The specs on FP6 isn’t that much better than FP5. If you are a bit short on money, I’d go for a FP5. You could get a secondhand for a good price now.
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Not really. Lots of phones dont have support for alternative OSes, and some of those who do are unstable. You cant degoogle without alternative OSes when google mandates even for Fairphone that if they want to preinstall the play store for users, they need to install it as a system app along with other google components, which have very wide ranging permissions, more than any user installable app can have.
This is more to OP than bjoern: Fairphones are in a better situation, but even there your government can easily keep you locked into google services against your will, when certain European countries make it basically mandatory to keep your phone google infested, because the mandatory government app will refuse to work when it sees that your phone does not run a Google Approved operating system.
Unfortunately automatic updates do not solve the actual problem.
Apps on the google play store have not only lots of dark patterns that trick you into allowing them to read all your pictures and files, all your contacts and calendars, by taking advantage of the phone’s owner irresponsibly allowing access to the information of other users and their local peers stored on their phone.
But some of the apps there even run residential proxies on user’s phones that allow criminals to build very hard to block (or even recognize) botnets, which are used among other purposes to mass scrape websites for training AIs on their content.
All this even on phones that are regularly updated, because the user does not have the authority over what they theoretically own, to say whether to install that update or not.
I would be surprised if most of the datamining and botnetting would happen on phones because they run outdated software with known security vulnerabilities, and not because the owner was tricked into allowing it.
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Ok, degooglimg is a bit easier, when you buy it directly with /e/, but else you can at least uninstall every app from every Android distribution, using the right tools. Even system apps. There is no need for a custom ROM.
You are talking about automatic Play store app updates, but we are talking about system/OS updates, which includes critical bugfixes.
And about all the rest:
This is almost entirely FUD (Fear, uncertainty, and doubt - Wikipedia). Of course there is malware out there, but this is not solely an Android problem.
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Are you sure that it is possible to completely uninstall google mobile services (the parts running in the background), so that it never runs anymore until a factory reset?
I was talking about updates universally. Forced automatic system updates wont solve the problem of data harvesting and botnetting apps if the play store happily delivers the offenders to you, as “sponsored” top results no less.
It is not fear, not uncertainty, and neither doubt. Forced system updates do not solve the problem. And those dark patterns are not even just in some small apps that basically nobody knows about, it is there in very popular apps.
Actually if you search the play store for a reputable, user-first app by its name, because you already know that you want that app specifically and no other, theres a good chance the official google play store app will present that as the second result with smaller font, while the first result is a typical data grabbing app, with large font, large icon and an install button. Notorius example I have just experienced a month or so ago is when I searched for the Aegis authenticator app for 2FA codes on the phone of someone I was helping. The “sponsored” top result had an entirely different name, so this cannot be caused by both being too similar in their names.
And before that I didnt understand how did they manage to find such a bad app to use for the government site’s login code generation that presents so many ads on startup, that if you manage to find the buttons for closing each ad you have to click at least 4 times to close all of them and see the codes. If the user does not manage that, they’ll be tricked into installing 3 other apps and registering at whatever website. Oh and the app locks you in, it does not allow you to export your codes and switch to a different app. Now I know how did they manage to do that, and I highly doubt this garbage 2FA app was an outlier, as I have seen the play store’s dark pattern many many times in the past.
But another example is facebook’s apps, and how they all try to get you to enable uploading of all your contacts’ information, and location permission. This has been happening for a very long time now, probably at least decade at this point.
Recently they got caught tracking users through a sandbox escape vulnerability, exactly like malware does.
And now they ask your permission to automatically train their AI on all mages in your phone, including those you never uploaded to facebook services. In a dialog with a bright accept button, so that busy people and thos who nevr read permission dialogs know how to accept it without a thought.
Automatic forced system updates solve none of these problems.
Largely because data harvesting and botnetting (1, 2) is most often not achieved through vulnerabilities in the system, because both of these malicious activities can happen with a few granted permissions, possibly good enough even with just a persistent notification.
First of all:
You are completely off topic. What you are talking about was not about what the original poster asked. Instead you switched the topic without saying it, when going from OS to store updates. Then you switched the topic once again, when calling the good reasons for updates off and bloating about issues with the Play store.
