What's a good phone now that doesn't force ads on me?

Q: what's a nice phone to buy? I don't want to go through menus

A: flash graphene os

Cmon lemmy

Why do you feel the need to change phones? Pixel 6 Pro should still be plenty good enough.

If its stock ROM bothers you, you're in luck because Pixels are surprisingly hackable and it's very easy these days.

See i.e.: https://grapheneos.org/
No need to worry about Google services, they work: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play

I'm on a pixel 6a, I swapped out my DNS server to dns.adguard-dns.com and now I don't get ads on any app or game I use, excluding YouTube (which I use very rarely).

You should keep your phone and install GrapheneOS. It's not hard, you just have to reboot your phone and press few clicks in your browser. You can install Google Play and every Google service should work (except Android Auto and you can't use NFC with GPay).

Fairphone 5 is still on my list but unfortunate it does not support QI charging.

GrapheneOS yo. You even already have a pixel for it lol

I don't see any ads on a non-rooted Samsung.

If you're seeing ads, its because you're using apps that deliver ads.

Google services still work on Graphene, Lineage and DivestOS. With Graphene they run in a sandbox, with DivestOS they run in a user context.

I've done all of them. My google stuff works fine.

I bought the Zenfone 10 for those reasons and I'm pretty happy with it. I'm not going to buy a Samsung again.

You can disable all the bloateware on any phone using an universal adb/fastboot debloater script on xda.

Does not need root access.

My recommendation is FairPhone. Check specs before buying. It’s only a mid range CPU.

Google Pixel with GrapheneOS.

If you are actually, really, honestly low on money, you may get something with DivestOS or LineageOS.

GrapheneOS is the gold standard, every Google certified Android is full of tracking and will show ads in places

Where'd you hear about flagship Samsung phones having ads?

As far as I know, the only Samsung models that feature ads tend to be the lower end series that get sold in markets like India.

I've read that the FairPhone comes with a standard, vanilla Android OS on it, no bloatware. I cannot say if it's true, but you could have a look at the FairPhone forums and see what people think of the OS.

I know you don't want to tinkle with the bootloader et al., but if you're willing to try a different OS without the hassle: it is posible to buy a FairPhone with /e/OS or iodéOS preinstalled.

Depends what you mean by an "ad" but going by the usual definition no phones have ads except cheap chinese ones and some phones in amazon's program.

I'm currently using a Moto Edge 30 Ultra it's basically completely AOSP Android the only stuff that's pre-installed are the Moto Apps that are actually useful for the phone which also don't have any ads and the phone has way better performance than all my stupid Samsung Exynos phones. So Motorola would be very good for what you're looking for. If you don't want to go with Motorola though I would recommend Sony or Fairphone.

I'd say stick with the Pixels, especially since you're already invested in Google services. You wouldn't be gaining much from switching to Samsung, unless you want to use the S-Pen, or some of the advanced multi-tasking features or customisation options (Good Lock stuff).

But FWIW, I've had the Galaxy Fold 4 and now on a Fold 5, and I haven't seen any ads on my device, nor do I recall seeing any third-party bloatware (besides Samsung/Google bloat of course). But your experience might be different if you buy a phone from a carrier, since it's usually the carriers who load crap on your phone (with the exception being most C*****e phones, which come with thirdparty bloatware out of the box).

I recently bought a Pixel 8 and put grapheneos on it. Pretty happy with it but quite the learning curve.

Sony Xperia 1 II, III or V can be flashed to LineageOS

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

As far as I know Motorola and Pixel are the only OEMs with no ads or bloatware. For samsung you need to debloat and turn off notifications.

Pixel 6 Pro+GrapheneOS is my choice. Finding apps that dont need google play services is tough, but doable. Its insane how much of the android app ecosystem relies on google play services, especially for push notifications.

Well...since Google is primarily an Ad company.....

I just plug into the Private DNS settings dns.adguard-dns.com and run ad free. As for bloat- mine was infested with Facebook and other apps preloaded by Samsung, but it was easy enough to remove by long pressing and deleting it. They fortunately didn't make them system apps.

With that said, if you are handy with android-tools such as ADB, you can place your phone in debug mode and issue adb commands to disable system apps. Pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Any with good hardware as long as you can switch to stable and community-made ROMs.

I've been happily running cheap Nokia phones for the last couple of years. It's vanilla Android with very little bloat, no ads and years of security updates.

