Is it worth unlocking the bootloader on my phone? It’s a Samsung with One UI 7.0 (I’ve been avoiding upgrading to 8.0 since they don’t let you unlock it after that). I just want to avoid having Google Services and AI installed. I use my phone to take photos of my art / send it to friends on signal and hate the idea of it being scanned by AI. I use a camera and gallery from fdroid but somehow the default photos app still has access (I know because it makes GIFs of pictures I took even though I marked permissions as “not allowed”). I also would love to get rid of the default apps I don’t use. While I can unlock the bootloader (for now), I can’t install a custom ROM because there are none compatible with my phone, so will I just be forced into using 8.0 at some point anyway? :( ATP I’m pretty much ready to give up smartphones and get a digital camera for anything I don’t feel comfortable feeding to tech companies.
You can also refuse infected devices.
Privacy is not single player. Showing privacy through your actions like this works far better than just talking about it.
Turning it off and never using it costs nothing.
What choice do I have? Not using a phone? Not being able to message my relatives when not bringing a laptop to school?
After I unlocked the bootloader and flashed custom software, the privacy invasive OS from Xiaomi is gone, unless they embedded a spyware into the bootloader, which any other company could also do.
But I do use Linux on my laptop and try to avoid useless and privacy invasive smart home devices (which is all smart home devices).
Don’t worry. When I will be able to afford it, I will switch to a GrapheneOS phone.