I got a new phone for the first time in a decade and Android keeps cheerfully telling me I’m opted-in to new horrifying layers of surveillance. ‘We’re gonna look at the first thing you click every time you install anything! Isn’t that great?’ Fuck off and die. ‘But you’ll get less relevant recommendations…’ Don’t recommend anything. ‘Wow, you’re gonna get such generic ads.’ Where else did you hide ads, Google?!
For context: my previous phone is an LG. LG does not make phones anymore. That’s how long I clung to something I’d largely unfucked. And every time it boots, to this day, it reminds me I need to agree to some licensing horseshit.
The damn weather app demands to know my location. Asking makes sense. Demanding is a failure to understand why people check the weather. I don’t need it where I am. I need it where I’m going to be. You have no trouble showing me it’s cloudy in the default location, five thousand miles north. Let me enter a city name and mind your damn business.
I got a new phone for the first time in a decade and Android keeps cheerfully telling me I’m opted-in to new horrifying layers of surveillance. ‘We’re gonna look at the first thing you click every time you install anything! Isn’t that great?’ Fuck off and die. ‘But you’ll get less relevant recommendations…’ Don’t recommend anything. ‘Wow, you’re gonna get such generic ads.’ Where else did you hide ads, Google?!
For context: my previous phone is an LG. LG does not make phones anymore. That’s how long I clung to something I’d largely unfucked. And every time it boots, to this day, it reminds me I need to agree to some licensing horseshit.
Plainly not.
Get a used pixel and install grapheneos
Alternatively, get pretty much any phone and load LineageOS on it, and just live the FOSS-purist Android life.
It’s an incredibly sucky life, but it’s a free one.
Have your looked at the officially supported device list recently? Sadly a lot of manufacturers don’t have anything supported for several years.
The damn weather app demands to know my location. Asking makes sense. Demanding is a failure to understand why people check the weather. I don’t need it where I am. I need it where I’m going to be. You have no trouble showing me it’s cloudy in the default location, five thousand miles north. Let me enter a city name and mind your damn business.
One counterargument: without your current location, it can’t send any weather alerts that immediately impact your safety.
The network sends those.
Because the cell towers are cemented in place.