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Comment by major4x | Hacker News Reader

Google helping with your security is similar to when those nice mafia guys knock on your door offering protection. Don't forget that Google is apotheosis of evil corporation trying to take over all your data. This is the very company that turned "don't do evil" into "do things".

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It's almost like a giant company like Google have ~100,000 employees, with a complex incentive structure at different levels that are encouraged to do different goals. While I have almost completely de-googled my life a few years ago, it is just stupid to attribute malice to anything they touch -- they have plenty of good contributions, certain parts of AOSP being an example.

I would be happy to have that on a GrapheneOS phone for example, if I hadn't went with Apple.

This is not a Googler's 20% project. You can expect any major feature released to have been infected with Google's morality and mentality of being an ad company needing to extract profit out of free products.

You cannot apply Hanlon's Razor to megacorporations.

GrapheneOS has had 4G only mode for a while, not sure about the rest. I wouldn't be surprised if there'd been some communication on their end.

I wouldn't say malice but some of their practices are hostile.

I think a lot of Android devices have that; you type ##4636## into the dialer, and a menu appears. In that menu, you can select which cellular technologies are used.

Some of their practices are, my gripe is with the “all” quantifier.

Do you have a specific critique of these features?

Some people just need to say they hate a company whenever they appear in a topic - it's a form of reverse fanboy-ism

I wish there was a way to create or apply a rule that addressed that type of comment. Most, certainly not all, end up not contributing much, just angst.

Could you add something constructive, like an alternative? If you want to say Apple, go to start and try again.

How about GNU/Linux phones, Librem 5 and Pinephone?

They are toys and are absolutely not ready for daily use.

I am using the first as a daily driver.

Graphene OS

How is your rant has anything to do with the subject? Do you have a shred of evidence to support your claim?

Yes? The world is nowhere near perfect, but those mafia guys are probably actually going to protect "their" money from other gangs, and Google's obsession with your data means they have even more incentive to protect said data from other actors. In addition, of course, to the more general incentive to build features that can make more people (or in this case, organizations) choose Android.

Credit where credit's due. Google moves against our best interests very often but this is not one of those times. Let's accept this improvement graciously. Other Android-based operating systems like LineageOS and GrapheneOS will also benefit.

Thank you for saying it. They could have done similar improvements 10 years ago and they did it only now that 2G is very rare.

Fix the issue now that GSM calls are rare...

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