Which programs and apps do you avoid updating?
Samsung and Xiaomi apps on their factory defaults are mostly fine, update them once and suddenly you have ads flashing after every 2 interactions with your phone
Discord and spotify cus I modified it illegally:3
Blokada. I downgraded to V5 and I won't change it anytime in the foreseeable future. Whenever I can no longer use v5 I might have to find a different method of filtering ads.
Edit: also, OP, I recommend trying Blokada 5 if ads is what's annoying you in other apps. Blokada blocks ads on your phone, for all apps, not just a specific app.
Is it a "decent set it and forget it" kind of blocker? Because I might try that on my girlfriend's phone, I tried TrackerControl with her once, but it kept "breaking" some apps and she didn't have the patience to just switch the thing off/on.
It is a decent set and forget universal ad blocker, however, you need to make sure you are downloading a v5 and not the v6 or it will not work. Also, you need to deactivate it and reactivate it whenever you restart your phone, this is a minor issue but it needs that kick every time your system reboots.
Full disclaimer though, if you are playing games or running something that relies on ads to work (ie "watch the next ad to get 50 points!" ) blokada may break these types of apps so it may not be suitable for you.
I don't understand how people would rather see ads and be tracked than flip a few switches.
That being said, I do think TC would be vastly better if it had per app defaults that guarantee that everything works out of the box.
None, because I get almost all my apps from F-Droid and the repository maintainers themselves will quit making updated versions available if the app enshittifies.
Also, I cannot imagine accepting that shit from Samsung or Xiaomi in the first place. Believe it or not, instant boycott.
Everything on F-Droid is open source. Someone will just fork an app if the current maintainer starts pushing negative stuff into the app.
The dev of simplemobiletools selling out is an example.
TreeSize Free (Portable), versions older than 4.7.3 can run on Windows Server and still work just fine. They added a restriction on 4.7.3 that disallows server OS.
I started using BeyondPod for podcasts in 2009. At one point, they came out with an UI update that everyone hated but I was able to save an older version, I just had to avoid updating it in the store. I did that until they went out of business and it disappeared from the store a year or two ago. I'm guessing the version I still use came out in 2012
Maybe AntennaPod is for you: https://antennapod.org/
I've tried it multiple times. I'm not sure why I didn't like it but every few years I try a bunch of them and I still like BeyondPod. It still works perfectly.
This reminds me, I updated Android the other day and now my phone is running like shit. Damn planned obsolescence
I’ve still got Twitter installed on my iPhone, despite rarely ever using it in the past and having not even launched it in well over a year.
But out of principle alone, as a form of silent protest I refuse to update it to X.
Vscode always breaks something so I do it as rarely as possible. Still can't remember a single new update or feature adding anything for me other than github copilot.
iTunes was better before they got rid of Party Shuffle. It's such a good feature and I continue to be frustrated than no other music player offers something similar.
How is it different from other random/shuffle options?
I disabled updates for Blender and keep another old version for modding purposes I also refuse to update mobile discord since I heard the layout was changing. IDK what discord mobile is supposed to look like anymore, it also stopped letting me use the nitro discord themes a while ago. I’m on a version from Sept 2023 :x
Ah, Blender. I'm mainly using 3.6, because 4.x crashes or freezes too often
Fenix nightly. Mozilla removed the tab strip experiment/secret setting in current builds :c
Android TV launcher on my shield tv so it doesn't get terminal advertising disease. DNS blocking hides the ones in the old version of the launcher.
Calibre Companion, on android. For years it was the best way to sync books between my calibre install on my computer and my phone, even after the developer abandoned it. Then a while back, the dev released a single update that broke the app's integration with reader apps, then disappeared again. I rolled that back extremely quickly, by grabbing an older version from my old phone.
Hmm, I have the Xiaomi Home app installed but never seen any ads. Maybe because my DNS is blocking certain ad-servers? I use the app because we have an air purifier and robot vacuum from them. They work perfectly fine without the app too, but sometimes it's very convenient to remotely control them.
On an old 6X (MiA2) I had, after the first updates post unboxing, Themes, Gallery and Calculator would show ads, either full screen or those on the bottom of the screen
Paint Tool Sai. I'm still using the 1.1.0 version that released in 2008 and I have no intention of updating to Sai 2
Did the UI change too much from v1 to v2?
I refuse to update the Android messaging (text) app. I forget what they added to it, but my friend constantly complains about it.
It's quite dangerous to not keep messaging apps up-to-date, though.
Im scared
Maybe try Fossifiy SMS Messenger, it's on the IzzyOnDroid Repository
Im happy to just not update.
But I'll keep that in mind for down the road, thanks!
The Tesla Super Bowl rom hack from when my favorite team was still good. :(