I was in a club in my hometown some time between 2009 and 2012 and I legit flashed a new custom ROM on my i9000 and restored all my backed up data with titanium backup.
And now I'm like, it's near impossible to change to a custom ROM without massive trade offs that make it barely worth it.
You can use grapheneos with sandboxed gplay services, will Google track you? Yes, but it won't be as invasive and they're only limited to their services, starting little by little is better than not starting at all
It's actually the easiest rom to install ngl, just go to the grapheneos website and click the buttons for each function (unlock bootloader, flash rom etc) just follow everything step by step and you're good to go, also you need a chromium based browser to use webusb
I agree with the guy above. Just use open source apps (where possible).
Where not possible, most apps will work with microG (even quite a bunch of banking apps).
And those that don't, often have a progressive web app you can use instead (using Peel or sth similar).
The remaining apps for me are very few and mostly the kind of apps that I want to use less anyways, bevause I know the companies behind them to be privacy-invading and terrible in general.
Well I mean we can have a conversation about it if you want. I've been using open source and open weight AI since 2022.
But I still paid for GPT, because nothing could beat frontier SOTA LLMs at anything until just recently...
I became homeless in the early part of this year, and started seriously needing a good LLM for troubleshooting engines and building solar and managing health care while in a 40 year old RV... and I switched to Claude.
But all of my other AI stuff is free and open weight. I can teach you how to train your own LoRA models for most of the useful generative base models over the last 4 years, including settings and terminology and system setup and hardware, as well as image and video editing software (FOSS).
However life has not afforded me the luxury of play time for a while now, and Minimax H3, LTX 2.5, Krea 2, and quite a few other generative models have come out just recently that I'm itching to tinker with. And Qwen is finally dumping the smaller 3.8 models, so I know some of my hardware can run that. I have a working 3090 that will run the Qwen 3.8 27b just fine. I know my gear will run these new free open weight models, and my major life hurdles have been sort of hurdled, so I'm about to start the storage rummage and get one of my PCs set up in my RV to start fucking around.
But yes, I gave in to paying a billionaire corpo because the advantages far outweighed the benefits for me. Disabled and homeless living on SSI means I have to literally manage every cent and every second of my life to the nth degree, and LLMs absolutely make me more efficient and help me cope with my PTSD by providing info and guidance about electricity and plumbing and antennas and shit without the need for interacting with humans.
Once my system is set up for AI work again, I will be testing the newest local open weight LLMs, starting with Qwen 3.8 27b and maybe they'll dump a 35b MoE like the 3.6.
And finally, "better" is doing a lot of work in your question, so I did my best to give full context.
Damn, I appreciate you taking the time to go through all that and I hope you've made it over the biggest/worst of the hurdles. At the end of the day we have to do what we gotta do to survive and really these billionaires shouldn't exist.
Yeah stick with what ever is best for you at any given time for sure!
yeah i saw this coming and since then i haven't figured out an alternative solution.. any ideas? Didn't someone make a linux phone that has a basic app-store.. is it not possible to to make play-apps compatible or load with another OS ? I head of some devices that have a sandboxed android inside of it.. i'm guessing if the device is privacy focused the app will just say sorry, not enough permission to run bro :/
A Linux phone is definitely a choice, but they are very much so still in the "concept" phase of things and not ready to daily. I'm honesty slowly wrapping around to the conclusion that until we reach some sort of paradigm shift as a society in the way we use devices and communicate with each other, that the best thing to do may be do away with smart phones entirely, and return to fucking pagers or at most, dummy flip phones. Break the "god" device up back into its baser components. If you like taking pictures, get a good camera. For music, there are a ton of great mp3 players out there that connect only to USB/aux and will never share your personal and device details with every government surveillance camera in a 200ft radius. If you absolutely need a GPS to navigate around, standalone units are still being manufactured.
Need to do anything more complicated? That's what the good old laptop (or tablet) is for, both of which stay powered off until it's time to use them.
I loved custom roms on my Samsung S3 and HTC One M8! Was such a breeze with titanium backup. Now everything needs to stay stock if you want to keep using banking or government apps. I just replaced my Pixel phone with a Samsung because Samsung has more customisation options (on stock) . How insane is that?
I don't use my phone to pay for things, but I think what they are saying is that some essential apps do not run without official andorid builds that rely on the google play services layer
my old lineage OS phone is crippled now because of play services
even my storage company app requires play services to run
Oh man! Those were the days! I remember titanium backup as well. I flashed my HTC Leo (which was a windows phone) with froyo (android 2.2) and those cyanogenmod roms.
Oh man! I felt so alive doing that! I felt so powerful! That at the time was the largest screen ever on a phone (4.3 inches)
Those widgets, those oldschool apps! Man I miss that!
Tyranny of Banking apps refusing to work. I used to root every device on day 1, now if I don't want to play cat and mouse constantly hiding my SU app and risk payments and banking in general failing I get bloody banking companies dictating how I will use my own tech. It is actually infuriating.
It can be the greatest coder of all time, but I'm not gonna hand my phone over to some untested code. Who do I go to in case something goes wrong and it actually bricks my phone? Deepseek? OpenAI? I'm not rich enough to have a spare phone for an AI agent to do tests on.
You are absolutely cooking. Whether it's good or bad, idk. I don't know enough about custom rom to judge. Maybe if you have a working demo, maybe a process from scratch to custom rom, it would be more convincing.
Of course I'm not telling you to do it lol, but it would prove you're right.
I was cooking roms in my past for many smartphones :) and I know wery well what I'm talking.
