If you use genuine parts and tools, you can replace those parts yourself without issues (Apple Repair Kit).
There are a few problems with Apple's third party repair kits though; you still have to go through to Apple's support to get the parts paired/calibrated to the phone. If you look at Google's pixel repair program, the screen is paired to the phone, but they provide the software to calibrate the fingerprint reader - no need to go through a text chat for possibly hours just to pair the parts back to the phone.
The good thing about the program is that some small parts can be cheaper than getting them from a third party, but on the flip side, parts like screens and batteries are expensive. It would be cheaper to get Apple to repair the device than to do it yourself through the program. It just feels off to me.
Documentation is very good and detailed at least!
Having worked at an Apple Store I might be biased
To be fair I'm quite biased as well, having had bad experiences with multiple apple products :p
- complaining that their phone didn’t work although they just had it fixed.
I completely understand first hand why this is could be a problem. My brother's iPhone 6 had a dying battery and a cracked screen, there was a new repair shop that had opened up which was cheaper than the repair shop we normally go to. They replaced both the screen and the battery, great! Not even a year later and the battery had severely degraded and the screen just stopped responding to touch.
He got a new phone and I decided to try repairing it myself. Turns out this new repair shop was incredibly incompetent at repairing the phone - double sided tape to hold the battery down, missing screws, the rubber ring around the home button was missing, and the screen bracket was bent so it didn't clip in on one side of the phone. Fixed it up - mostly - the screen still doesn't clip in as I used the same bracket from before.
Though it never happened at any of the other repair shops, just the cheapest one. is it really a good idea to lock out all repair because the minority of shops are going to mess it up?
Locking parts to your phone and only allowing replacement in an authorized store / through Apples own repair programs does prevent that.
Problems arise for me because:
- There isn't a nearby Apple store, I am not driving to the other side of the country just to get a screen replacement
- There is an authorised repair store in a nearby city, but they usually cost more than going straight to apple. As far as I am aware, they are only allowed to swap in apple's parts rather than repairing what's broken (e.g. cracked glass on the screen where everything else still works fine)
- Usually the repair stores take a few hours at most, where as mailing my phone to Apple can take weeks before I can get it back.
- Apple's repair program costs more than going straight to apple, there's also a chance that a user can mess it up, is it apples responsibility to fix a botched repair?
I can buy refurbished screens online, more expensive than what I'd find on AliExpress but everything on the screen is still up to Apple's quality - I can't swap it in though without losing auto-brightness and true tone. Batteries from reputable manufacturers are also up to apple's standards, but I can't swap it in without losing the battery health indicator. Even with genuine, or high quality parts, I cannot replace them without losing some sort of functionality.
Making the replacement of TouchID sensors harder (again, only authorized repair shops, authentic parts) helps improve their security.
As far as I am aware, Apple doesn't offer touch ID sensors through their repair program (although it's hard to confirm that without an iPhone serial number). I guess I could somewhat understand that, but you used to be able to replace the touch ID sensor with a normal home button. You would still have access to your data, for payments, you could use contactless on the card as that existed far before apple pay. That was until the iPhone 7 came around and added that touch capacitive home button, once that dies, you have to go to Apple to get it replaced. It's apple's design that prevents people from accessing their data, not third party repair.
Besides, the FTC found very little evidence to justify manufacturers reasonings for restricting repair: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/reports/nixing-fix-ftc-report-congress-repair-restrictions/nixing_the_fix_report_final_5521_630pm-508_002.pdf
What then? Whom would they blame? At first Apple. And then the go angry to the next Apple Store where the reps have to explain everything to them…
That's just the way people act unfortunately, there was a video by Louis Rossmann where he said people wouldn't be angry with him if he told them that their machine couldn't be fixed within a couple days of recieving it. If he had waited about two weeks, then told them about the issue, the damage was his fault and that the machine is broken because of him. It's unfair but it's the reality we are in unfortunately.
Also, their user base expects higher quality and better safeguards for their data from Apple then from other manufacturers.
I don't expect much for Apple in terms of safeguarding data given that I was able to unlock my mum's phone with face ID. my face wasn't registered, I got in fairly easily without knowing her password. This was fixed by redoing the face ID recognition thing. I don't think it's a secure way to lock a phone.
Of course other manufacturers have messed it up too, but I never really thought face ID was a good idea anyways.
Giving your device to apple, or an authorised repair store, also doesn't guarantee that your data will remain private, as seen by this contracted repair. Yes, small chance that it could happen, but giving a device to apple doesn't guarantee your data's safety.
Apple devices work longer than most android devices.
I wouldn't really say work longer, I still have a Samsung galaxy S2 somewhere that still turns on and functions. Though Apple devices are definitely supported for a longer period of time compared to the competition. Build quality I would probably question, though my last iPhone was an iPhone 6 - a slightly bent iPhone 6. Glass backs on the newer phones are even more questionable to me, after seeing many people who have cracked the backs of their phones - you could cut your hand if you weren't using a case.
Android phones on OS' as old as Android 6 can still use most of the apps on the play store. While the device is more vulnerable to attacks, it's still usable if necessary. Although that doesn't really excuse manufacturers dropping support after a few years. You can flash modern android versions like 13 to an old S2 for example, it's not going to run well but it's possible!
Repairability and software support of macs is a completely different case.
