Android

I think the main reason third-party ROMs aren't more popular is that Google and certain app developers fuck with people who use them. The article addresses the difficulties later on, but comes up short in my view on just how much of a hassle it is for someone who isn't a tech enthusiast who wants, for example to keep an older phone up to date for security reasons.

I think the main motivation for Google is limiting user control over the experience. More user control leads to unprofitable behaviors like blocking ads and tracking, which is also the motivation for recent changes to the Chrome web browser that make content blocking extensions less effective. In all cases, companies that try to take away user control claim the motivation is security, usually for the benefit of the user.

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Didn't read the article, but I hate this style of headlines with a passion. Using custom ROMs isn't even something controversial, yet they go out of their way to make it sound like they're breaking some social taboo or something. Why not a simple and concise title like "Advantages of custom ROMs" or "Consider installing a custom ROM". It sounds like a meme speech pattern straight out of 4chan, except they're using it with zero self awareness or irony. How about an actual hot take: journos who write like this are pretentious pricks that deserve to get replaced by chatgpt.

The Play Integrity API is less about security and more about Google asserting their monopoly.

They do not want truly open source Android platforms to gain popularity, because there would be a high chance people would want ad blocking, which is a direct threat to their profit margins.

I hope EU takes regulative action to force Google to allow GrapheneOS, LineageOS etc. to be able to run the same apps without issues.

Some of us like to tinker. We really get satisfaction of having a weird niche filled and even if it comes at the cost of stability and other issues. Heck my Custom Roms used to be more up to date with security updates than phones that were older than one year.

I could use kernels that undervolts my processor to give me better battery life. It allowed features that even 5 years ago were on the custom ROM scene still very absent from modern phones.

But the most important part for me was learning, discovering. If I tried a new ROM I would spend hours going through certain roms settings. If there is a glitch, learn how to diagnose and try to fix it, or learn to send a logcat to the developer.

It was like a fun hobby. I learned how to fix some of my old phones, like screen replacement, and learned how to cure uv reactive glue. So many other things and I was just a noob.

But it gave freedom. I understand iPhone and the other high brands are easy to use, have gimmicky features and all, but dammit I have freedom to have my weird niche phone, with multiple breaking features and I loved it because it just worked.

If Google truly did hold security as its main concern, it would have opened the play Store, yet we know now they only wish to protect their monopoly

This is a very complex topic that is very hard to draw the line on.
As a technical person who follows hacking and security news i can understand google introduced the api and warnings, as phones are getting hacked and unlocked bootloader or root can be abused to keep your malware going, and has been abused in the past.

But as a user of fairphone/lineageOS, who tells google, apple, meta, ... all of them to fuck off when i can, this scares me. The lockdown of devices can and is going too far. Hell, i even consider samsung's android ui changes to be going too far, as it changes a shit ton of stuff and really is not a stock android experience. It locks users in their environment..

I'm still using LOS and still fight with google over Play integrity from time to time. there's a fairly new patch that spoofs the fingerprint of the phone and fixes the issue entirely for me (play integrity fix by chiteroman) as long as it's updated, my gPay still works. I prefer using custom OS because it's much more customizable and has little to no bloatware. any unwanted apps can be removed. I can route my VPN to my WiFi hotspot, in order to get full speed tethering. (I'm a T-Mobile user and they throttle) I have a system-wide ad-blocker that uses the hosts file. I have the ability to allow root to only some apps, and deny it to others.

To me, its worth doing. I have no internet at my house, so I primarily use this to get online. The stock T-Mobile firmware is laggy and loaded up with their apps you can't delete. You'll get the "3g speeds" hotspot and their annoying branding on everything.

Going back to that would really suck!

I used custom roms for many years, but I now use my phone to pay almost everything, and I need my banking apps. magisk hide is unreliable do I won't be rooting my phone again I think

If the day comes when LineageOS (with microG) becomes unusable for me, I will just switch to iPhone. I hate Apple, and I've been using custom ROMs since Cyanogen in 2010, but there's no way I would raw-dog a Google device.

extremely pedantic whining over the term "ROM", but when has a custom android distribution ever dealt with "read-only memory"? is or was there some immutable component of Android that could be interpreted as read-only?

also I switched from iPhones to Google Pixels running GrapheneOS four years ago and I've never looked back, it's really solid and gives me the amount of control I expect and demand over hardware I've purchased upfront. Pedantry aside, I strongly recommend GrapheneOS

I don't think they do it actively. There's just not a big enough issue for them in custom ROMs to even bother doing something about it.

Rather, they got other issues to tackle and custom ROMs are so off their radar, they get swept up simply because nobody cares (either way) to check.

via its* Play Integrity API

I moved to Android for the 1st time ever in 2020 from an iPhone 6s.

The device I decided to go with is a Poco F2 Pro which lost official support years ago, it has decent hardware and even the battery still holds up (with a good custom ROM, I still achieve 8 hrs of SOT).

It just took me about a year, or perhaps less to move to the custom ROM scene, and for me I can't ever go back to stock Android ever, even when it is a big step regarding iOS features (except for LS customization) the amount of stuff you can do with rooted android device is no joke.

My only regret is that I was never in the prime days of rooting... At least Telegram communities are super active, not that it is better... But personally I prefer it to discord lol.

I was in the prime days of jailbreaking though, too bad that they seem to be doing worse nowadays.

Google just wants to copy the fruit store. They want total control and have seen how the fruit store does it. Competition is bad for business.

I install custom ROMs on every device in my household. How concerned should I be? None of them are rooted. Would disabling Play Integrity via adb fix this?