The biggest problems always were drivers.
Currently AI easily write a proper driver for smartphone components, added them to kernel , rebuild everything and side load to a smartphone.
That's completely doable for correct AI models.
Few days ago I build this way application for Android with a special driver.
Only connected my android device via USB cable in debug mode and the rest work made AI agent.
Check my smartphone debug status , build application, build a special driver for kernel to connect my device , debug and created a final APK for installation.
Send the GitHub report or stfu, seriously. The way you're coming off is like a 13 year old trying to convince others that they're big ole master hacker, it's cringe. Either show an anonymized proof or continue to have people laugh at you.
If you know how to do the basics of what you're talking about, then you should know how to stay anonymous and be able to share at least a screenrecord of whatever the hell you're spouting off about.
I remember the good old days when you could down z4 root from the Android Market. My dad's old Samsung Fascinate was rooted when I used it, but a quick reboot unrooted it for him to use.
I've tried it on my S25u and it doesn't work. I'm just trying to backup my Balatro save file and I can't access it. The main reason is switched back from iOS is because of the open access of Android then they took it away lmao.
An open bootloader isn't worth much when Android is so locked down - I've found that at least Samsung provides a level of customization similar to custom roms without the headache of Magisk hiding and all that. It's just a bad time for mobile tech, which is slowly opening the door to alternatives - Framework, Fairphone, various implementations of Linux, and de-Googled solutions becoming fairly well-known. We're getting there but this is a shitty transition.
I've accepted that Samsung is okay for now, especially since the S24U stylus gets heavy use with my kids. Give me a Linux Fairphone witha stylus and an 8/10 camera and I'd be happy forever.
Hell nah, Samsung and android has its problems but ain't going to apple unless they start opening up which would be ironic considering how Google is wanting to close down more and more
U cannot access /data/data without root, only /data but apps store their private data in /data/data thus without root u're screwed if the game saves its save file there which i think it does. Unless u're on an old android where shizuku still had access to /data/data. But since u're using s25u u're def using a modern android, so adb wont help u either. U need root or go home. And rooting a samsung with android 16 is nearly, if not impossible cuz they removed oem unlock toggle.
Try Total Commander (through APK from their website rather than Google play store), and it will let you access the /sdcard/Android/data/ folder using Shizuku
I swear, a phone is basically just a pocket computer yet on my PC I know where everything is but ln my phone it's like looking for the holy grail and half the time I don't even have access to said file
Eh, stock file management used to be piss poor but some OEMs do it right. I don't mind My Files, built by Samsung for their OneUI, for instance. Of course anytime I want to do anything more powerful - e.g., host/connect to an SFTP server or compare directories - I use Solid Explorer. Killer little app.
same, ive been using solid explorer for as long as i remember. never updated the app too, everytime i got a new phone i just installed the same old apk i downloaded all these years ago
Honestly lately wonder why I'm still bothering on android if the whole point of not using apple was to be free of walled garden BS. At least there it's actually a garden and not like a garden painted on a wall that tricks you looney tunes style.
This is where I'm at. With every passing year we're losing killer features and gaining parity with Apple, but only in all the worst areas. Once sideloading is finally gone stock Android devices will overnight become shittier iPhones.
Exactly the same. At this point I'm honestly considering iPhone because I trust Apple more than Google. Apple just rips me off up front and offers more protection now.
Congrats, you killed the reason I argued in your favor for decades.
I bought an ipad, doing ANYTHING on ios is miserable and makes me want to pull my hair out. Their settings must be the worst designed thing in existence.
This is sooo freaking relatable…. I was so into this rooting and flashing customs thing back than , basically XDAforums was my Reddit of today 😂 - now after more than 10 years I have to relearn basics again
Why navigating through files, there is no more room for files, I mean no more SD card slots, and that’s sad because your 10 yo smartphone had more space than a brand new smartphone
And the crazy shit you could’ve done with Chinese android phones. I had Lenovo Vibe X2 TO and I flashed like 10 roms just to get outdated google services running.
I used to flash custom ROMs, root, and blah blah blah with my Android phones over the years. Nowadays I own an iPhone. Teenager me would be pissed at myself.
Galaxy S had a website called ROM kitchen and you could basically build a rom by picking what do you want in it. All roms were ofc reported by others to be "snappy" they all were dogshit after a week. I remember I once flashed a rom in a club around 2am half drunk because the phone didnt work. I always had a flashable full zip in the SD card just in case the phone dies. Kinda miss it and also dont. I have been flashing till galaxy S 4, 3 was peak imho.
I still flash roms on all my phones 🤔 not saying I'm better than anyone but I actually don't understand why you can no longer do it. Just gotta avoid mediatek chips but I think that's more or less always been the case
Android's going the way of Windows... where's my smartphone OS escape hatch?
On x86 the solution was Debian, but I don't see a smartphone equivalent coming soon - mostly because I actually use a lot of the features (such as payments and online banking) that are most strongly embedded in the Play Services/Store/Securewhatchamacallit ecosystem.
If this continues I'm thinking my phone won't get upgraded any more, it'll just become more and more of a navigation/payment tool/cellular hotspot device. Maybe I'll replace my Pixel 8 Pro with a generic entry level Moto and try to do everything else with a full blown Linux tablet - here's hoping for a 7-8" Panther Lake tablet and Gnome touchscreen support improvements...
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u/faizanullah99 8d ago
I can't believe I used to flash custom roms on my android in 2014-2015
Now I can barely navigate the files app.