Upgrading from a pixel 6 pro... I'm still on a pixel 3 and the only thing that's making me want to get a new phone is my battery, but even then I'm still apprehensive. It's not like I NEED a new phone.

I am still loving my Pixel 6 Pro. Other than installing AdGuard, or just change your DNS, I pretty much use it as is. I turned off all the Google home or whatever that thing was to the left. Take a minute and go through your installed apps and turn off notifications for things you don't want or just uninstall. I don't think you could ever convince me to buy a Samsung again.

My only gripe is the size and how the camera sticks out. The battery life is great, I have plenty of space locally, and I can wirelessly charge my earbuds with it if I want.

What ads are you referring to? I gave Galaxy S 23 Ultra and I've never seen any ads in the OS.

I have the Xiaomi 13T Pro, and I haven't noticed any ads. You can buy wallpapers and ringtones, but there are also tons of free ones, and it doesn't pop up advertisements for it except once to show the function is there. The new HyperOS although it looks the same and has similar functionality on the surface as MIUI, is way way better IMO.
Security and game center are gone, 2 of the top annoyances with MIUI IMO. HyperOS feels way snappier too. With MIUI the 13T Pro was slower than my old Motorola to turn pages in an e-book quickly. Now it's super snappy. HyperOS just feels better somehow.
I installed Firefox with uBlock Origin, and chose it as default browser. I also uninstalled "Community Center" I think it was called. An app to use various Xiaomi services.
There are a couple preinstalled apps, I don't recall if Facebook was among them, but they are easy to uninstall, it literally just takes a minute to uninstall.

But maybe Motorola would be more to your liking, they use almost completely vanilla Android, with only an app to configure Motorola specific features. I did get some ads for printing services on my Motorola, but it seemed to be more a Google thing than Motorola. (Haven't seen any such things on my Xiaomi 13T Pro)
And AFAIK you can still remove the search widget from the desktop on Motorola, something that apparently is no longer possible in completely vanilla Android. Reason enough for me to completely avoid Google Pixel phones. Why would they even want to do such a stupid thing?

It is easy to turn off ads on Xiaomi. I am using Poco X3 pro for more than two years and never seen one. Bigger problem with Xiaomi is media selector app and that they disable auto unlock Android feature (you can't unlock your phone automatically when at home or some BT device is detected).

I currently own a S23+ and had a OnePlus 6T before that and Nexus 5X before that. I wouldn't be bothered by the Samsung bloat. You can uninstall nearly everything. Set the default apps you want to use and hide the rest. You have this configured quickly and then you will never be bothered by it again.

The default Pixel 8 launcher doesnt even allow you to remove the huge Google search widget, which bothers me a lot more. I find One UI pretty vanilla feeling to be honest. Don't notice that much difference from my OnePlus 6T which had a fairly vanilla OS.

I have the Pixel 7 Pro and there's no ad forcing. Some apps can push ads, but just block them or don't use those apps. I'm using the Nova Launcher though. Idk if that matters.

The easiest way to get rid of ads it's a DNS level AdBlock, you can simply use the private DNS option of Android(with AdGuard or Mullvad free DNS resolvers), next step use alternative frontends for YouTube(NewPipe x SponsorBlock) and Music like Spotify and YT Music(xManager or ReVanced), there will be some apps what will keep showing ads like Facebook but at least it will be a minor amount.

If you want to be more sophisticated about Android AdBlocks I will suggest you to root your phone, but with these non-root options 90% of people will do pretty fine.

Either keep using your current phone and install GrapheneOS or get a newer Pixel and flash Graphene. It's the best mobile operating system you can find. It doesn't come with any ads, trackers, bloatware, or any other annoying shit. It's just pure Android with many privacy and security improvements.

I'm in the same boat, the issue is my pixel 6 pro has a big smash on the screen so the Graphene option isn't possible. I used to have a Xiaomi and actually really liked it but I hear they're changing the os/UI? Also I dunno about ads, that sounds crap.

I'm using a pixel 6 non pro, and found that the pixel 7 and 8 were both a downgrade in terms of performance. Sticking with the 6 for now

Oneplus

They will hate me but iPhone has BSD/XNU/openSTEP. Of course it may feel like a prison after Android. Either that or a Linux phone with Waydroid

Dunno. I'm still rocking a OnePlus 7 pro with crdroid 10.2 (Android 14). Nice rom, no nonsense.

Agree a lot, Google Pixels are stupidly huge.

Permanently Deleted

iPhone.