Thanks for suggesting more mainstream alt-browsers. This article isn't about avoiding all AI everywhere so much as it is for people who want to turn the intrusive AI off in the things they are already using. There are even more things that could be in this including Windows registry editing, Linux, and all the great FOSS options but it's mostly not for that. I do have an older iPhone and I agree, it's sort of great to have legacy Siri.
If you want pure-play Linux, there's Purism (PureOS), Pine (PineOS), SailfishOS, Ubuntu Touch (33 supported devices, including Fairphone, Xiaomi, Google Pixel, and Lenovo, amongst others), Tizen, Mobian (based on Debian), and postMarketOS (based on Alpine Linux).
If you want an alternative to the iOS / Android duopoly, and will accept AOSP (Android Open Source Project) or de-Googled Android, there are AOSP devices (including KaiOS), GrapheneOS, LineageOS, /e/OS, LightOS (Light Phone), and a number of feature phone / dumbphone OSes including System30+ (S30+), OpenHarmony, and a few others, see Wikipedia's list: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system>.
Practically, I'd suggest a feature-phone plus either a small laptop (far more capable than iOS/Android), or a tablet/phone running GrapheneOS or LineageOS, possibly one of the full-featured Linux OSes above. Google Pixel is ironically amongst the most viable non-Android hardware devices, with Fairphone and Purism being my next-strongest options. Apparently Lineage is now supporting Samsung's Galaxy series: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49339930>, and GrapheneOS Motorola support has previously been announced, though remains pending: <https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at...>.
I'm not sure which of these include bundled AI, though I suspect that that's going to be coming to more platforms, absent AI backlash which seems to be swelling presently.
I’ve never had an issue accessing necessary services from Linux. Once, literally, I had to use a Chromium browser — but presumably that would have been the case off Linux, as well.
What services are you thinking of that gate at an OS level?
Currently auditioning a used pixel 8 with graphene os on it. It's nice. Not strictly linux, but it's de-googled. Minimal. Not designed to suck you in. Bit of a pain to get installed, but other than that, pretty good.
My iPhone is the last tie i have to the apple ecosystem, so it's been much harder to untangle than my mac was - but I'm getting close! :)
Thanks for putting this together, incredible resource.
Wanted to suggest &udm=14 added to Google search URLs to omit the AI overview and other frills. Personally, I use Chrome's search engine settings to add that param automatically when searching from the browser url bar. I also came across this: https://udm14.com/
My dad was Tom West from Soul of a New Machine. Tracy Kidder lived at our house on weekends in the late 1970s while he was working on this book. He and my dad remained friends for the rest of his life, going out on boats, drinking a lot, talking about big ideas. Tom and Tracy and (Richard) Todd were the guys, when I was a girl. I wasn't as in touch with Tracy but I'd see him at events sometimes, I had a Tracy Kidder website up before he had his own website. He came to my father's memorial service in 2011, talked about the doors that book had opened up, how his life was changed by being able to tell that story as he's been able to tell so many people's stories since then. "I know the book was good for me," he said, "but I was never quite sure if it was good for Tom."
My favorite little bit of content about SOANM, and Tracy, is attached to this 2013 blog post.
It's a 1983 report from The Computer Museum (Inside "The Soul of a New Machine" Tracy Kidder and Tom West) which contains the partial transcript of an event that Tracy and Tom did together, that I don't think they did again. When Tracy was asked what he was up to and if he was sick of computers, he said
"I'm digging out from under. I'm writing some articles about atmospheric research. To be honest, I'm a little tired of my book. I put it on my shelf and
won't read it again for years. I think I know what's wrong with it. In some
sense, writing a book is like building a computer. There are rewards but one of
the main ones is that Sisyphean one that if you do one you get to do another. So, I have an opportunity now to write a better one." And he did, he wrote so many books that were, if not better, at least just as good.
I commented once before to you here on hackernews but this book, and the story of your dad, influenced my entire career as an electrical engineer and software developer (class of 1988, I think we were asked to read the book, and its still here on the shelf today). It helped me keep a good perspective on my career over all these years.
I am honored and humbled to be able to say this to you, so many years later.
Thanks for sharing this, and especially the "So What" from the professor. I guess a lot of the engineers (described in the book) did feel "So What" at the end of a big project, especially one as grinding as the Eagle, but they probably found some answers when working on it -- and that's why I, as a wanna-be engineer, really enjoyed the analogy of "pinball" -- that's probably the best analogy I could find for engineers.
