More broadly, I would say public P2P stuff - at least in its current forms. I’m not sure it can survive some of the generational shifts that have been occurring in society, since it relies so heavily on community and sharing and demands general technological literacy (not just touchscreen/smartphone/app literacy). Those that do actually have the literacy seem increasingly interested in the instant gratification direct download or torrent streaming stuff, to the detriment of traditional methods of P2P file sharing.

The Proton CEO thing was vastly overblown. He is a privacy advocate and expressed support for Trump’s appointment for head of antitrust, as well as criticism of corporate Democrats who stand for big business which was misrepresented as a love of the Republican Party. The only mistake he made was to publish those statements using the official Proton account, which he later apologised for.

Some people, especially the American left, love to virtue signal and predictably they tried to cancel Proton as a result of this pretty minor and irrelevant social media drama. There were some good write-ups at the time which exposed how counterfactual the “pRoToN lOvEs mAgA” arguments were, but I guess feel free to skip over Proton if it really concerns you. It is objectively one of the best choices if you value both privacy and functionality (Proton still has support for port forwarding), which I think are far more relevant areas to be looking at when choosing a VPN for piracy.

Nearly every phone made in China comes with backdoors.

Such as?

Here is a comparison of all the various privacy ROMs (and “stock” Android), last updated on June 9 this year.

The person in that other thread who said “iodéOS is a carbon copy of LineageOS” is incorrect. iodéOS comes with a suite of FOSS apps (picked by the community) as optional installs, which is designed to make the transition easier for someone who is brand new to deGoogled Android (similar philosophy to CalyxOS). iodéOS also removes more of the Google services left in LineageOS, such as those associated with the Trust feature, and replaces them with more private alternatives. Additionally, iodéOS has developed a GSI version alongside its officially supported custom device ROMs, which means you can theoretically install and run iodéOS on any currently unsupported device that supports Project Treble.

I have an XZ1 Compact myself and was using it as my primary phone with LineageOS (+microG) and later iodéOS until 3G was shutdown in Australia. Nowadays I use it as a portable music player, although I don’t listen to music away from my desktop that often so it doesn’t see much use. It sounds fine to me, certainly good enough for the overwhelming majority of people I would say.

I can’t really tell you whether it’s a good idea to buy one for this specific purpose, that’s quite a subjective question. It is very easy to install custom ROMs on that phone, though, and those that exist are well maintained. Some of the answers here are overcomplicating or fearmongering; installing custom ROMs is just about reading carefully and following basic instructions. The overwhelming majority of issues people run into come from impatience/inability to read. Bricking the phone is not a realistic possibility unless you are braindead.

Is that a Pixel 9 Pro XL in a case with a magsafe wallet attached, or are you just happy to see me?

I wouldn’t say nobody, they are familiar to people living in Japan or SEA. If you’ve visited one of the countries they are sold in, you might have come across them (I saw them in a Tokyo department store).

and comes preinstalled with spyware.

What is the spyware?

This has been happening more and more to me lately. Not the end of the world, and I still use Aurora Store for the majority of my apps, but it’s concerning.

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.

Most of those are extremely simple. I don’t get why people shit their pants when they see the words “command line”. You are following basic instructions and copy/pasting text; you would need to be illiterate or braindead to get tripped up by it.

I would probably hold off on buying a phone specifically for the purposes of installing a custom ROM on it, but existing users are fine for now. If you have an older phone that is no longer receiving updates then it is still worth seeing what’s out there. Custom ROM installation is generally extremely simple and quick these days so there is little in the way of risk or time commitment.

I can’t keep up with all the various instance wars/feuds but they are amusing nonetheless.

and accusations of everyone being a communist / not communist / slightly communist / whatever else seems to get thrown around on Lemmy.

So true lol

I doubt that, to be honest. People will look for any excuse to avoid spending more on the basis of ethics. The usual one with Fairphone is “well they removed the headphone jack so therefore the entire operation is clearly an advanced greenwashing scheme”.

Not to mention the very legitimate excuse that Fairphone is still yet to support many countries outside of Europe. It is too big a risk for many when every generation to date has experienced isolated technical issues that require direct support from Fairphone to resolve.

There are none on the level of Fairphone. Sony has seen fairly consistent support for its devices over the years and has retained features like the headphone jack and SD card slot, so may be a decent alternative to look into.

Yeah that was the joke. I guess it hit too close to home for some lol

Lemmy Android users in shambles.