[Xiaomi Mi 9 Questions & Answers] doggydog2:
original bash

Oh i hate MIUI so much, but have to live with it until alt ROMs will come, fully supporting fingerprint, bluetooth, camera.

This MIUI (EU) is so aggressive overwriting all apps and dialogs in the system, and it's overall ugly and unnecessarily complex (except pro-looking charging animation, 24h wallpaper, and AOD). It blocks starting apps by default, it blocks app notifications by default. Battery ops are a joke, and all memory cleaner triggers kill virtually everything running. Zero respect for high prio notif apps running. It's so modified that tons of xposed modules won't have impact. It even annoys with data connection dialogs, download operations.. they stick their nose everywhere. I don't trust this company at all, so i've taken stronger measures and zero byte to Xiaomi policy.

In first round of making this phone less retail and more pro is

- revoke all authorizations (get the hell out Xiaomi)

- stop feeding device ids (oh they even have choice for it, but i need more complex and trustful blocking via Xposed) to xiaomi apps

- delete xiaomi account, now that won't stop findDevice and other cloud nonsense from running (contradiction to Xiaomi statement findDevice not supported on unlocked bootloaders)

- disable xiaomi packages via titanium/3c:

BugReport.apk
CloudBackup.apk
CloudService.apk
CloudServiceSysbase.apk
GoogleBackupTransport.apk
Joyose.apk
MiGalleryLockscreen.apk
MiVideo.apk (useless app without DLNA)
Music.apk (useless app without DLNA)
NextPay.apk
ThemeManager.apk

but hey, it's not always possible, some apps can't be disabled, this aggression can be stopped by not deleting but renaming the files in /system/[priv-]app e.g.:

FindDevice.apk.disabled
MiuiDaemon.apk.disabled (can be disabled but will still show up, what)
MiuiHome.apk.disabled

- firewall block any remaining xiaomi apps to stop Baba/Baidu etc connections

Rinse and repeat til you see no data transferred in the network monitor.

Some UI fixes already done:

- AOD doesn't show any notifs -> use "MIUI AOD Notification icon" xposed module, however, it will show too much (not configurable)

- Notch is ugly like hell, can't smart-crop it like OnePlus(R) -> use Notch Remover app (i'd like some system solution rather, due to performance reasons)

- AI button can be fully configured, forget MIUI choices and install xposed Edge

- Device health, the new feature, is hidden, just trigger it via activities, then create the app icon via its UI for convenience

- several vanilla dialogs are accessible via Settings search or activities like appops, notifications

- navigation [bar] enhanced by xposed Edge

I applaud:

- existing offline cron-able backup (although it won't save 90% of system settings which is so needed on this ROM)

- complex data usage configuration

- not hiding call recording, no need for xposed tweaks

- good battery info (wide icon, great animations and LED confirmation), oh yeah, Qi people do need this for practical reasons

- all recent micro tweaks like click on clock on quick settings opens clock

-notif. light, samsung style - great , double tap wake, raise2wake (producing too many smp2p-sleepstate wakelocks) - also great

I (or hopefully a ROM author) would like to fix this:

- remove their Security (which i think includes all memory and battery handling), PermissionManager nonsense

- remove status bar alarm icon, just go already! (fix via xposed and 3c didn't work! it's on the left)

- reduce status bar height to align with notch (xposed plugin didn't work)

- show batt% when notifs are expanded (batt% is literally nowhere to be shown, not in Battery details either, unless you turn on % status bar icon which is annoying, want to see % only when expand quick settings just like on other phones - that is user friendly)

- this UI overwrite app icons, omg..why.. of course i don't use their lausy home app (which doesn't even bring Pie swipe-to-apps action), but twisted icons will show up in all system dialogs

- Pie navigation [bar] is only good in vanilla pie, Samsung OnePlus and Xiaomi managed to destroy it by customizations, would love AOSP style in full screen mode (navbar-less), Xiaomi additionally created "original" swipe-from-right Back action, which interferes with GBoard swipes

- how to enable either Oreo or original Pie recents? used to tweak it via xposed Edge on note9,6t

- the MAC is not randomized, are you kidding me + device name you set won't matter when you make connections, they push Mi9-Mobile name, i don't like both for privacy reasons

- weather widget (where is it), linking weather cities to clock cities

- AOD only on notification with a preview (OnePlus style)

- voice navigation in Camera, this will require a different app

- remove all stupid confirmations with timeouts with several seconds

- "this UI overwrite app icons" -> fixed by using Global dev version

i tried the Global Dev ROM http://en.miui.com/download-361.html and i was shocked that it's the same firmware except those ****ty icons! not much missing, very very little things only.. few more processes (like facebook snitchware), the firewall blocked them proactively.. no byte sent. will be cleansed quickly. i saw Night mode and 48mpix mode in camera briefly but it depends on kernel somehow. weird. so weird brand.