my future mobile phone strategy for the approaching time of increased surveillance
by Lukas from LinuxQuestions.org on (#529KK)
I'm currently a Mate 9 user with its stock Android. As I'm very old, my mobile phone use is quite modest. I use it as a phone, sometimes. I mainly use it to read ebooks (epub, pdf, never drm). When traveling, I use its gps in conjunction with Osmand (openstreetmap offline maps, local storage). And, mainly when traveling, I use it to have a browser, to buy train tickets and such. I also use it for the bus tracker in my city.
Because of the main use as a book reading device, I needed the phone to be large (pdfs).
With the recent news of governments potentially in the near future mandating the installation of tracking apps on IPhones and Android phones, and some recent news of google and apple building this into their OSes, I began re-considering my phone.
My thought was: if I have a phone that's neither Android nor IPhone, nobody can demand such an installation.
Looking around the actual (non-Android) Linuxes on phones (the current hotness seems to be postmarketOS), my Mate 9 isn't supported.
For work, I have to have a mobile phone, to be able to receive the blighted 2factor auth calls from MS. But it could potentially be a dumb-phone.
Also, potentially, a dedicated reader could deal with my book reading requirements. A non sim-card device.
But I really do want a large smartphone for the openstreetmap application, which involves gps.
I'd like to be able to continue using my Mate 9, if possible.
So I'm wondering, if I go for an Android ROM such as Replicant, to what extent I would be able to subvert mandated tracking. Would it count as a non-Android phone, regarding the installation of unwanted tracking apps? And would I be able to completely turn off connectivity, while having the phone on, and using it as a reader. And ideally while having gps on and using it with offline maps?
Or is all that hopeless and I should go for a proper Linux like Pinephone, while giving up on the screen size I wanted?
Because of the main use as a book reading device, I needed the phone to be large (pdfs).
With the recent news of governments potentially in the near future mandating the installation of tracking apps on IPhones and Android phones, and some recent news of google and apple building this into their OSes, I began re-considering my phone.
My thought was: if I have a phone that's neither Android nor IPhone, nobody can demand such an installation.
Looking around the actual (non-Android) Linuxes on phones (the current hotness seems to be postmarketOS), my Mate 9 isn't supported.
For work, I have to have a mobile phone, to be able to receive the blighted 2factor auth calls from MS. But it could potentially be a dumb-phone.
Also, potentially, a dedicated reader could deal with my book reading requirements. A non sim-card device.
But I really do want a large smartphone for the openstreetmap application, which involves gps.
I'd like to be able to continue using my Mate 9, if possible.
So I'm wondering, if I go for an Android ROM such as Replicant, to what extent I would be able to subvert mandated tracking. Would it count as a non-Android phone, regarding the installation of unwanted tracking apps? And would I be able to completely turn off connectivity, while having the phone on, and using it as a reader. And ideally while having gps on and using it with offline maps?
Or is all that hopeless and I should go for a proper Linux like Pinephone, while giving up on the screen size I wanted?