> Use precise geolocation data ( 649 partners included )
No ads, No annoyances. Why are you still struggling with this?
I used to own (well, technicall I still own) a Jolla Phone when it was released in 2014 and what was way more beneficial towards my privacy as a user, was the fact that it was a full fledged linux phone where I could have potentially installed any piece of software I would have wanted, with full root access in a custom linux terminal with bash. I think I once tried to run a Minecraft Server on it.
I was hoping that they'd port aircrack-ng to it, like it was possible with the Nokia N900, but sadly that never happened.
> hardware switch that physically disconnects your microphone, camera and Bluetooth
When switched on it's impossible for your phone to listen to your conversation and send the data to some company somewhere or use it to influence ads. Airplane mode doesn't switch off the microphone, so your phone can just store the data to transmit later. And even if it did switch off the mic, it would be a software setting that could be undermined by some component manufacturer.
This sentence and others makes me think this article was written or edited by an AI. Anybody else get that feeling too?
It’s like having a guest room in your house. The app can visit, but it doesn’t get to rearrange your furniture or go through your mail.
Having tested dozens of privacy focused devices over the years, from GrapheneOS phones to Purism’s Librem 5. I can tell you that hardware based privacy switches are the gold standard.
>User configurable physical Privacy Switch - turn off your microphone, bluetooth, Android apps, or whatever you wish
Unless that user configuration is via internal jumper or DIP switch, then this cannot be a hardware privacy switch.
I think it's a wrong idea to focus so much on privacy, N9's OS (and Windows Phone too) correctly identified that users are looking for a much simpler experience than Android has provided (which is still true to this day).
I think the market gap still exists for people who don't want to run an iPhone, but prefer a simpler and more reliable experience than what the computer-in-your-pocket Android provides.
Especially, that nowadays I feel apps are becoming less and less popular, and everything's going back to the browser.
Might need disconnecting motion sensors, too:
AccEar: Accelerometer Acoustic Eavesdropping with Unconstrained Vocabulary https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.01042
Spearphone: A Lightweight Speech Privacy Exploit via Accelerometer-Sensed Reverberations from Smartphone Loudspeakers https://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/~yychen/papers/%28WiSec%2721%...
A survey of acoustic eavesdropping attacks: Principle, methods, and progress https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266729522...
2. Feeling like your phone is listening to you implies you lack self awareness to deduce why the things you think or discuss with others are reflected in your metadata. You use the internet as a sounding board for thoughts, there is a pattern to it and that is all happening non-verbally. Turning the mic off is unlikely to make this go away.
3. If this makes you paranoid, it should and that paranoia only becomes medically relevant if it impedes your ability to do things you want to do but is otherwise a healthy adaptation that in many contexts would aide in your continued survival. This might be worth keeping in mind, not trying to run away from. Quick fixes in life generally are just traps.
I just want to point out that it sounds like the privacy switch doesn’t disable the cellular radio. Which I guess makes sense in a way because if you are disabling all signals from your mobile device, what’s the point of even carrying it? Might as well leave your phone at home.
> if you are disabling all signals from your mobile device, what’s the point of even carrying it?
2. Being able to switch it back on if I need to access a network for some reason.
(not that you're wrong about leaving it at home being a good option)
> You know that moment when you’re chatting with a friend about needing new sneakers and then like magic, every app you open is suddenly plastered with shoe ads?
"It’s real Linux. Like, actual Linux. Not Android with Google quietly running 47 background processes to figure out whether you’re sad enough to buy ice cream. Not iOS with Apple playing gatekeeper over which apps you’re allowed to have. Just clean, honest open source Linux that treats you like a grown up who actually owns their stuff."
Still, for teenagers and young women, having the a switch that ensure that no one is spying on them in their bedroom or bathroom might help relieve some anxiety.
My iPhone is dying and I'm not sure if I'd want a new one. I certainly don't want an Android phone, because I have little trust left in Google, but Apple is also starting to annoy me and I certainly no longer feel like a valued customer. Plus their integration of Gemini into Siri doesn't inspire a lot of trust. There are a other few alternatives, like /e/OS and CalyxOS which seems interesting as well.
It would be interesting to see Sailfish ported to the Fairphone as well.
Yeah, marketing, but there are many other reasons, including competition within this space. I was looking at their new C2 community phone and the price (circa 300 EUR) too seems fair to say the least (with 5 years of support). Fairphone seems nice too. But as foobarkey commented above, these things should really be in brick and mortar stores (or in Temu, god forbid...).
But at the end of the day it's about trust. Why should we trust this company?
most of the comments are dodging the point of the article and looking for unrelated strawmen to attack. ok, maybe the site has cookies. who cares? the issue is the phone not the marketing site. so that is a weak point.
overall the idea sounds good. but is Jolla open source? Can we compile it and run it on the phone?
- Will the author use it daily? Forever?
- price point? Many people cannot afford that.
> Not Android with Google quietly running 47 background processes to figure out whether you’re sad enough to buy ice cream.
BS. Look at all the background processes in any device? Even stock debian or postmarket OS.
> According to research from the Electronic Frontier Foundation and multiple independent security audits. Open source operating systems like Sailfish provide significantly more transparency than closed source alternatives. You can actually see what the code is doing instead of just taking a company’s word for it.
No references.
EFF says this also:
https://ssd.eff.org/module/your-security-plan
Trying to protect all your data from everything all the time is impractical and exhausting.
In computer security, a threat is a potential event that could undermine your efforts to defend your data. You can counter the threats you face by determining what you need to protect and from whom you need to protect it. This is the process of security planning, often referred to as “threat modeling .”