would this help anyone?

Considering making a full rundown video of how to setup, use and maintain a de-googled phone so you can really get the hang of it faster.

Let me know if interested by reacting to this post! 🙏

🚨 Google's app lockdown now has a date.

From September 30 this year, Google starts blocking Android apps from developers who haven't registered their ID with Google. It kicks off in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, then rolls out to the rest of the world (including Australia 🇦🇺) through 2027.

📵 This hits every "certified" Android phone: Samsung, stock Pixel, Motorola, all of them. Even apps you install yourself outside the Play Store get checked.

There will be an "advanced flow" for installing unverified apps, but it means enabling developer mode, restarting your phone and sitting through a forced one day waiting period. They're making it painful on purpose 🐌

✅ Here's the good part: de-googled phones are completely outside this system. The verification only applies to Google-certified devices, so on GrapheneOS nothing changes. You install what you want, same as always 🕊

If you're still on a stock phone and this bothers you, now you have a deadline to work with ⏳

📖 Straight from Google: https://developer.android.com/developer-verification

🚨 Every phone in Australia goes off Monday 27 July

2pm AEST, 1:30pm SA/NT, midday WA. It's the national test of AusAlert, the new emergency warning system, and there's a lot of privacy misinformation going around. The short version:

How it actually works

AusAlert uses cell broadcast. Authorities pick an area, every tower in it broadcasts the message, any phone in range picks it up. Like an FM station: the tower has no idea who's listening. No recipient list, no numbers, no location lookup, and your phone sends nothing back. The EFF reviewed this exact tech during the US test and found the same: there's no channel for it to send data about your phone anywhere. The old Emergency Alert system located your phone to SMS it. This one doesn't. Anyone claiming it tracks you has it backwards and i have the sources to back this up.

The test itself

It's a Critical Alert: siren and vibration for ~10 seconds, even on silent, and it can't be toggled off in settings. If any toggle in your alert settings is greyed out, that's the tier you can't disable. Don't want to hear it? Just turn your phone off or flick on aeroplane mode before test time and leave it that way for at least an hour.

On de-Googled and older phones

It may show up titled "Presidential Alert" or "Extreme Threat Alert". Nothing sinister, those devices just fall back to the US heading instead of the Australian one. Same message.

⚠️ The one real safety issue

The silent override means hidden phones will sound too. If you or someone you know keeps one because of a DV situation, turn it off well before the test. Share that.

After launch (October)

Two tiers: Priority Alerts, which you can turn off in your phone's emergency alert settings, and Critical Alerts, which you can't. The top tier has no off-switch on any stock phone, only aeroplane mode. The one exception: GrapheneOS adds a toggle for even the highest alert class under Wireless emergency alerts, one more reason it's the gold standard for controlling your own device.

What I'm actually watching

Not tracking, scope. This should carry emergencies only. If it ever starts carrying general government messaging, that's when to push back, and I'll be watching.

My knowledge base got a complete rebuild.

👉 kb.askluke.tech

It's not a pile of copy-pasted forum advice. Every guide is tested by me on a real de-Googled Pixel before it goes up. I run the steps on the phone, screenshot them, and if something changed since last month, the guide gets fixed.

49 guides and counting, including:

📍 Navigation without Google Maps (yes, Waze works fully signed out, tested)

🚗 Android Auto on GrapheneOS, every hidden setting screenshotted

📲 Installing and updating apps the private way

🔒 Backups, messaging, and the stuff people actually ask me about

If you bought a phone from me, check the KB first next time you're stuck. Most answers are 2 minutes away, with pictures. - You can even search across the entire knowledge base.

kb.askluke.tech

Need a professional website?

You might've noticed askluke.tech got a full makeover. I built it myself - nobody else - and I pay $0 a month for hosting. Not joking. Go poke it on your phone and see how fast it loads.

Agencies quote $5k-15k for sites like this, then bill you monthly forever.

I'm opening up a few client builds, and to kick things off the first site is completely free. One spot. All I ask is an honest testimonial I can show the next person. *EDIT: FREE OFFER IS TAKEN*

After that spot's gone: I'll mock up your homepage free, and you don't pay a cent until you've seen the finished site and want it.

Tap here and hit send - or DM @ftsdm. First in, best dressed.

Last one at the old price 💻

RAM and SSD prices have gone through the roof recently. apparently, AI data centres are buying up memory faster than it can be made, and laptop prices are following and likely phones will also impacted - and it looks like this will be the case until at least 2028 with no signs of slowing...

New stock now actually costs me more than I was charging, so i've had to raise the prices.

I have exactly one laptop left that I bought before the surge, and it goes for the old price: $1,650.

- Business-grade Lenovo ThinkBook, Intel Core Ultra 5
- 16GB RAM, fast Gen4 NVMe SSD
- ZorinOS set up by me: no Google, no Microsoft, no telemetry
- Personal after-sales support, like everything I sell

One unit. When it's gone, the new pricing applies.

👉 Tap here and hit send to claim it SOLD

Seeing “SMS isn’t private” after the latest GrapheneOS update? Nothing’s wrong with your phone 🙂

GrapheneOS has updated its Messaging app - which looks really nice btw - and added a reminder about how SMS works.

That big warning symbol has understandably worried a few people, but it’s just an information screen. It doesn’t mean your phone has been hacked or that you’ve done anything wrong.

SMS has never had end-to-end encryption. It’s a decades-old technology that wasn’t designed for private conversations. Your messages travel through your mobile provider’s systems without the protection you get from an encrypted messenger.

GrapheneOS protects your phone, but it can’t turn SMS into a private messaging service.

You can still use SMS when you need to. For anything personal or sensitive, use an end-to-end encrypted app like Signal (https://signal.org/), with the other person using it too.

The reminder is new. The limitation with SMS has always been there 👍

GrapheneOS Messaging update details:
https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Messaging/releases/tag/13