How I ditched smartphones

Summary

Let me say right away that this is my personal experience, in which I took some very radical decisions. If you are not ready for such decisions, just skip the relevant points. This post is specifically about smartphones; tablets (which do not have a SIM slot) can simply be reflashed with firmware such as GrapheneOS or LineageOS. Disclaimer: This is not a manual, but a story about my personal experience. I am not encouraging or urging anyone to repeat it. However, I will include the names of the tools and other necessary information (if you decide to repeat it in whole or in part) in this text. No links, this is not an advertisement, and I hope DDG hasn’t banned you Why? I have always been concerned about the fact that virtually any phone can be tracked (for example, using triangulation) even after changing internet providers due to its static IMEI. As we know, most phones either do not support changing the IMEI at all, or it is extremely difficult and there is a chance of bricking the device. What prompted me to do this is that Google will soon make it more difficult to install apps from third-party sources, and some vendors (such as Samsung) have stopped supporting unlocked bootloaders, making it impossible to install “clean” firmware. Therefore, I consider any solutions that may currently exist for smartphones WITHOUT the ability to unlock the bootloader to be temporary. Plus, most smartphones have extremely limited update support in terms of time and speed, which forces you to buy newer and newer models. Well, it’s time to move on. Step one. Organizing communication. I decided to completely abandon phones as such. Even “dumb” ones. In the future, I will purchase a phone that runs entirely on Linux for the convenience of working with applications. I decided to address the need to receive SMS messages for registration with government and other services and to be able to use LTE by purchasing a Gl.iNet Mudi v2 (E750v2). Why: it supports SMS reception with the abilit...