[jqpabc123]

I guess I'll just have to stop using google.

Welcome to the club. The fastest way to convince me *not* to use a product is to attach a "Google" label to it. Nothing Google has to offer justifies the drawbacks.

NOTE: I do use an Android phone --- but only after it has been thoroughly de-Googled --- starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up.

[QuikAccount]

> NOTE: I do use an Android phone --- but only after it has been thoroughly de-Googled --- starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up.

You're going to have to explain to me. Particularly the "starting from a stripped down, bare metal device that won't even power up. Because this sounds excessive and a bit over the top.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

It probably means something like, "buy a phone, unlock its bootloader, and wipe its data and system partition(s), after which you can flash a ROM of your choice onto the now mostly-blank machine". Depending on the device, you can probably even wipe the vendor partition. Any ways, the point is that in the middle there you have a device with no OS present (hence unable to boot) and probably no Google-ware, so if you flash a privacy-friendly ROM and don't re-add GApps it won't talk to Google.

[ryantgtg]

Their device might have Google Smart Shellac on it, so this user chose to strip it off for the full De-Goog experience.

[QuikAccount]

> Google Smart Shellac

No idea what this is and searching yields nail polish as the result.

[jwagenet]

Shellac is just a varnish/coating, so the implication is Google features are metaphorically painted on the phone hardware and software and you just need to scrape it off.

[jqpabc123]

Unfortunately, what Google embeds into Android software is significantly more adverse than just "shellac".

A standard Android phone sends your IMEI and SIM card info to Google servers on boot up before you even have a chance to login.

[BenjiWiebe]

My phone won't even connect to cellular data until I log on after boot.

[QuikAccount]

Citation for this?

[ryantgtg]

I was making a (funny) joke that they put magic google paint on the phone, in addition to their software in the phone.

[medstrom]

I like how you had to specify that it was funny.

[jqpabc123]

adb shell rm -rf

[sergiotapia]

I bought Pixel phones for my wife and I because the price and ease of use to save my kids pictures was absolutely worth it.

I haven't found a service that functions as well as Google Photos. She takes pics and I take pics, and we have a shared account that backs it all up without any messing about. I have done precisely ZERO tech support for my wife since buying this service and phones and I will probably never leave.

[srcreigh]

My dad hates his pixel. His impressions are that they are taking away useful functionality and replacing it with Google assistant. He said he keeps trying to disable Google assistant but it turns on again the next morning.

I myself tried to power off the device. Holding the lock button actually didn't show a power off menu, it opened Google assistant. As far as I can tell the only way to turn off the phone was to say "Turn off" to the assistant.

[what_ever]

I am not justifying the decision, the power off button in the notification shade between quick toggles and notifications.

[Ourgon]

If ever you get tired of Google - and for those who get tired of Apple or Amazon or whomever they have entrusted their digital photo archiving needs to...

Any of the personal cloud things - Nexcloud, Owncloud, Seafile, Syncthing and others - can be used to sync files - and with that photos and videos - from mobile devices to some server somewhere. This can be the server-under-the-stairs, your NAS at home, a wall-wart with a Raspberry Pi and a drive taped together, a VPS or a commercial entity offering these as SaaS. You can keep using your phones with or without Google, that is up to you. If you run the stuff yourself you'll need to install and configure the parts which make it work, if you use a commercial instance you just have to install the relevant app and tell it to sync your data. You can do this in parallel to using Google Photos, just to make sure you have a backup in case Google wants just that one extra piece of personal data to allow you to access your photos which makes you give up on them. Just one more piece... and one more please...

[kybernetikos]

I have a system involving syncthing fork set up on my families phones and computers. I have to admit it was fiddly to set up but it has run very smoothly with no maintainence since then.

[mid-kid]

Why a fork? What's the fork do?

[kybernetikos]

https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android/blob/main/RE...

When I set it all up, I think the fork had much better behaviour around folder permissions for non-root users, I'm not sure if that's true any more.

[HWR_14]

Have you thought about an Apple iCloud family accounts?

[abawany]

Mega.nz and OneDrive work well for me, albeit slightly less polished and (thankfully) a lot less opinionated than Google Photos.

[Graffur]

How do you see eachothers photos though?

[sergiotapia]

We're in a family plan and share all pics. My wife and I have total access to each others phones as well so it just made sense to share all pics to our "family plan".

[29athrowaway]

Amazon Photos

[Graffur]

I would not trust Amazon with tech related stuff lol

[sergiotapia]

Used it before the pixel. It sucks and has this sheen of cobbled together and just good enough to launch but not a great experience.

[markdown]

HN needs a bot that posts an inb4 comment every time there's a post about Google or a Google product.

These predictable responses don't add any value whatsoever, and they're tiring to read.

[pessimizer]

You don't think your comment constantly gets posted as a reply?

[throw10920]

Downvote and move on - adding a low-value comment of your own worsens the problem in some ways.

[imchillyb]

The predictable responses, to the predictable responses add even less value than the original comment did.

I wish HN would auto-remove these BS comments about BS comments. They're so tiring and boring...

[worik]

Pot meet kettle....

[Dylan16807]

Once you're in the pit of bad comments, you might as well try to discourage the original problem.