But yes, you can uninstall any app. I even uninstalled Qualcomm apps from my FP4.
In a practical sense (potentially following a discussion about the technical sense) yes, via the ADB way Android provides …
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You can have some basic notebooks at this price point. Cheapest Framework notebook, the new Framework Laptop 12 is not so far from price point set at 600 euro, the cheapest option (default ports preset, 8GB RAM, 0.5TB NVMe, without charger, just to be fair to compare with the Fairphone) is priced at 773 euro, and it’s possible to cut price down by providing you own storage and RAM. Framework is created with not quite identical mindset, but it’s very close, it’s designed to be sustainable and upgradable when you needs grow, and it’s not even considered as a cheap option in the market.
And there are additional pros to this concept:
- better compatibility with wider range of software
- there are plenty of fantastic Linux distros, it’s open source, it’s well maintained,
- you can install Windows without any trouble, if needed
- you still can play even on cheapest machine, retro gaming is also an option,
- you do not need to worry about updates at all, I still have very old hardware with latest software, there are no bigger updates to the x86 platform that forces you to switch to the new devices, my 12 year old notebook is still good enough device for web surfing, writing documents and even playing older games.
And obvious cons:
- it’s not a phone,
- less portable,
- shorter life on battery.
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I’ve got both. Struggling to move my data across to the FP6, so I’ve not used it much yet. but I can tell you about build quality, feel etc. The FP5 is the more premium build and feel. But it’s heavier, larger as a result. The main issue I have with the FP6 is the plastic battery door is very thin and as a result it’s not sitting flat, the joints aren’t level and there’s even a curve where the two prongs and pulling it down a little. This should easily have been spotted and fixed. Would have been better to have had a much longer battery door prong at the top. Just spoils what is otherwise a really nice design. You can see here the line is not even. Maybe I have a bad example but this really should be fixed.
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this is not the case for me
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Is yours white? Perhaps it is less noticeable on other colours or I just got a lemon.
That doesn’t look right. I would contact support.
There’s been one case reported on the forum where - due to a screw bent or something alike - the battery lid didn’t fit.
Could you perhaps double check all your battery screws?
I’ve had the base back off already. I’ll have another closer look as the battery might be sitting too high up.
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No, it is green, but it seems way better than your photo
I have a green one and it’s there too. Doesn’t bother me at the moment.
Not sure, but the protective case (the green one still not available 
) may cover it…
I reseated the battery connector cover. Might be marginally better. But it’s just one of those things you notice with a new item before you just forget about it.
When somebody has old phones that still work for the most part, but have been discarded for 1 failure (here the current phone is being replaced by an gp6 as it looses contact with sim, previous as it drops GPS when I navigate and no sounds whan calling), they have an option to have an google infested device at home for the stuff they need to do online (use an old one, which is stationary at home for that), while being degoogled on the road.
We’ll be doing just that for an banking app. The hardware device will not be supported, but the app doesn’t support delegated access and requires google services. I’ll just link that to the banking account and will give it another pin so my wife can unlock it.
When ‘the system’ forces you to do something against your preferences, there is always away around it.
The pros displayed above are the main reason for me to consider the 6, especially as the 5 would be the 256GB version, which makes the price con ‘only’ €20 (€579 vs €599) That’s a tenner a year for the extra updates. As I’ll be using Lineage the moment it’s available (when I can help to achieve that I will), I doubt that support woiuld be even longer, as long as the device is still working. (The Smasung Galaxy S2 from '11 had unofficial Lineage updates until '22)
For me, after replacing smart phones every (other) year as they broke (apart from a 6y used Nokia 6.1, which was the only one beating the €100/y target by a margin), longlivety is the main selling point, durability is a very nice pro, as well as the smaller size. With 6.3" the 6 is still a tad to large (the N6.1 is 5.5"), but at the moment it’s one of the smallest phones available.
I had a Pixel 7 Pro before the FP6. It’s more or less the same speed in use. Camera is decent, lacks the physical zoom but that’s a rare feature on phone. Really hoping the firmware update lands tomorrow as the bluetooth issue is a bit annoying, screen refresh issue is mildly annoying but not the end of the world. Would be nice if touching the fingerprint reader locked the phone.
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