I only recently got pushes working on this phone and very happy to have them again - but I absolutely get this. I only have them on in a few places, so they’re convenient and not distracting - only on personal messages and on some chats I want to keep an eye on.

The most noticeable change in behavior would actually be lack of push notifications. At least by default - you can set up push without Google (like with UnifiedPush), but not all apps support that.

I absolutely understand why GOS stops updates when it does. And that’s precisely why I dislike the absolutism - the user might have other priorities.

Yeah, same. I’m a GOS user myself but hate the absolutism some people have about it. I would’ve probably gone with Lineage if I hadn’t bought this particular phone (and would likely go there anyway after the support ends, as GOS’ support is relatively short).

Edit: where I am, Pixels are also not officially available (although still surprisingly popular despite that, as they’re easy to get from unofficial resellers) and expensive relative to average income - like, the latest models would be completely out of my reach, their cost is egregious, and even a generation behind ($300) was still a lot.

But by that logic, the unofficial reseller I buy from has also already paid Google for the phones they’re selling now…

Why such an obsession with used Pixels? While $300 for mine was expensive, it wasn’t a lottery when buying at least, and its battery didn’t come pre-worn. Also I had no trouble buying it in cash.

Not to mention that a device that would pass Play Integrity is precisely the device I wouldn’t ever consider doing anything private on. Which would defeat the whole point of Signal. It’s already bad enough that it’s so desktop-unfriendly while much fewer phones than computers that can run non-privacy-invasive OSes than computers…

What are the ones you’re after specifically?

Yeah, absolutely agree that the two browsers’ actions don’t even compare. But I wouldn’t be defending FF either - for example, to my understanding, the PPA did make it into an actual update, and telemetry is not even all turned off by the basic toggles in the settings, with more being in about:config (part of the reason why hardening user.js exist).

Which would be absolutely disgusting given that Signal’s official app lacks some basic functionality!

Those third-party clients have some essential, basic functionality that the official ones for some reason lack. Signal-cli allows registering from desktop without any smartphone, Molly allows an arbitrary Socks proxy instead of being limited to just Signal’s own proxy solution, tying a desktop client with a link instead of scanning a QR code (thus allowing easy registration from an Android VM), and maybe most importantly for some - Notifications not relying on Google (Molly-Socket allows it to use UnifiedPush).

It has done some hostile things, such as having quite a bit of telemetry in it before hardening, or silently adding an ad attribution system. That’s why I would rather use a fork for a primary browser. What Brave has done is still more intrusive, though.

The issue with this is that it’s a part of an overall picture - that Brave sees nothing wrong with violating users’ boundaries. Brave 100% needs forks that would disable or remove weird non-consensual things added silently in updates, like what Librewolf is to Firefox, except Brave imo pushes the boundaries even more.

alchemy

Even before I cared about privacy, I think Apple would’ve been unacceptable to me due to how tightly locked down it is. Like… I’d have to go through hoops and pay some money for a cert (not much if you know where to look, but still) to get something as basic as an adless Youtube client.

Reddit is the ONLY website I use that outright denies me entry from my VPS (unless you count the “sorry we’re not available in Europe because we’d have to abide by GDPR”). Even Youtube lifts the ban after waiting for a while!

In my experience, most sites are broken not by Tor, but rather by Javascript turned off. But I do it in my normal browser as well, and it breaks just as much, with the exception that there I whitelist a lot.

Yeah. All the issues, even small and quickly-resolved ones, paint a picture - that they are eager to disrespect users’ consent.

Iceberg explanations are a whole Youtube genre, though - it’s such a convenient narrative structure.

I am now paranoid about someone getting in and deleting my gibus