- Backing up all app data via Neo Backup. Android has an auto-backup feature that backs up app data to the user's Google Drive, but unfortunately the app developer can simply opt out of this, and the user cannot do anything about it. This means that app data may be lost when migrating to a new phone, as the app data is stored in directories that are not accessible in the filesystem without root.

- High-quality call recording via Call Recorder. For some reason, some (most?) phones do not allow apps to access the raw incoming audio stream. Non-root apps have to rely on capturing the other end through the microphone, which is horrible.

- /etc/hosts-based ad blocking while using a VPN via AdAway. DNS-based ad blocking is possible via apps like AdGuard, which use a local VPN to accomplish this. Unfortunately, Android only allows one VPN connection at a time, which means that without root I would not be able to use a VPN for any other purpose while simultaneously blocking ads.

---

I have no experience with GrapheneOS, so I'd be interested to hear if these features are possible on it without rooting. If not, can I request these features somewhere?

1. You don't need a separate browser extension for blocking cookie notices, Ublock Origin can do that just fine. You just need to enable the cookie notice filters in the settings (they are disabled by default).

2. AdAway on Android allows network-level blocking without resorting to a VPN (it's based on /etc/hosts). Though it does require root.

That's interesting. When I close my eyes and imagine "seeing" things, I would actually describe it as pretty much exactly like the sensation I have when I "see" stuff in dreams. To me, this similarity is especially clear when I wake up in the middle of a dream, then close my eyes while awake — I can continue where I left off, and it "looks" exactly the same as in the dream.

But I agree that it doesn't feel like "sight", as in the physical act of seeing with your eyes.

The uv docs even have a whole page dedicated to Docker; you should definitely check that out if you haven't already: https://docs.astral.sh/uv/guides/integration/docker/

Honestly, my answer is still systemd-creds. It's easy to use and avoids the problem that plain environment variables have. It's a few years old by now, should be available on popular distros. Although credential support for user-level systemd services was added just a few weeks ago.

A TL;DR example of systemd-creds for anyone reading this:

    # Run the initial setup
    systemd-creds setup

    # This dir should have permissions set to 700 (rwx------).
    credstore_dir=/etc/credstore.encrypted
    # For user-level services:
    # credstore_dir="$HOME/.config/credstore.encrypted"
    
    # Set the secret.
    secret=$(systemd-ask-password -n)
    
    # Encrypt the secret.
    # For user-level services, add `--user --uid uidhere`.
    # A TPM2 chip is used for encryption by default if available.
    echo "$secret" | systemd-creds encrypt \
        --name mypw - "$credstore_dir/mypw.cred"
    chmod 600 "$credstore_dir/mypw.cred"

    [Service]
    LoadCredentialEncrypted=mypw:/etc/credstore.encrypted/mypw.cred

At least systemd v250 is required for this. v258 for user-level service support.

https://github.com/demoray/retry-cli

https://github.com/rye/eb

[1] Of course, I didn’t test every single app — there’s a bucketload of them on Google Play and elsewhere…

There was a proposal[3] for an unknown type in the Python typing repository, but it was rejected on the grounds that `object` is close enough.

[1]: https://mypy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/error_code_list.html#c...

[2]: https://mypy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/error_code_list.html#c...

[3]: https://github.com/python/typing/issues/1835