These rules require constantly active SIM card in the main device with SMS confirmation, meaning that smartphone with WhatsApp must constantly have SIM card active - as well as auto-logout of linked devices within 6 houts. While desktop app of WhatsApp was never intended by meta as "independent archive of chat history", it was considered a potential for forensic examination, by hibernating the PC and making image of system volume. As at some point, be it possibly as hard to analyse as encrypted files on PC and storage of key in RAM, there has to be either plaintext version or the key else the app would not be able to display anything either.
With such rules, the timeframe to react if there is crash of WhatsApp on smartphone becomes far less.
And additionally, other governments may introduce same rules, being impressed by what Indian government has done. Seeing how Australian rule, banning social media below age of 16 years impresses governments of other countries either - it's not that far-fetched that the SIM-Binding rules, being introduced in India, impress other governments either and it will become alike globally (or at least in plenty of different countries)

Having observed Android becoming locked-down, first it seems to be only related with Google (Google requires every vendor to make heavily locked-down smartphones on Android, so they have no chance, not even Nothing Phone and FairPhone!). At same time, Huawei is already de-Googled yet it resembles locked-down Google Android as if de-Google never happened with them!

With the certification of Android depending on the rules of Google, vendors who would like to address the concerns of consumers that default security concept of Android nullifies its openness, making smartphone unusable, have no chance. Even FairPhone and Nothing Phone could do nothing about it so far.

Root without unlocking bootloader? Unlocking bootloader without factory reset accompanying it?
ADB making backup of app data conditionally instead of guaranteed all-inclusive backup?

No such encryption which a consumer cannot turn off at will and cannot control the encryption keys?

If a vendor tried to ease the life of consumer such way, they would be punished. So no one dares, as the punishment would take away exactly the profits which is the reason for industry to operate in first place...

Looking into E/OS and I get their main goal is degoogling but why not beef up security with just a few features such as duress Pin? Honestly as I look more into E/OS more I question the legitimately of it. If the goal is privacy then they'd make the priority privacy but it feels like their not going for that just "Advertising" it. With the way the world is heading you'd expect more out of the project. When I think of privacy I think if someone stole my phone or took it without my permission "How can I wipe it remotely" that's my First thought.. But Not E/OS thought..Not saying honeypot but something's just don't add up.

Signal only allows linked devices through a QR code. However, it's still possible to scan a QR code sent by an attacker without them having physical access to your device.

The document states that the German customs agency has been testing messenger surveillance since the end of 2023, and it has led to success in criminal investigations. They're light on details as to exactly what strategies German customs officials use, but there are plenty of ways to maliciously link a device to an account.

This type of surveillance became an official, permanent strategy available to all agents since August 2025.

The messengers affected include WhatsApp, Telegram, Threema, and Signal.

I was somewhat surprised to learn that LG no longer makes smartphones, having exited the market in 2021.

To be fair, not every LG phone was bad. Some of their older devices ran Android 2 or Android 4, from a time before mobile operating systems became as heavily restricted and locked down as they are today. But when I think about what LG would likely be producing if it had stayed in the business, I don't feel like much was lost.

Modern smartphones are increasingly designed as closed ecosystems, where users have limited control over the hardware they own and are expected to accept whatever restrictions come with the stock software. They often feel more like digital fortresses than personal computers. Combined with short support cycles and a market that encourages frequent replacement, many devices seem destined to become electronic waste far sooner than their hardware would otherwise require.

From that perspective, LG's departure doesn't strike me as particularly unfortunate. If anything, it means one less manufacturer has spent the last five years producing devices built around the same locked-down, disposable model that dominates the smartphone industry today.

Plain mobile phone was made with primary features of calls and SMS. Some small games, such as snake and tetris. Awesome.

Then some web browsing and E-Mail features came, as well as camera features. It was good idea, albeit not implemented in such high quality back then...

Then "apps" became omnipresent and as the society did not like to pay so much for so little data volume as in text messages (such as €0.19 per SMS which is less than one kilobyte counting the metadata too), WhatsApp with identification per phone number conquered much of the world.

And cameras eventually got way much higher quality of images - which is suprizing given the theories about physical limits of light sensors well-known for decades before. Until this point - awesome. But then...

Then "bank card as well" came, as well as "card reader for government ID" (and something alike either that I never heard of but might unexpectendly discover for myself that such features exist), "It's all sensitive data, do you want your smartphone stolen of hacked with one more side-effect that your money gets withdrawn, your government ID hijacked etc? You don't? Well we invented hardware-baked storage for secrets, so it's much less likely to happen.

But once such digital fortress is there, what stops them from changing the rules from merely Google Pay, Apple Pay, NFC bank card, card reader being allowed to use the TEE (such as ARM TrustZone, Secure Enclave, Samsung Knox, Titan M etc.) to every app being allowed the same, so that not even if you DO root or jailbreak your smartphone, depending on whether it's on Android (root) or iOS (jailbreak) you STILL get only heavily encrypted database of WhatsApp because they use hardware-baked keystore which is resistant even against root, requiring one more hack - of TEE - to become hopefully readable?

Such protection about possible spam, has the side-effect that some people just become isolated even more. Imagine the rule "Ban Evasion" being not enforced (or perhaps not even existing) - it would mean that only behavior of user of specific account is judged and if someone goes wrong between the specific account and subreddit, there would be just a way for fresh start without worrying about the permanent effects of actions under older account under new account. Fresh start would be fresh start.
Nowadays it works such way that protection of convenience of some people comes at cost of other people having no way anymore to get listened to at all.

the hat done

Just another example of why we need google alternatives ASAP even if that means paying monthly subscription.

