You can even run any browser you want on an iPhone! Lmao.

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > You can even run any browser you want on an iPhone! Lmao.

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

I like Apple products; they make good phones, computers, and software, but it's becoming harder to "own" their devices outright. It's easiest to have control over the device in Android, such as when updates are downloaded, freedom to use alternative dialer and message apps, etc. Android isn't without it's flaws, but it can be tuned to what I feel is a more appropriate model for a personal communications device.

When I got my Moto e4 Plus I removed all the Google apps, most Motorola proprietary software, and excess bloatware. I then added an app firewall to my phone to filter outgoing connections. As a result, my battery went from 1 day standby, out of the box, to at least 3 days with casual use. Of course, hotspotting and low cell service are the biggest factors for draining it quicker than that, but if I keep the hot spot off and stay in decent service, it'll last forever. I didn't have to pay much to get back to the day when a cell phone would last for days without a charge. The main culprit was Google Play Services. I'm excited to see more alternative phones to hit the market this year such as the Pine or Librem models.

For my apps, what I did was stop using those which require Google Play Services extensions to function correctly. I was able to save a copy of my bank's APK and side-load it. F-Droid has a great selection of software, and unlike the Play Store, it's way easier to find apps that don't want Internet permission.

Those of you who want to delete bloatware and don't have root, all you have to do is open an ADB shell and use these commands:
pm list packages (list installed packages)
pm uninstall -k --user 0 [com.package.name]

This will even uninstall apps that do not allow uninstallation from the UI.

BigBadSteve posted:

Also OP, you think "app availability"is worse for Android than iPhone? Wtf, there are tens of thousands of Android apps!

Not to mention on Android they can be side-loaded, beyond just temporary for development like in iOS.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2019 17:45

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:05

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW posted:

What did you use for the firewall? I'd love to force Instagram and poo poo from connecting to the internet without me opening the app

I used to use NoRoot Firewall but switched to NetGuard after seeing (minor) data usage creep up by NoRoot. NetGuard doesn't use any data on it's own and I think is a more polished product. These are loopback VPN app firewalls for non-root devices. Were I to own a root device I'd use a firewall that blocks at the network level. All of these can be found on F-Droid

Telebite posted:

I completely abandoned the idea of Apple for anything after Steve Jobs posted a long "rant" about how "WE will not let FLASH run on OUR devices."

Who gives a poo poo about Flash, but the "WE decide what runs on OUR devices" should be so absolutely offensive to ANYONE who cares ANYTHING about technology and moving forward.

So to me, letting Apple have ANY or your money says you have no problem with being told what you are allowed to do with computer hardware that you paid for with your own money. No you don't own the rights to the hardware but you own the hardware itself, and you, and ONLY you, should be allowed to say what gets to run or not.

(And yes I'm aware that there are multiple browser apps on the Apple store that support Flash like Puffin or Photon, but again it's not about Flash, it's about the "We will not let XX run on OUR devices" line.)

Reminds me of why I left iOS...

Why is my internet connection slow? Oh iOS downloaded a 1.5 gig update.
or
Where did all of the remaining storage on my device without an expandable memory slot go? Oh, iOS downloaded a 1.38 gig update.

But while I'm at it, I run Linux on my 2013 MBP with SSD and it's very quick compared to MacOS, and I'm not chained to a decision like the one to remove the "time remaining" estimate for the battery (a feature introduced in Sierra.)

# ¿ Feb 21, 2019 23:10

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

karma_coma posted:

...
Pixel is a stupid name for a phone anyways and they should've kept the Nexus name going.
...

The company known for privacy has come full circle and named a phone after an old web tracking technology.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 00:51

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW posted:

...

What app did you use to figure out what was sucking up most of your data? And what kind of fun things can I expect to break by blocking Google Play Services from having a data connection?
I downloaded AFWall+; what other apps/processes do you recommend I block?

I used the built-in Android data usage analytics feature to narrow down the culprits. I went with a whitelist model for the firewall, so no unauthorized traffic will flow by default.

Just blocking Play Services from the Internet will probably not affect a whole lot of apps that don't depend on Google features, however I would expect blocking Play Services would keep the Google apps from working properly at the very least.

I took a minimal approach and removed all of the Google services from the phone. This made Signal angry but there's an alternative without the Google Play Services dependencies. I was able to keep a couple Play Store APKs for future use without the Play Store by extracting them from the phone after downloading, however the process of removing Google Services completely didn't actually uninstall any apps.

I went with F-Droid, and use the following software:

QKSMS for SMS and MMS
Simple Keyboard (instead of Gboard)
K9 Mail
OSMAnd+ for maps
FreeOTP for 2FA
FindMyPhone (replies with the GPS coordinates of the phone when it receives a keyword, does not need Internet)
Open Camera (camera replacement, seems to work just as good as any and has a good amount of features)

And a caveat with the non-root uninstallation procedure, I had recently reset Network Settings and doing so brought some default Moto services back which I had to reuninstall.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 19:22

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

The two apps that "shouldn't be here" would be connecting to 1e100 and did for a little bit while the firewall was disabled.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2019 21:44

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

Dumb Lowtax posted:

A few pages ago "Cough Drop the Beat", you said that Apple stands by their products for five years. You would lead people to believe that there's almost nobody who Apple does wrong by. No one is shielding you from the horror stories except yourself; certainly not us.

I went to an Apple Store yesterday with a bricked phone, since I had gotten the word that their internal article OP2124 explained the exact defect that my phone was experiencing. It has to do with the IC being unable to cope with the newer firmware updates, causing a myriad of crashes. They ran diagnostics and confirmed that yes, my phone has the defect described in their article. They admitted that Apple was *at fault*. And then they insisted that I was on the hook for paying for a new phone! Since the software update was sent to me by them right after my warranty and payments were done, that I was on the full hook for the replacement price. It's been two years, not five, and this is a product Apple did not stand by. I should not have to pay any extra (extra warranties, or extra replacement costs later) for a defect they admit they admit they are at fault for, but I do.

In conclusion "Cough Drop the Beat", you are really reminding me why sometimes I feel that I have talked too much or dominated a conversation, and feel the need to duck out and not make the whole conversation about myself. Otherwise I might look like I'm flailing around on the losing side of an argument. This thread goes a much different and more pleasant direction whenever you're not vainly responding to every single post as if it's a personal attack on your brand. In what universe does Apple, a company with .35% of the entire Earth's finite wealth supply, a trillion dollars, need you to come defend them for free on every single possible criticism? You, less than an ant or a flea to them in terms of their power and influence?

It's a rhetorical question. You don't have to respond.

This reminds me of the time I needed an Apple phone for a tester, so I took an iPhone 5c I was given for the purpose and ran a restore in iTunes... Never worked again. Remained on the grey boot screen indefinitely from the time I ran the restore (2015), on. Worked fine before that.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2019 22:16

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 10:05

grillster: Dec 25, 2004

QuarkJets posted:

Well you shouldn't want to run an older device anyway, it probably has one of those super uncool and annoying 3.5mm jacks that no one likes so really apple did you a favor by bricking that device

They never got to update the first generation iPad I ran for as a car music jukebox, so that lasted up until last fall when I drowned it.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2019 22:56

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > You can even run any browser you want on an iPhone! Lmao.