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Ask HN: Which smartphone OS gives user 100% control?

5 points by sreenadh ↗ HN
Since I heard of the "digital death sentence" that Google imposed on some Pixel resellers, I decided its high time I "un-google" myself. I am someone who is 100% reliant on Google & its services. The fact that they reversed the decision is irrelevant.

Android cannot function without a Google account and Google keeps a rather detailed record of you. I do not trust google to not monitor me if I put the right privacy settings in place.

ios devices are like Apple is doing us a favour by letting us use their cool device. I cannot even control the apple services data usage when I am on a cellular data plan.

Based on the windows 10 fiasco & the past record of M$, I do not expect anything from them.

So, which other smartphone OS give the user more control over the device and who gets to snoop on the data.

5 comments

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[dead] mister1221
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veddox
If you like Linux, you might try out the Ubuntu phone. It's reviews were quite good, although apparently it was still somewhat buggy just after release and the hardware was not top-of-the-range (don't know what the situation is like now). Basically, when it came out it was not yet quite ready for the crowds, but not a bad choice for enthusiasts. (I nearly got one myself, but eventually decided I didn't want to give up my trusty Nokia 3310 :-) ) And with Mozilla discontinuing Firefox OS, if you want neither Apple nor Google nor Microsoft, you don't have much choice left.
qwertyuiop924
Sailfish/Meego? Moblin? BBOS (the old, non-Android one)?

Save Sailfish, none of them are being updated, but they do respect your freedoms.

Basically, right now, you can either have a smartphone that doesn't put you in control, or a smartphone that sucks.

Maybe with newer Sailfish and Cyanogen devices, advances in FDroid, and Neo900, this won't be true in the future.