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PGPP is a privacy-first wireless carrier that won’t share your data (because they don’t have it)

Most wireless carriers track your cellphone usage by keeping tying your location and data use to your phone’s unique ISMI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) number. But a new privacy-first wireless carrier is doing things differently. INVISV’s new PGPP (Pretty Good Phone Privacy) not only doesn’t track your data usage… it’s designed to make it difficult […]

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Yahoo Mobile is shutting down its wireless service just over a year after launch

Last year Yahoo and its parent company Verizon launched a low-cost wireless service called Yahoo Mobile. Pay $40 per month and you’d get unlimited cellular data (at speeds up to 12 Mbps) plus a free Yahoo Mail Pro subscription. Now, just 15 months after launching, Yahoo Mobile is shutting down. According to Yahoo Mobile, the […]

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Lilbits: PinePhone unboxing, Purism launches an MVNO, and more Pixel and Chromecast details

The PinePhone is one of the first smartphones designed specifically for open source software enthusiasts. It’s an affordable phone with a starting price of $150 that ships with a GNU/Linux distribution pre-installed, but which can also boot from a microSD card if you want to try a different operating system (or 13) before deciding whether […]

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Purism’s Librem AweSIM is a privacy-focused cellular service (for $99/month)

Linux laptop maker Purism is also in the Linux smartphone business these days thanks to the company’s Librem 5 smartphone, which is designed to run free and open source software and offer privacy features including hardware kill switches. The Librem 5 is still under development, but Purism has been shipping some early batches to customers […]

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Verizon’s new Yahoo Mobile wireless plans offer “unlimited” data for $40 per month

It’s been a long time since Yahoo was one of the top internet properties. But Verizon, which acquired the company a few years back, is slapping the Yahoo name on a new wireless service plan for some reason. Yahoo Mobile actually looks pretty good on paper. Pay $40 per month and get unlimited talk, text, and […]

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Rakuten Mini is a 3.6 inch smartphone (for Japan)

Smartphone screens have gotten so big in recent years that we’ve stopped using the awful word “phablet” to describe handsets with nearly tablet-sized screens. Now they’re just called phones. But there may still be a small market (get it?) for phones with smaller screens. Last year TCL launched the Palm Phone with a 3.3 inch […]

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MVNO shuffle: Red Pocket Mobile acquires FreedomPop, former owner wants to buy Boost Mobile

Over the last few weeks there’s been a bit of a shakeup in the US mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) space. With Sprint ant T-Mobile looking to merge, regulators have suggested Sprint get rid of its pre-paid subsidiary, Boost Mobile. A company called STS is interested in buying Boost… but before doing that, the company […]

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Google Fi network adds support for iPhones (and most Android phones)

Google’s Project Fi wireless network is growing up. Started in 2015 as a somewhat experimental service, the network originally supported only a few Google-branded phones. Over the past year, Project Fi has slowly added support for a few more devices… but selection was limited. Today Google is dramatically expanding the list of supported phones. The […]

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Google’s Project Fi network is getting 3 more non-Google phones

After years of existing as a cellular network that you could only use with Nexus and Pixel smartphones, last year Google’s Project Fi started offering customers a chance to pick up a Moto X4 Android One edition smartphone. Now it looks like Google is getting ready to double the number of phones it sells. The […]