You can find services online that people will unlock your phone for you for a fee

Gotcha. Yeah that sucks

If they want you to use something specific on your own device then you should be able to request a new device from them

Be careful buying a phone from eBay. There’s a scam where once you get the phone the seller calls it in as stolen and the IMEI is blacklisted (so the seller gets insurance money). There’s nothing you can do to stop it. My Pixel’s IMEI slot 1 got blacklisted but slot 2 (esim) is okay and I’m using it without issue, though limited to one esim at a time now.

I’ve heard that new apppliances, etc will have 5g built in to circumvent you when you don’t connect it to your WiFi. So if they then have a microphone installed it’ll still upload that data without your permission.

It is expensive for what it is but it’s really the only option I’m aware of that keeps things simple and has Signal (or anything other than normal SMS and calling). Not sure what cell provider it works with. I also know nothing about the Sonim.

As far as a smart phone goes for your authenticator you could put Lineage on a Hisense A9 phone. It’s an eink smartphone

Flip phones from my understanding typically use a Google based OS as well as plain SMS and calls are not encrypted. If I were you I’d use the Punkt MP02 phone because it’s very basic but uses Signal still for communication encryption. Otherwise I’m happy for you that you went through with it and are enjoying it

Thanks for the Mac address tip. My home WiFi UI gets super slow after I have a million different devices connected because I have multiple GrapheneOS devices. Now I won’t have to constantly delete logged devices

No they don’t. EasyOptOuts is the one TechLore recommends and also the one Consumer Reports recommends for your best bang for buck.

I’m unaware of that. It works fantastic for streaming up to 4K and it will play HDR, Atmos, etc. LibreElec it also supports CeC.

Use Kodi to pirate shows and movies. TroyPoint has lots of good articles on how to set it up. Use RealDebrid and the Umbrella addon.

A 2GB RPi5 works great, install LibreElec (Kodi OS that’s FOSS), put it in a Flirc passive case (they also have a Kodi variant that they then donate some proceeds towards), and hook up a small wireless USB keyboard.

I did a similar thing and did put them with Kinoite. My dad has had only a handful of concerns, most of which are related to the transition and learning. His system has worked great with no real issues. I think once an update failed but after a reboot it proceeded just fine.

Plasma is so modern, Fedora is so smooth, atomic is great for this purpose, fingerprint scanner works, touchscreen works, the boot splash screen looks pretty, the list goes on

I just needed a tablet for work so I got a Pixel Tab and put GrapheneOS on it. I installed the app (assuming that’s what normal people/workers do) and then they told me they use the web interface as it works better.

Atkinson Hyperlegible Next from the Braille Institute

I use Kagi and it works well. Seems to give results on what I’m looking for. It gives me the website I typed in rather than a billion other things with a different name first

I would disagree. I’ve gotten quite a few people in my life to use Signal

I don’t want to chat with people on WhatsApp with Signal. I don’t want Meta linking my metadata. Interoperability will only keep people from switching to better platforms

He was able to install Linux and Windows but couldn’t figure out how to pair a Bluetooth device…

That’ll certainly be very interesting to see how accurate that is over time. Would be a game changer.

10% over 8yrs to me is a huge loss. Think of a 2004 vehicle. That doesn’t seem too old and certainly lots of those vehicles have modern expected amenities. It would have lost 25% of it’s fuel tank size today if it had a battery instead. Diesel hybrids would be a great solution for outstanding fuel economy that would last for many, many, many years