Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

You just keep buying the wrong phones, Samsung is shit and the China companies steal all your data. Try Pixel, nothing but good experience with them and if you want another OS there is GrapheneOS for the Pixels. IOS is a closed system and definitely The worst for piracy and privacy, even though they want to sell you their stuff with "privacy" in mind (its better than chines phones though)

On mobile you have 4 choices :

• Stock Android, the worst you can get, simply not use it

• iOS, as worst as android but with better UI

• Degoogled Android, good choice, avail able on many devices 👍

• Linux phones, the best but in early development and only available on some devices only

• I used to do side loading on iOS for a modded YouTube app (uYou+) but now I just use YouTube in the browser with AdGuard and Vinegar extensions. There’s ways to sideload and auto refresh the certificate that don’t need you to connect the phone to a computer which apparently work pretty well (I used AltStore which was pretty annoying because it doesn’t do that).
• Usually I think you just have to enable NSFW on a computer/via the browser for it to work in the app. At least that how it is for Telegram iirc. Generally there shouldn’t be a problem accessing anything.
• No idea, the only thing I play on my phone is Shattered Pixel Dungeon and I bought that

• For nsfw I use Quix but its shareware
• For youtube I use Yattee
• I don’t use reddit since some of us moved to lemmy
• For gaming I use RetroArch
• I don’t know how are things with sideloading

Funny, I followed the same exact course. IPhone 2-5 then switched to Samsung after 5. I feel like they had a strong edge at that time and it was getting to be more and more of a PITA to jailbreak the iphones then. Pixel w graphene sounds intriguing but I can't imagine it's without headaches. If you are already sideloading things frequently though you might be the type to not mind some of the extra steps graphene will demand. I wouldn't blame anyone for going with Apple right now - I don't think the Android benefits are as strong as they used to be. At the same time, I don't see any attractive reason to switch since for me it would mean more cost and dealing with the frustrations of an ecosystem switch without any clear reward in return.

Have you looked at Sony phones? I recently switched to the Pixel Fold from a 1 Mark IV. Sony phones are some of the best IMO.

Sideloading is quite bad. If you're in the EU, I know you can use AltStore PAL, which costs money (~€1.50 a year), but all you'll be getting is emulators, virtual machines, clipboard managers, and torrent clients.

There is another method for sideloading that works anywhere and lets you download modified apps, but it is very limited, tedious, and probably insecure. I've done it, it's not worth it. Better to stay on android or use a browser with adblock or something.

I don't think iOS has any specific limits to do with NSFW stuff, I've never heard of anything anyways.

Pirating games is probably not going to be worth it either since you have to sideload apps with the second method.

Other types of piracy are probably fine. If you have AltStore PAL you can get a torrent client and an emulator.

The telegram thing is caused by telegram itself

Login with a pc and disable safety filters for your account and you’ll be fine

iirc the play store version of telegram is the same as the App Store version, but on android maybe you downloaded it directly from the telegram website (?)

Anyway, safety filter can be disabled

Wait WHAT BLOCKS ON SIDELOADING for Samsung?? I'm not in the loop

Sideloading apps on iOS has gotten a lot easier. I use sideloadly. It has to connect to your computer (wirelessly) once a week but does this automatically in the background. I’m still running Apollo, the best Reddit iOS app this way.

I have YT premium through Sri Lanka for $3/mo. Sponsorblock works in safari.

ROM apps like delta are in the App Store now. I have no idea about phone gaming otherwise.

Never ran into any content filtering.

If your gf uses iOS try it out there first and see how you like it.

New iPhones release on a pretty strict schedule each September so even if you don’t want the new model best to wait for older ones to be discounted.

Ive use sideloaded youtube thats ad free, apollo for reddit to this day, telegram nsfw stickers, chats, everything, i havent pirated games but i wouldnt sideload a pirated game cuz that seems like a recipe for viruses (for android too). Roms and emulators are fine and easy to play now

Welcome to Linux for Mobile.
The next generation OS for keeping your smartphone private and your conversations (kinda) secure.

It's "next generation", because we probably won't have a good enough solution in the lifetime of the current generation's people.

But if you have both: enough money to buy an extra fairphone for testing and the time and ability to program drivers, please consider it.