d-RLY?

Being fair, just using a non-Chromium based browser these days kind of gives a major fingerprinting starting point.

Vivaldi is pretty awesome. The massive levels of customization are next level compared to other Chromium options. I use it first if needing to use a site that is hard-coded to reject Firefox or other non-Chromium browsers. Also use it as a feed reader a lot.

I have been daily driving Zen and aside from some random issues here and there when they mess with the UI (which is to be expected with a beta). It kind of reminds me of how cool Firefox felt back in the day coming from IE. Has been fun to see real progress and effort to try weird things that are local to the browser. Not trying to acquire costly extra services/products that take resources away from the browser. I just really wish Mozilla would have (or even start) allowing people to donate towards just the browser.

Some of the extra stuff they have have the option to directly support. The browser is still worth being a real option that isn’t just some Chromium-based BS. Yet they keep trying to divert money to everything but it. I hope that the major forks of FF start tying to prepare for going forward in the main code without Mozilla when/if the time comes. This new IE that is Chrome/Chromium can’t be allowed to keep going and dictating what is and isn’t allowed.

I also have LibreWolf and Mullvad (along with tor) and like them for the efforts in privacy and security. But are too restrictive for daily use for me. Mostly use them only with VPN when finding torrents and other stuff that I don’t want to be tied to an account/syncing (not just NSFW but searching and looking into political or questionable topics). Very happy to have options no matter what.

Long rant below, but the real TL;DR is that you are very correct. lol

Length of years supported and general ability to get official repairs (non-sense of breaking random features if using unofficial parts aside) has been a no-brainier for going iPhone. I haven’t owned one myself due to using third-party app stores and side loading. But it would have been great to have phones last longer with updates and general feel of still doing everything I need without devices showing their age so badly.

That being said, Samsung has done so much better than they used to. I have used HTC Evo, Galaxy S3, S6, S8+, S20+, S23 Ultra, and now have a S24 Ultra (only got it because damage coverage ended up giving store credit due to system that would normally replaced the S23 Ultra with another one was messed up). Starting with the S20+ the devices have been doing much better in the “showing their age” aspect (the S20+ was so OP with 12GB of RAM and the 120Hz display that I still like messing with it).

They stopped with major OS upgrades and was the main reason for the S23 Ultra as I thought it wouldn’t get anymore updates. To my surprise it was still getting security updates at least through last year. If I hadn’t been forced to “upgrade” to the 24 Ultra, I was planning to not even consider upgrading until maybe next year or the year after. Kind of got to feel like having an iPhone. It has been great to see at least longer term security upgrades than in years past.

Samsung still sucks with regards to their tablets though. Been happy with my Galaxy Tab S8+ hardware wise. But no idea how many OS upgrades it will get. My Pixel Tab will likely get more (which is awesome), but it will likely “show its age” sooner mostly because the 60Hz LCD display (AMOLED with high refresh rates really help make aging hardware feel nice to use). iPads will keep being the much better long term “value” for recommending to people that ask me what they should get.

I wish there were some kind of law passed that required OEMs to allow independent ROMs to be officially supported. Without tripping e-fuses after some amount of time that the OEMs stop providing OS or security updates. Kind of like how cell carriers send provider unlocks after certain time periods/after fully paying off the device if paying monthly. Would love to not have to do so many steps while risking being flagged by apps as not trusted due to root. E-waste is getting out of control as it is, and custom ROMs are really held back by virtue of the above and full driver support.