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A long time ago, I stopped using a smartphone. I didn't felt the need to use one and two it was just draining my energy and my time included. Ever since, it felt amazing and I just don't wanna go back. But, in recent years, the need of a smartphone for dumb and mundane tasks has increased. Back then, it used to be just a niche tool. Literally everything before was available on a website that I can acces in my browser, but now it feels like I have to get a phone and download these dumb apps just to do simple really simple things. Cell phone numbers are basically required to do just about everything, like signing up for a service for example. Which got me thinking. Should I get a smartphone or not? Or, are there's any workarounds for this?

>>72233 There are services like Google Voice, JMP.chat and Line2, which give you access to a phone number over the internet. No phone needed.

>>72253 Do you have actual experience with any of those, and are they actually good? I always have much better experiences with **real companies** that provide a service in exchange for money. AdTech firms that provide free or substantially cheaper services in exchange for your personal data are always have very poor usability, and will ban you for "abuse" with zero warning or recourse. Yet it's a compromise that most people are willing to make (or not even consider), so the consumer market is always led by these types of companies.

>>72277 Flowroute is a real company that provides a service in exchange for money. A lot of it will be more than you need but you can just get a DID number and forward it to a phone. Or set up SIP sessions pretty easily. From there one fun project is to find out how to set up web hooks to receive SMS.

>>72280 Very cool, thanks. I don't know anything about phone networks, but something like this looks good to build from.

i've owned only a dumbphone for 2 years and i've been fine. you can get SMS's for 2FA and there is an equivalent web app for any android/iOS app. i suggest you do the same.

>>72297 Of interest to anyone trying to use Flowroute numbers to receive 2FA SMS: It turns out it is not necessary to set up any web hooks to read SMS messages; the contents can be viewed in the messaging stats page of your Flowroute account dashboard.

I considered getting a dumb phone, probably one of the new "Nokias" made by HMD. They have permission/deal to use Nokia trademark but frankly the phones are not as good as old real Nokia phones were back in the day. But I compared prices and I realized that I could get a low-end Motorola smartphone for almost the same price on sale. I still don't use smartphones very much but it's handy to have access to Goolag Maps and Firefox on the go. I always disable notifications for each app I install. I also limit the amount of apps I have installed. I don't use any social media platforms (if you do, I suggest you don't install the app for it). The good thing about Motorola is that their Android ROM is not bloated with a custom UI (it's basically stock Android, more or less). But the downside is that you get very limited support for Android updates (and you can't unlock the bootloader). At the moment (March 2024), I recommend getting something like Motorola G24 Power (unless you can get a Google Pixel smartphone). The main reason is that it has reasonable price (under 200€) and it has a good 6000 mAh battery. >https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_moto_g24_power-12813.php

>>I didn't felt the need to use one and two it was just draining my energy and my time included. Can you elaborate more, where is your energy and time getting drained is it social media or what? I don't think owning a smartphone gonna drain you anything if you only use it as a tool to achieves the tasks you want to do.

>>76304 Yea, it was social media. You can say you can just uninstall the app, but I'm not perfect.

to be honest for the number thing just get a burner phone like a flip one, or you can just use google voice probably too. For the soykafty apps we must find loopholes or u can get a google pixel and download graphine OS and degooglize it and only use it strictly for phone number soykaf and download the apps u need

>>76301 there is no really such a thing as "stock android" pre-installed in motorola phones. the thing that you call that is just motorola's not bloated version of android, not the AOSP itself. even though it might be more lightweight than any other android skin.

Get a flip-phone. I’m sure you can get one, although my last exposure to a flip-phone was a decade ago.