Yeah, there is a whole “separate OS”, but, to my knowledge, there hasn’t been evidence of it casually being able to collect arbitrary data from the actual phone’s OS.

My issue with that is that Pixels are expensive, and in some places are not sold officially (meaning they can only be bought from smaller resellers with usually much less generous return policies). The newest models are outright unaffordable new. The only ones below $150 are either secondhand or out of support, so that’s what poor people are left with? Plus, no headphone jack.

I use Graphene myself, but I dislike absolutism. I don’t in the slightest regret buying my Pixel even though $300 is a painful sum to spend on a phone (and it was on the cheaper end if we’re talking about up-to-date models!), but I know that my mother would never spend this much on a phone - so I look into Divest or Lineage on more common and affordable phones.

Why does an RSS feed need a “new type” tho? Normal RSS can be hosted by anyone and can be read on so many different readers…

On Tor or I2P

You managed to break multiple phones in less than two years? That’s impressive.

Also yeah, 1.5 years is imo too little time to judge whether something is durable.

I’d bet this is pirateable tho

Funny how involved I was on Twitter and especially Reddit prior to summer 2023, yet barely noticed when I deleted my accounts.

I am less interested in ranking them based on what they do (because we can assume they just vacuum up everything anyway), and more in a ranking based on how easy the surveillance is to remove. Apparently for some cars the telematics module can be easily unplugged at least, losing you some non-critical functionality, but on others it may be integrated tighter.

No. If I had money to spend on media, “affordable legal streaming services” would NOT stop me from pirating. Broad availability of DRMless media purchases would.

We have several major social media banned here, and they’re still popular. All a ban would do would be teaching people what VPNs are… As well as exposing a lot of them to malware, because most people would not be doing research and instead of legitimate, charity-run free censorship evasion tools, they’d be using shady apps from the top of Play Store search results.

If the ban comes from “up top”, people’s desire to use it will not suddenly disappear. If the people decide to leave en masse on their own - now that’d make an impact.

Yes, absolutely! But that wasn’t the point - rather that the spyware ones are popular for some reason, and thus can serve as a sad example of “low-hanging fruit to make an example of”.

(TBH I don’t get the need for a separate app in general, seems gimmicky, I just use a normal calendar)

The only solution to that is permanent airplane mode (on an OS you can trust to do so) and just not having the phone on you most of the time.

I’ll remove the DCM module from the vehicle before bringing it in.

Why don’t you remove it right now then?

A similar argument I hear is “If they want me, they will find and arrest me no matter my precautions”.

Kinda yes… But why are you talking about threat models that include someone deliberately hunting you down? We are not high-ranking dissidents or criminals that they would put effort and money into finding. Our concern is passive surveillance - maybe the collected info doing us a disservice (like being leaked for scammers or sold to an evil ex), maybe even something mundane getting flagged and us being arrested just to serve as an example.

Yeah, that would be less worrisome, hope this really is the case here.

I thought that was because everyone just bought $3 off-brand ones on Amazon.

I did buy a pair of wireless headphones, but the earbuds are staying wired. The headphones have a large, easy-to-replace battery that lasts a couple of weeks easily - while earbuds don’t. Some people might be inconvenienced by having to charge another device. Plus, Bluetooth doesn’t have the same audio quality - not as important for me, but might be for some people.

That’s just my association with the word “ban” - blocking, because that’s what I usually experienced.

It is the free, easy way to get an SSL cert (plus automated renewals). Without it, maybe HTTPS wouldn’t have been so omnipresent.

Yes, that was exactly my point. You would not treat any mail service like they would cover you during your unprotected use, and Proton is not an exception. So I don’t understand why people are taking issue with them cooperating with LE - but I take issue with some other qualities.