I am in the same boat. I won't buy a device until I research its support by Lineage.

Anything other than unlocked is a dead end. I refuse to struggle to deal with artificial barriers on a product I ostensibly own.

If I can't block ads and restrict what any given application can access, then I don't trust the device. All of my devices are rooted and customized by me.

I no longer answer the phone, ever, unless I know who is calling.

It really works.

I also add any "unknown number" to a new contact that I call e.g. Detroit Blocked, or NYC Blocked, or Louisiana Blocked (whatever google says is the caller), then "route to voicemail" all calls from that number. Plus I disabled voicemail, so it's really just a new version of the old killfile. :-)

I love this phone combination:

1) Samsung Galaxy S4
2) Ginormous battery from ZeroLemon or equivalent

Cost: $300 for phone, $40 for the battery (current Amazon prices) so total is modest at $340

Great phone, lasts me for 3-5 days with moderate to heavy use, and will run any Android stuff I can think of. I use Cyanogenmod on mine, you might choose stock or some other variant, but this thing is quite durable and lasts forever.

I was getting so pissed with my Acer Aspire netbook I was going to buy a new ultrabook, mostly because I would hit rlslog and the browser (Chrome) would hang for about 3-4 seconds before I could start to scroll down the page. I assumed this was because the processor was underpowered. It's a 64 bit AMD chip running at 1.3 GHz, though, and I have it upgraded to its maximum capacity of 8 GB of RAM and I'm running with an SSD.

This was making me crazy--no other pages were causing issues as routinely. I did some investigating and figured out the problem was some advertising javascript, and I could not find a good way to restrict Chrome from running it.

But since switching to Pale Moon 64 bit and disallowing javascript on rlslog, the little machine is truly as fast as any other computer I've ever used. I run ublock and NoScript on Pale Moon 64 and this thing FLIES, even with 30 tabs open.

This simple change of browsers has literally saved me $1000 in upgrade costs.

I had an iPad 2, enjoyed lots about it, but the whole browser issue killed my enjoyment of the device. "Legitimate" sites like NBC and the New York Times had pop-up tabs and I couldn't control the browser to the degree necessary to stop them.

Although I had rooted the iPad, I could not find a decent way to deal with ad blocking on iOS. I sold the device and have gone to Android stuff for my mobile solutions.

Here's my recipe for, if not happiness, at least much less pop-up and advertisement induced rage:

--rooted Android device
--installed AdAway (from f-droid)
--use Naked Browser, with javascript off, and then I whitelist only the sites that need it

No pop-ups, no worries, no ads.

This is exactly right.

Google will become another also-ran, in the end, because they set up Google in the United States.

All the useful stuff on the net is going to end up being hosted from non-US areas because of the legal system abuses that are manifest in the USA.

The first Google-like search engine that works well and doesn't deal with DMCA and other abusive legislation will get my search business, and everything else, eventually. I don't give two shits about Google except so far as it satisfies my desire for a good search engine. Once it quits working in that regard, it's dead to me, just as it killed off my use of Altavista.

Agreed.

I am using a Galaxy S3, 16 GB built-in, and then I added a 64 GB SD card to it. I refuse to downgrade my storage capacity on a new phone. The amazing capacity of this thing is simply a killer feature.

I'm running Cyanogenmod on this thing and it flies, is stable, and has no shitware installed.

These two things have become my new standard for what I want:

1) Is it open enough to get a fully functioning Cyanogenmod update?
2) Does it have SD expansion?

That's it. All the hyper-resolution stuff is meaningless for a four or five inch display. Just give me that badass storage capacity and an uncluttered OS!

In my idealistic youth, I thought of him as a programming God.

As I grew older, I began regarding him as more of a cranky old, "get off my lawn", impractical hard liner.

Now, with the whole NSA/Snowden revelations, I realize I was wrong to be complacent. He has reverted to deity status for me.

I have an iPad 2 and an HTC Evo 4G LTE (Android phone).

I would, sadly, rather browse the web on my cell phone than on the iPad 2. Why? Ad blocking.

This is trivial on my Android system, relatively speaking. I rooted it and installed AdAway, and then I'm done. No significant advertising in any app or when I browse the web. Problem solved! Amazing speed, no popups, life is beautiful.

The iPad, despite a great interface, is horribly crippled in that I can't control what it does when I browse the web. It grabs every ad, talking ones, animated ones, popup ones, hijacking ones, you name it, my tablet is the advertisers' whore. I only use the iPad for games anymore. And I rooted the iPad and STILL can't stop this crap. Chrome for iPad has no adblock. Neither does Safari.

If there were a way to do the hosts file trick on the iPad, I would love to use it more, but as it is that thing makes me angry every time I pick it up.