New Phone Today

General hardware discussion.
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Grogan
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New Phone Today

Post by Grogan »

It is a "Samsung Galaxy A36 5G"

Bigger and better, but every stupid fucking new version of anything takes shit away from you.
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Grogan
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Re: New Phone Today

Post by Grogan »

Well, I was bound and determined to make one post from my phone, but that's enough of that lol

We used the transfer app to transfer data and settings (my nephew was here and he did it) but that doesn't get everything. I lost my Vivaldi settings and speed dial tiles and shit, so I decided to just shit can that browser since it's a pain in the ass to go through all the settings etc.

Now that mobile Firefox is back to their own engine, all the good settings are back again and it's a nice mobile browser again. I'm glad they gave Google's browser engine the finger. So I'm back on that, and it looks great and behaves the way I want. It seems they have fixed the performance too, it used to be a slow renderer.
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Grogan
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Re: New Phone Today

Post by Grogan »

I have to find a replacement for the SMS messaging application. There's no more Samsung Messages, It's "Google Messages" now and I hate it, especially since I had no choice but to agree with Google spying on my messages. They don't include "phone numbers" but they upload and analyze your SMS messages now ("in cooperation with your carrier"). Fuck the living snot out of that.

There are a bunch in the Google Play store, but they all have ads and in-app purchases. Also, why would I trust them not to do the same or worse. There's a nice open source one called Quik SMS but it's not in the Play store, I'd have to install the F-Droid app installer. I'm considering it, but I really hate installing things on devices I have poor control over.
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Zema Bus
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Re: New Phone Today

Post by Zema Bus »

Yeah that's the thing about phones, the poor control we have over them. I got a Pixel 9 about a month or so ago, I wanted to do it before the tariffs would potentially raise the prices. My old phone is now my backup phone.

I switched carriers too, Ting has gone downhill since they were acquired by Dish Network, their help forums and customer service techs who were also in the forums were great, and I could always get a new SIM on Amazon whenever I needed one. But that's all gone now. And now the parent company is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I went to get a new SIM after getting my new phone but Amazon stopped carrying them, the only place I could find them was directly from Ting. But, their site was broken so I couldn't update my address. It was then that I read about what was happening, and so it was time to move on. I went to US Mobile, which is like what Ting used to be. I went with the eSIM option, so no more messing with those tiny SIM cards. Plus I can switch between three different networks if I'm in an area with poor reception on one of them.

There are some alternatives to Google Android, like LineageOS and GrapheneOS. There are others but these two I've heard the most about. It may not be a good idea to do something like that until the warranty has expired though.
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Grogan
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Re: New Phone Today

Post by Grogan »

I'd love to have a Linux phone, but around here you'd have trouble finding a carrier it works on. Proprietary protocol stacks etc.

I'm probably going to install that F-Droid repo app to get access to better software. I'm going to have to load it with an APK file and allow the phone to install unauthorized software etc.
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