The Android Oreo update has been rolled out to Honor 8 smartphones all over the world, but for some reason, mine got left behind. I feared it might be related to my effort with disabling Huawei and Google services on the phone, but as it turns out it was rather easy to correct.

I have previously postponed the removal of my Google account from my Android phone as I expected it to be a troublesome and tedious process. However, last week I spent a day removing apps installed through Google Play and replaced them with free and open-source software alternatives as provided by F-Droid.

As a firm believer in online privacy I refuse to use Skype, Google Hangouts or whatever non end-to-end encrypted service “normal people” are using for their online communication. As a consequence, friends who wants to message me are “encouraged” to install and use Signal. Recently this backfired as one friend insisted it was my responsibility to backup and restore messages on his new Android phone.

What should have been a few relaxing minutes with (non Dana White approved) MMA related news on my Nexus 4, was soon to be turned into a browser hijacking battle courtesy of lovelink.us.

So your phone has been syncing your mail, calendar and contacts with Office 365 (Exchange Online) for months without problems when everything suddenly comes to a halt.