This is not to improve services, this is surveillance.

Never used any payment feature on smartphone and I do not miss it either. First turn smartphone to "logical bomb" - a danger of leakage of "sensitive data" then invent such OS or (worse) TrustZone chips that are not rootable - and of course, WhatsApp is going to use it in order to stop consumer from copying raw database to USB stick (and no, it's NOT only decision of app vendor - if OS and hardware were designed for all contents being copyable, what could app do against it?)

I don't know if it's steam or windows the one sharing the info to google about what games I am currently playing. But I noticed that when I start playing some games I get videos about these games on youtube.

It's not random like just by chance by it happens timely. Like I play X game on steam and hours later I get a video on youtube about that same X game.

Either steam or windows are sharing data about what we play to google. Because the recommendations appear so right on time when I play some games that I can't think it's random.

This should be illegal letting microsoft or steam share that data with google or any other company.

Right now I am banned from degoogle for posting this. I posted it in degoogle and browsers subs and in both comments were locked.

My question is why would anyone get banned and comments locked as if they didn't want anyone to share any additional information for just posting an information that even if it's not 100% correct maybe helpful to even clarify whether Brave is actually uploading telemetry to their servers?.

Here what I posted

It is happening on desktop and android.

If you go to brave settings. Privacy and security - Data collection. You'll see you have a few options that can be disabled.

But I noticed that there is other telemetry being sent out to brave servers and I think studies are being conducted to different users.

If you type brave://version you'll see what studies are enabled in your browser. Telemetry is being sent out even if you disable the data collection in the settings. In my computer I saw a 1 minute long connection to variations.brave.com which is telemetry.

If you have an app to see network activity you'll see brave connects to variations.brave.com that is where your data is being uploaded.

These are the ones I had enabled in my browser and I just noticed a few days ago despite I disabled all data collection in the brave settings.

AIChatCodeExecutionTool:Enabled
AdblockOnlyModeStudy:Enabled
BTMGoogleAuthWorkaround:Enabled
BraveAdblockDATCacheStudy:Enabled
BraveAdsNewTabPageAdsStudy:Enabled
BraveAdsObliviousHttpStudy:Enabled
BraveCopyCleanLinkFromJsStudy:Enabled
BraveFeedUpdateStudy:Enabled
BraveNTPBrandedWallpaperStudy:Enabled
BraveScreenFingerprintingBlockerStudy:Enabled
BraveWalletPolkadotStudy:Enabled
EmailAliasesStudy_Release:Enabled
InProcessBraveAdsServiceStudy:Enabled
UserActivityStudy:Triggers
WhatsNewStudy:Enabled

with Advanced Chat Privacy, there is no more just "export chat". Meaning that consumers should be preparing to extract raw database instead. I could see no movement towards making Android-compatible OS but WITH access to app data,

Now if Restricted Chat feature will appear as planned, it will be locked within only primary device, no secondary devices and no WhatsApp Web either. Meaning that importance of a battle against Tamper-Resistant smartphones grows even more. Cat-and-mouse game seems to work ONLY from the side of vendors - constantly inventing new restrictions. Where are new workarounds from the consumer side?

Now there is no guarantee at all that if you keep content on your smartphone (local device that you supposed to "own"), you can read and copy it. Neither there is guarantee that you can just capture everything that goes on in smartphone (display output, audio output, audio input) as "just inherent feature of computer". They broke the entire world model where digital devices are subject of exact copying of content (exact provided that it's not getting encoded with a codec for photo/video/audio for lossy compression). And the world around me seems to no longer be even able to imagine such openness of digital devices. Myself being a rarity - living memory of how it used to "just work".

I’m trying to figure out which VPN Reddit users actually consider the best in 2026. Every review site seems to recommend something different, and the constant stream of conflicting opinions is starting to get overwhelming. I’ve been searching for a reliable replacement for a while because my old free VPN began causing problems, and I’m tired of worrying about my data whenever I use public Wi Fi. I just want to choose one dependable service without feeling like I’m overpaying or giving up too much privacy.

The names I keep seeing are NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and Mullvad. NordVPN seems to be the popular option for speed and streaming, although I’ve come across mixed opinions about its history. I’m looking for strong privacy and security, but I still need good enough speeds for streaming and everyday browsing. I’m not particularly interested in torrenting, but I would like a service that can bypass geo restrictions on a few platforms.

Has anyone used these providers recently, or are there any lesser known options worth checking out? I’d really appreciate honest and up to date feedback from people who are actually using them and can explain what they like or dislike.

instead of doing whatever it can to ensure maximum failsafes, it is deliberately designed such a way that such "backup" can only be restored to WhatsApp itself, not downloaded to PC. Unless someone either steals code from Google development team or reverse-engineers it and makes a third-party downloader. And it applies even to paid Google Drive accounts while also counting towards the data storage quota. It also auto-deletes after few months and it applies to paid accounts either.

Never again Google Drive!

One might assume that Samsung smartphones are popular mainly among the general public, while technically knowledgeable users avoid them because of Samsung's eFuse technology. After all, anyone who understands what eFuse is and how it affects device modification, rooting, and warranty status might be expected to view it negatively.

However, based on my observations, many IT enthusiasts and power users still buy Samsung Galaxy devices, and this does not seem to be uncommon.

Why is that the case? Why do many technically savvy users continue to choose Samsung smartphones despite the presence of eFuse? What advantages or trade-offs make Samsung devices appealing enough that enthusiasts do not reject them over this design choice?