Windows needs to stop showing tabloid news

It took me 10 minutes to run w10privacy to remove all the telemetry and spyware from Windows. It took me hours fiddling with adb to partially remove some of evilness from my android phone. Dont know much about iOS, but I've heard they dont even have an adb equivalent.

I've unrecoverably bricked a couple of android phones through not having the precisely correct model variant for the instructions I was following, or for the specific ROM I was installing. Sucks, but I generally don't faff with a device that's worth more than throw-away.

The risk is worth it for the life that LineageOS really breathes into an older device.

> As to the Linux, I tried to use it every so often, but it takes forever to learn all the command line switches to accomplish even the simplest tasks.

I rather spend time on getting some weird hardware to work (yes this is still occasionally a thing in Linux land), that getting my system "reasonably spyware free" (as we have no clue what actually happens since it's closed source).

GrapheneOS is extremely easy to install, the installer is literally a website where you click "Install now" while the phone is connected via USB. It is also one of the most usable custom OSes I've used and it is not only more privacy oriented but also more secure!

Would love to go back to a flashed device, but last time I did (3-4 years ago) my banking and e-id apps refused to run in rooted environments. 2nd-factoring payments and the like is a main use case of a phone now. Are these kinds of issues still around?

I like GOS as well -- and use it -- but most people won't have Pixel phones.

For LineageOS? Yes. For GrapheneOS? Maybe.

Essentialy banking apps hate unlocked bootloaders. GOS (GrapheneOS) avoids this relocking the bootloader (the key is theirs, if you want to build your own GOS you'll have to sign with your own key). However GOS still fails Play Integrity checks: it fails CTS Profile Match.

So, Banking Apps probably work but Google Wallet won't.

Additionally, they run Google Apps as non-privileged apps, using a compatibility layer called `gmscompat`. It's cool because it's easy to Degoogle your phone in an instant if you wish to. But certain niche features, for example, using your camera to help Google Maps match your surrounding with Street View data crash Maps.

Otherwise all runs mostly well. Waze a few weeks ago was wonky but I assume the bug they fixed in Wifi-location allowed Waze to behave -- haven't tested though.

Magisk can hide root from apps, but I don't know how effective it is against all possible methods an app might have of detecting root. I'm not sure if detecting an unlocked bootloader is treated in the same way or not - I haven't run into that one as a problem so far.

I refuse to use my phone for banking due to trust issues in putting all my eggs into such a stealable, forgettable-in-a-taxi, and heavily monitored device basket.

I'm not sure you can compare fresh installs of Windows to OEM installs of Android. A relative once got a low end Asus laptop that was so entirely bogged down with bundled crap it couldn't get past the firstrun setup. I had to do a fresh install.

Android OEMs do the same. Some are worse (looking at you, Samsung) and do horrible things to stock images in the interest of service integration and capturing long tail software sales. You could argue Google does the same over a AOSP-level base image with Google Search/Play.

Things like LineageOS give a clean android experience, but it's hardware dependant.

And call me old fashioned, but scrombling onto Google to find w10privacy, download it, unzip and run it as an admin kinda sounds like the hell the Windows XP era community got into with adware removers just installing more adware. You can buy the first spot on Google. Much rather see a Github page, source, releases, etc.