I had a Mac kill itself after 4 years of use, the authorised repair shop in the other city took two weeks to get it repaired and I wasn't allowed to keep my data. It was an expensive repair too. I was lucky that everything important was backed up on a usb drive I had.
I would be happy to buy another Apple product if they stopped this nonsense of blocking third party repair, unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.
So why always bitch about just Apple?
For years, Apple have been locking down parts to their phones. In this case with batteries, you get a message saying that your battery needs to be serviced, even if you are using a genuine Apple battery from another phone.
Batteries, cameras, screens and sensors are locked down on newer iPhones. Replacing them will remove some of the phones functionality.
I'm not sure if I've missed other manufacturers doing this with batteries, the only other one I remember was OnePlus encrypting the battery in their new OnePlus pad. It's unfortunate that some manufacturers see what Apple have been doing, then followed in their footsteps with pairing screens - on some phones you can't use the fingerprint scanner if you have swapped the screen, it's ridiculous.
The phone I use from oppo won't complain if I were to replace parts in it. Though given that oppo and oneplus are owned by the same company, I wouldn't be surprised if that changes soon.
I probably should have specified - downloading cracked software from a YouTube video. Downloading videos from YouTube is fine with tools like yt-dlp.
I don't see how it could possibly go wrong!
r/GenP talks about the safety of monkrus in their wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/GenP/wiki/patchmethods/
Most people who claimed they got malware from the Adobe collection repack had either downloaded it from an unofficial source, downloaded from YouTube, or downloaded other pieces of sketchy software - just so happens that a monkrus repack was the last thing they installed. Then there are others who have been using monkrus for years and haven't had issues.
In the Quttera analysis, the malicious files are from a blacklisted domain [M.BL.Domain.gen], fv20[.]failiem[.]lv - this is a file host from Latvia. The files being flagged probably aren't malicious, though if this host isn't taking down malware, it would make sense that they are blocked by some antivirus companies. Especially since Quttera isn't checking the torrents - they are uploaded to other sites.
All in all, if you have any doubts, don't install it. Check out GenP instead of you don't really trust monkrus!
No such thing as a stupid question :p
Yes, you can self-host a VPN! Though there are a few things to keep in mind if you are going to torrent using one:
- A self-hosted VPN on your own network isn't good for torrenting. Your own IP is still shown to other peers on the torrent, you might as well torrent without the VPN.
- Depending on your server host, you may not be allowed to torrent on their network.
- If you are allowed to torrent, you will have to watch your bandwidth limit*. I have a cheap VPS - for other things unrelated to VPNs/torrenting - and the limit is 20TB of traffic
- Many hosts will respond to DMCA/Abuse complaints - very few are relaxed and ignore DMCA complaints, others may shut off your access to their services after a single complaint
*some hosts do not have a limit though cheap servers usually do.
From what I can tell, most server hosts don't care about what you are doing with your server, unless your server is gathering abuse reports or using an excessive amount of resources constantly. I would go for a subscription to a VPN instead of self-hosting but that's just me.
https://vimm.net and https://myrient.erista.me are my go to sites for ROMs! Especially myrient since you can use FTP to download files. https://archive.org works too, though downloads are quite slow for me
For BIOS files, you can find them on the emulation wiki: https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/
Thanks for this, changed the point in my main comment to remove the part about seeding!
I've scored out that part of the comment now.
I was under the impression that you couldn't seed without port forwarding, guess I was wrong :p
Just a quick question, have you port forwarded in Mullvad in the past?
They stopped people from opening new ports last month, September is when they will get rid of the remaining ports. If you aren't port forwarding, I will edit my initial comment!
I don't know of any free vpns for torrenting, though I believe ProtonVPN (paid), Windscribe (paid) and AirVPN (paid) offer port forwarding at the moment. PIA can be used to port forward, though they are owned by kape which is kinda sketchy to me.
You can use windscribe free for torrenting, but you will quickly hit the data cap they have in place
Do you know a better free VPN which does allow torrenting?
I don't, sorry. There are free VPNs which have been recommended in the fmhy wiki, though I don't know if they support torrenting and/or port forwarding.
Edit; just remembered about windscribe, you can torrent on the free plan, but data is very limited so might not be a good option either
After a quick glance over your post, I have some thoughts;
Free: ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN is good for torrenting on the paid plan, not the free plan. Proton doesn't allow torrenting on their free plan. They will block your connection if they detect that you are torrenting, or they will disconnect you from their VPN tunnel - exposing your real IP on the torrent.
Paid: Mullvad
Mullvad is a decent choice, though they no longer support port forwarding. You are still able to download, though you won't be able to seed iirc
VirusTotal
The problem with a virustotal scan is that pirated software is often false flagged for malware. It's difficult to tell what is safe from what you've downloaded. It's best to download from a trusted uploader, though that doesn't always guarantee safety as they can always go rogue (As an example, FTUApps were seen as safe until one of their uploads to 1337x contained malware).
Older uploads tend to have less false positives in my experience, though it can be very easy to become complacent.
edit; score out comment about mullvad seeding, others have pointed out that it still works fine! oops
Here is the post that Daniel made claiming that he will be stepping down: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/5235-stepping-down-as-project-leader-of-grapheneos
It's also available on his twitter and mastodon iirc
Heavily modified Geeetech A10M - no longer prints in two colours but it's using better quality parts than stock
MP Mini Delta V1 - I will be going down the rabbit hole of calibration and mods for this printer at some point, it isn't great due to the areas where monoprice/malyan had cheaped out on