Hey, its alright. We all have been there. Sharing our passwords and all in the open. This is my password: hunter007. Its only visible me. Because, I took appropriate measures to censor it. No AI can read it.

You can always downgrade, If you feel like you're getting too involved. :x

Yeah. It has for quite a while. My phone upgraded its kernel from v4.19 to 6.6.30 and finally to 6.6.82. I too was surprised seeing it updated from an outdated kernel to a more recent version.

It should. For general, usage most smartphones are fine. My phone has less processing power than your phone. But, thanks to 12GB of RAM and fast UFS 3.1 storage it handles 98% of tasks without lag. Only those needing high CPU and GPU power like local LLM models or high end games which require more horse power have a hard time.

Good to know your phone with your PC CPU from 2009 still works fine.

Joke aside, phones at that time barely got any updates. Pixel phone starting from series 6 was one of those which had longer update cycle than average. Nowadays, you easily get 6-8 years of software and security updates.

It can improve. But, hardware level support is not that great compared to a desktop computer. So, we have these short support cycles.

TL;DR

• A new leak claims Google is preparing to upgrade the Linux kernel on most Tensor-based Pixel phones to version 6.12.

• The new kernel could potentially bring real performance and efficiency improvements, thanks in part to Google’s AutoFDO.

• Judging by the leak, the Pixel 6 will not receive the update

5 Years is still respectable when support for most phones ended at the 3 year mark for phones launched at that time period.

Most shops in my region support Scan and Pay. Credit card and debit cards are a luxury. No shopkeeper is paying for the added transaction fees and the cost of card machine.

Scan & pay is much cheaper. There are also no transaction fees for online payments. I'm talking about UPI payments. That's the best payments system I know. Especially, for small transactions.

Digital payments require a digital payments app which require google play services. I cannot function without it. My transactions are 95% digital. I do not deal in cash. Its much simpler and easier to scan and pay rather than count change and deal with it.

Jury's still out, last I heard, on whether fast charging every day hurts a battery or not.

It does not. Slow charging actually hurts the battery more. You should watch the HTX video who did extensive testing and the conclusion was, use the phone however you want. Keeping it charged between 20%-80% kept better battery health. But, you were better off not worrying about it at all.

You can check the post about the youtube video here: https://reddthat.com/post/53717758

You can block images above a certain size in ublock-origin in firefox. Or block for good in all websites.

Depends on the app. Foss apps either periodically check for new messages or keep an active connection to the server to check for new messages. Some use Unified Push to reduce the battery drain of a constant connection.

You can disable background sync or turn on battery saver to limit background activity which also turns off background sync.

For a firewall app. I would recommend Netguard.