So my roommate has informed me that Android and Motorola donate to Republicans more than Democrats whereas Apple does not, claiming this as a reason that the iPhone is better than an Android phone. While I could find statistics confirming the fact about Motorola, I don’t even know what they were referring to when they mentioned Android and I tried looking for “Android” and “Android Foundation” and came up with nothing. If they’re referring to the fact that Android, while it’s an open sourced project, is maintained by Google, I’m already aware of that and would like to de-google my phone as much as possible (note: my phone is a Motorola Moto G Power (2022)). I however couldn’t find any stats to support the Apple claim and my roommate has yet to provide me with any sources.

In any case, for my next phone, I’d like to move to a more privacy-focused phone. I’ve heard about the Fairphone, but re this comment, I’m slightly dissuaded from getting one when it comes to the US. I got a Motorola phone in following the advice of this post regarding the safety of the hardware used, but I might want to switch off of the phone when it comes time to upgrade to a new one down the line.

I’m not sure what to go with, so feel free to give me tips on that. Also I’ve wanted to install an alternative OS on my phone but all the ones I’ve seen aren’t compatible with my phone at the moment.

  • Your friend is… Misguided at best. And, no phone on the market outside of the Fairphone, or any Linux based phone is really going to be privacy capable.

    If your already on the Internet, I’d stop caring about privacy other than enough so your actual important data isn’t stolen. Beyond that, nobody on the internet has a private life anymore.

    It’s part of the reason I’m going Apple soon, at least Apple hasn’t had any major privacy data leaks/breaches to where my data is at risk. Other companies have in the Android space.

    • Apple had some pretty major iCloud leaks a few years ago. I don’t trust Apple any more than I trust anyone else. Every cloud service has the same problem across Apple and Android.

      With Apple being one of the top names in anti-right-to-repair, I can’t see myself buying another one of their products.

      At least with an Android phone it’s a lot easier to run custom apps or even OS firmware to control your data better. Having everything on my phone backed up to my own NAS is great.

      • Are you referring to “the fappening”? Because if I’m not mistaken, that was all social engineering and not really Apple’s fault. Their iCloud private relay leaked the user’s ip address a few year ago, that was their bad.

        If it’s not one of those two, can you tell me what you were referencing so I can find out about it? Thanks!

        • I don’t know any details on how data was leaked (Apparently “the fappening” was 8 years ago now, so I’m sure those issues are fixed). I’m probably a little biased against Apple, but I think this applies to any cloud service, and I’m just using iCloud as an example:
          It may have been social engineering , but I don’t think the specific attack matters much. There are millions of iCloud uses (including a lot of high profile individuals), and that makes the whole system a target. Only the most targeted of attacks would bother trying to attack someone’s home NAS.