It is kind of ironic for me to think my perception of Android as same as Windows as major malware distributor despite it is based on Linux. Android is now fast becoming Windows XP of mobile.
My Android phone came with a weather app preinstalled. The app cannot be uninstalled, is full of translation errors and some links redirect to Chinese websites. Who knows what data my phone constantly sends there?
Adding to that the fact that I don't receive system updates anymore, I have absolutely no trust in my phone. My next phone will be an iPhone, for the lack of better alternative.
Yeah, I recently switched from iPhone to Samsung Galaxy S10.
I don't have a previous experience so my reasoning was "well it's Samsung, at worst they'll have some shitty branded apps and some cruft". But I don't have an idea what these dozens of preinstalled apps running on my phone doing. Almost none of them can be uninstalled and only a handful can be disabled.
It is kind of scary to use a banking app on this thing. Never felt this way on an iPhone. I wanted to see the Android side after years of iPhone use, apparently it is still shit.
This is exactly why I am back on iPhone. I have had enough of unremovable shitware. I also value the simplicity of getting basic things done such as Bluetooth pairing. Stuff seems easier. The only thing slightly worse on iPhone is google 2fa, because it needs to use the gmail app.
> It is kind of scary to use a banking app on this thing.
My wife, who is not a tech person at all, flatly refuses to run any banking or financial apps on her Android phone. She knows just enough about the technology to know that most Android devices are cesspools of spyware and malware, even her Galaxy phone. She doesn't like iPhones though, so I doubt she will ever go over to that side even for security's sake.
To be fair, they did get Coreboot working after about 2 years from the time of that post but it's still not ideal, compared to a older Libreboot based system, performance not withstanding.
Ever try the phones from Google with pretty much nothing pre-installed? It is a much better experience, but yes Android is still proper shit in some ways. In others it has come so far. I never have to restart my phone like I had to for my Galaxy S1 every day.
Oneplus preinstalled weather app doesn't work at all without access to my contacts and to device storage (media). I'm also more and more thinking about switching to Apple, and paying premium for no hardware advantage, only due to fact that Apple collects and sells less information about me. Not because it will change anything substantially but on principle.
... and it is probably going to be even worse with BSD/MIT/Apache-licensed eventual Android replacement in development called Fuchsia. More modifications by vendors and manufacturers, more preinstalled malware and bloatware, less customizations allowed. :)
Adding to that the fact that I don't receive system updates anymore, I have absolutely no trust in my phone. My next phone will be an iPhone, for the lack of better alternative.