something usable now, but I have no guarantee that next phone will be. I often lose phones, and every time it’s being a harder and harder battle to find a replacement.
The only safe way, considering that things are just getting worse, is to learn to not need smartphones.
Yeah all tech dies at some point, for whatever reason, which can be frustrating, but I would note that FP is increasing in popularity at the moment so has good legs left in it I reckon.
If you lose phones frequently then going ‘dumb’ may be best, it’s a pain to set up new each time. As someone who remembers car phones (but not so old to have my own!) I can say smartphones are very much livable without, though I understand in some places some tasks are much easier.
Oh, setup is easy. I actually even enjoy setting up a new phone.
I have all my files and messages synced on syncthing constantly, and contacts and etc on DAVx. Even apps, most from f-droid, are a few clicks from a backup. I can do the whole thing in a few minutes, but I enjoy taking longer.
The issue with finding a phone that I can unlock and installing a working ROM instead, that’s the issue, and it should not have to be like that at all. That’s what is becoming impossible and making dumb phones a better alternative.
Ah, and the money too. Which is why I never buy expensive phones anymore. I know I’ll lose it, drown it, kill it. That’s another good reason for dumb phones.
Thanks for letting us know. I was thinking of getting a used Galaxy S9 or S10 for a degoogled Lineage OS phone. Now, it looks like the Pixels are the only modern phones that are compatible with this. That’s a pretty sad state of affairs, I’d say.
Motorola is coming in soon, fortunately
fairphones also support it, and a few other relatively popular ROMs
This right here is how i knew about my nothing phone to be relockable, good stuff
None of the safe phones are selled in my country 🥲
Unlocking instantly and permanently breaks Knox too which destroys any chance of resale without being shady or flat out lying about it. I learned that the hard way, thankfully, with a cheapo A50 I was using as a secondary device back in heavy Pokemon Go days. That was my first Samsung since my Nexus, and my last, ever.
New hosts/adblock/pihole/adguard filter/rule:
#GOOGLE=============================== 0.0.0.0 google.com 0.0.0.0 googleusercontent.com 0.0.0.0 googleapis.com 0.0.0.0 gstatic.com 0.0.0.0 android.com 0.0.0.0 google-analytics.com 0.0.0.0 googlehosted.com 0.0.0.0 googletagmanager.com 0.0.0.0 googleadservices.com 0.0.0.0 pki.googPhone now degoogled.
You don’t sign in to your phone, like straight lineage with no microg?
Not OP, but for me, yeah
Almost all apps come from F-Droid, with two apps from Aurora that I needed for work
Why would I sign into a proprietary network for a computing device?
I was just checking, I think a lot of ppl forget how tightly integrated the google+android thing is.
Do you use this yourself? I wonder how much stuff breaks if you use it.
Also YouTube URLs are conspicuously missing…
As someone that has a similar list but not exactly that… A lot. A lot of stuff breaks but! You don’t see ads in shitty mobile games anymore.
Another thing you find is how many links go through a google analytics or seems to be sponsored
Indeed it breaks everything. I’ve only it tried it for a couple of days. It’s just an extreme example of degoogling. But if you wish to really degoogle, this would be a small part of the effort. The list is mostly what I picked up of google apps calling home in the background in my phone. I didn’t include youtube because I don’t have the youtube app installed on my phone, so it’s not calling home.
That won’t get rid of the google/samsung crap constantly running on your phone and trying to phone home.
I tried on the american s10. Most unnecessary google and samsung stuff is disabled or blocked. The phone hangs on almost everything. Every time you try to open something, do something, it hangs. It becomes unusable. Spyware is an integral part of modern mainstream systems.
I had a A53 5G which only outdated Android ROMs like TrebleDroid support.
It was so miserable I just gave up and bought a Fairphone. Much happier.
How’s the phone performing so far and what was your previous phone? I’ve got my eye on Fairphone whenever it’s finally time to upgrade (hopefully not for another few years)
S25 Ultra was my last. The Samsung is a nicer phone, but my battery has never died. I got a notice recently in the evening that it was under 20%. Before I went to bed at about 10pm I checked it and it was still 19%. Battery is great without all that bloatware.
It’s also a good peace of mind. All those trackers are not on my phone. How much did the mediocre hardware bother me? Not really at all. I love it.
I vowed my Last Samsung phone would be A55 (or A56 if you also count my house hold)
Good on you! Let’s spread the word and help samsung die! (It won’t make any difference, but I want to pretend it will)
Dumbphones are just better IMO
Samsung has always been hostile af
An One UI 8.5 locks down the bootloader
I’ve always loved Notes and Ultra flagships, but I don’t want to rep such a lousy OEM
And the new UI sucks hard. I hate it. But at least it’s a work phone paid for by work and but my problem after hours…
They were always hostile, but it was possible. And once you finish the long and stressful fight with samsung for the control of your phone, you are left with a great phone in your hands. Depending who you ask, it was worthy.
But now they finally made it impossible. They always wanted to do this, and finally succeeded. They “won” the battle.
Back in the day we used to argue that the dream phone was Samsung hardware running AOSP, as with the S4 Google Play Edition.
@guismo Thanks for sharing. Mate: just get yourself a (used) Pixel that is still supported like 7a or preferrably New er like 9a or 10. Chuck GrapheneOS on it and call it a day. Good luck
I have a pixel5 with Crdroid on it (I had graphene on it but I really really didn’t like it). Crdroid is awesome, makes this horrible phone much more tolerable.
All following pixels are even worse for me. Besides all the nonsense issues of pixel5 (no sd card, no headphone jack), they are all massive, while still being much worse then the competition. I really don’t understand how anyone except apple users like it. It’s almost as limited as an iphone.
Plus, I really don’t want to rely on google hardware, or anything at all. If that’s the best option, then even better is to learn to live without a smartphone.
I hope mine lasts me at least another 7 years before I have to buy a new phone, but yeah, this will be my last Samsung phone. Hopefully, by the time I have to switch to something new, there will have been enough changes made that I can get a non-american phone and still be able to use important apps without having to use Google play. Cautiously optimistic.
