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Table of contents:
Introduction (feel free to skip)
Just a year ago, I was really deep into the Apple ecosystem. It seemed like there was no turning back from the orchard for me. Phone, laptop, watch, tablet, video and music streaming, cloud storage, and even a key tracker. All from one manufacturer. Plus shared family photo albums, calendars, and even shopping lists.
However, at some point, I discovered Plenti, a company that rents a really wide range of different devices at quite reasonable prices. Casually, I threw the phrase “samsung fold” into the search engine on their website and it turned out that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 could be rented for just 250-300 PLN per month. That was quite an interesting option, as I was insanely curious about how it is to live with a foldable phone, which after unfolding becomes the equivalent of a tablet. Plus, I would never dare to buy this type of device, because firstly, their price is astronomical, and secondly, I have serious doubts about the longevity of the folding screen. I checked the rental conditions from Plenti and nothing raised my suspicions. Renting seemed like a really cool option, so I decided to get the Fold 6 for half a year. That’s how I broke out of the orchard and slightly reopened the doors to my heart for solutions without the apple logo. I even wrote a post about the whole process - I betrayed #TeamApple for broken phone. What I’m getting at is that this is how Android returned to my living room and I think I started liking it anew.
My adventure with Samsung ended after the planned 6 months. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a good phone, and the ability to unfold it to the size of a tablet is an amazing feature. However, what bothered me about it was:
after folding it was terribly thick, it couldn’t be used in a case, because all the covers either didn’t fit or slipped off the part that has screens on both sides, naked, it was very blocky, even sharp, which caused me discomfort; holding it was simply unpleasant, paying 300 PLN (~80 USD) for rent is a good short-term solution to get something to test, but not in the long run.
All the points above made me give up on extending the rental and start wondering what to do next. Interestingly, I liked Android enough that I didn’t necessarily want to go back to iOS. Around this time, an article hit my RSS reader: Creators of the most secure version of Android fear France. Travel ban for the whole team (I think it was this one, but I’m not entirely sure, it doesn’t really matter). It talked about how France wants to get its hands on the GrapheneOS system and thus carry out a very serious attack on the privacy of its users. I thought then, “Hey! A European country wants to force a backdoor into the system, because it is too well secured to surveil its users. Either this is artificially blowing the topic out of proportion, or there is actually something special about this system!”. At that moment, a somewhat forgotten nerd gene ignited in me. I decided to abandon not only iOS, but also mainstream Android, and try a completely alternative system.
What is GrapheneOS
GrapheneOS is a custom, open-source operating system designed with the idea of providing users with the highest level of privacy and security. It is based on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), but differs significantly from standard software versions found in smartphones. Its creators completely eliminated integration with Google services at the system level, which avoids tracking and data collection by corporations, while offering a modern and stable working environment.
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