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- https://itsfoss.com/news/harmony-os-rises-china/
Restriced by the West, Huawei's Open Source HarmonyOS Now Powers 55 Million Devices
- Thread starter lokamoka820
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I knew few people that bought Huawei phone without Google Play Services by mistake. I'll just say they got rid of them quickly as pretty much half of the apps didn't work correctly.
Their devices may be best suited for use by Chinese or other Asian citizens.
That reminds me... so I did a bit of research and it turns out you can't buy very much of them here anymore. None of the operators sell Huawei phones, just smart watches. Then I visited website searching various web shops for Huawei phones and I could only find few of them that sell them, but nothing official, just typical import from other countries.
I'm not worried about Huawei though, Honor sells very well here. And yes, I know they technically don't have anything to do with Huawei. I'm still not convinced about that though as their phones resemble Huawei phones in many areas and their MagicOS is 1:1 copy of HarmonyOS.
There are plenty of other Chinese brands available worldwide, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo to name a few good ones. Quality wise they are good burners but nothing else.
Security wise they are trash, I've owned a few and too many problems with data collection and bugs.
Security wise they are trash, I've owned a few and too many problems with data collection and bugs.
I own Xiaomi (more precisely Poco X5 Pro 5G), it's one of the best phones I had. It simply works without any issues.
Data collection and ads are something that could be a problem for an average user, but for me they isn't. The first thing I did with the phone is heavily debloated, removing everything that isn't necessary and replaced preinstalled Xiaomi apps with Google or open source ones. With this all ads and data collection were gone.
Some of you may think now "this guy is a lunatic; hates data collection then installs Google apps instead of Xiaomi apps". I use Google services daily with privacy settings restricted to the maximum. Most of these apps I use also doesn't send any data to Google and connect to internet only when it's necessary to do the job (for instance, Google Phone connecting to Google's server to get latest info on spam numbers). And the fact is, these Google apps are less privacy invasive than Xiaomi ones.
By eliminating Xiaomi apps, I made my device without any ads, tracking and it runs way better with battery holding entire day even after three years of usage.
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@Marko :)
Great job debloating and removing ads, but wondering how you know you removed the tracking.
I owned a Huawei phone with Windows mobile in the past. Windows mobile was a great OS when you used your phone for (office) communication like I did. Price wise and performance wise the best deal at that time.
Great job debloating and removing ads, but wondering how you know you removed the tracking.
I owned a Huawei phone with Windows mobile in the past. Windows mobile was a great OS when you used your phone for (office) communication like I did. Price wise and performance wise the best deal at that time.
Majority of tracking and ads comes from these Xiaomi apps anyway, so once you remove them, you're good. I also took away authorization from all Xiaomi apps beside those important ones for updates. This practically disables them and doesn't let them to keep running in the background.
Some apps like Clock will ask you to accept terms and privacy policy, if you don't, app works entirely offline without accessing the internet.
Lastly, the only thing left to block was Find Device from Xiaomi which for some reason is still active even though I don't use it as I don't have Xiaomi account. That is blocked by ControlD with Hagezi Pro++.
Device is now pretty much silent and doesn't connect to Xiaomi servers except for checking for updates.
Check all of your settings after a phone update/patch. Like a monthly security patch.
I did, never had any setting reset by the update.
My wife still has a Huawei P40 Lite without Google Services.
She has 40 apps installed (I just counted them) that work and update without any issues.
She has 40 apps installed (I just counted them) that work and update without any issues.
I use the same approach of using only a select, minimal number of apps with GrapheneOS except it required no debloating since it installs as a barebones system.
I never install custom ROMs as I don't trust them, some of them break things and banking apps usually refuse to work on devices that had tinkered OS. But if I could, I'd probably install GrapheneOS because it's very easy to do so and it's developed by the trustworthy foundation.I use the same approach of using only a select, minimal number of apps with GrapheneOS except it required no debloating since it installs as a barebones system.
Unfortunately, GrapheneOS is only available for Pixel phones and I'm not a huge fan of these. One of the most important things for me is a battery life and this is where Pixel phones are... average. My three year old Poco could easily handle two days of moderate use.
I've been eyeing Poco X8 Pro Max which has mind-blowing 8.500 mAh battery. GSMArena said it takes the second spot in all-time best battery life chart AND it comes with 100W charging. The only thing Poco could do better is camera department; I wish it had telephoto camera. Still, you can't complain with flagship hardware for just 460€.
This is ultimatively what keeps me with Xiaomi and similar Chinese phone brands. I'm not a huge fan of Chinese products, but at the moment, they offer the most for the money. I either get to choose iPhone which I don't like at all, Samsung which don't offer anything attractive in mid range segment and Chinese phone brands with their bang for buck models.
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I have always had a pretty good experience with Chinese phones. The only brand among cheaper Chinese phones I would suggest avoiding, if possible, is Redmi which is a sub-brand of Xiaomi.
All brands under BBK electronics which are OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo and Realme mostly make good phones. I use a Realme Narzo 70 Turbo and have no complaints whatsoever. It's fast, smooth, 45W fast charge, 9 hours of screen on time when charged to 90%, good enough camera for my needs.
Only downside is that it won't receive Android version update beyond the current Android 16; but I stopped bothering about Android updates years ago. As long as apps get updates, I'm fine.
All brands under BBK electronics which are OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo and Realme mostly make good phones. I use a Realme Narzo 70 Turbo and have no complaints whatsoever. It's fast, smooth, 45W fast charge, 9 hours of screen on time when charged to 90%, good enough camera for my needs.
Only downside is that it won't receive Android version update beyond the current Android 16; but I stopped bothering about Android updates years ago. As long as apps get updates, I'm fine.
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