[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.

[jqpabc123]

What the UI shows you and what the phone OS actually does are not necessarily the same.

[QuikAccount]

Citation for this?

[jqpabc123]

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf

[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