Comment by Rychard | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Rychard | Hacker News Reader

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> Ask me to do firmware updates when I try to shut a device down, not when I turn it on. Ask me to update some software when I close a document, not when I launch it to do some work.

Just yesterday, I was at the grocery store and needed to check my shopping list on my phone. When I unlocked my phone, I found that it had (entirely on its own) connected to the insecure store wifi, and was downloading a 1GB+ update package. I was unable to stop this download, and it warned me that if I left wifi range it would continue the download over mobile data. Immediately upon finishing the download, the phone displayed a full-screen countdown stating that it was rebooting to install the system update.

Reluctantly, I gave up on checking my shopping list, placed my phone back into my pocket, purchased the items I could remember adding to the list, and went home. I have no idea how long the installation took, but the next time I checked my phone, it had successfully installed the update.

This is exactly the type of thing that makes me despise technology.

Name and shame

My Samsung phone has forced updates even worse than this. It will download an update silently in the background and will nag me with a new notification every couple of hours. It will let me delay the update for a random length of time before just rebooting on its own. The last update let me delay for something like 10 hours, but I've also had it reboot in the middle of the day while I was using my phone to show something to a customer.

This has also soft-bricked my device more than once. I use a custom launcher, and Samsung apparently doesn't like that, so the system updates can get me stuck in a loop where the launcher repeatedly crashes.

There is no way at all to disable auto updates or stop the process once an update has been acquired. I've even tried blocking IPs in my router, but it seems to change addresses now and then. My only option is to just always keep WiFi off. It thankfully won't download over the cell network.

I'm never buying another Samsung product. I hate this phone more than I have any other piece of technology.

The idea that some company can at any moment force my device to download gigabytes of unknown data and run anything they want on my device without my knowledge or consent is just reprehensible. I paid over a thousand dollars for this piece of crap and I don't even own it. It's utterly ridiculous.

Every few weeks I get a new notification that the Samsung EULA has updated. I just dismiss them. It's not like it matters if I agree or not.

Dang, so this is a recent Samsung phone then? I've heard really good things about Samsung though the last one I used was the Galaxy S3 and that was my wife's phone.

What are you going to get instead? I've been pleased with the Pixel line and have delayed updates for many weeks. It will just nag me with a popup every week or so but never forces. OnePlus I've also been very pleased with and have never even gotten a nag from them.

Note 10+. It was their flagship model 3 or 4 years ago.

I can't decide what phone to replace it with. I love the idea of the pinephone but it's way too cheap. The other open source options are way too expensive.

The best option seems to be a Pixel device with a custom OS, but I'm loath to give google money.

Under no circumstances will I buy another phone that I can't run a custom OS on.

You don't have an "Auto Download Over Wifi" option under Software Update in settings? I can uncheck that on my S23.

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