Is this actually 100% true?
I know Google/Android/Alphabet sucks but this seems over the top even for them.
Thanks. The xheet and this article are almost identical.
protective waiting period
triggers me. It only protects their business interests, because that’s the biggest of the multiple hurdles that are all designed to disincentivize people from doing that.
Also read: security theater
I wouldn’t go quite that far. It doesn’t only protect their business interest; it definitely does achieve the goals they claim—like helping non-tech-literate users to avoid getting scammed with malware—it’s just they’re only doing it this way because it also aligns with their business interest.
To that end I’d contest the “Security Theater” label. All security measures are ultimately implemented in a way that defends the interests of the owners. It’s just that people have forgotten or aren’t aware that Proprietary Software means they’re not the owners.
Of course if it was just about users’ safety, the most effective way to help people avoid getting scammed is to educate them, but that would make people less dependent on Google and less susceptible to vendor lock-in, and people may even start having dangerous thoughts like “it sure is weird how many identifying traits of a scam are also just standard business practices for large corporations like Google.”
De-googled Android ROMs:
- GrapheneOS
- LineageOS
- /e/ OS
- Volla OS
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
- Pinephone
- Pinephone pro
- Librem 5
- Volla Phone 22
- Jolla Phone
- FuriPhone FLX1s
And pretty much every feature phone out there (way too many to list)
FuriLabs mentioned 😲🥹
I absolutely love my FLX1s
I don’t have them, they just come up in a search for “Linux-based Phone.” Please share your experience if you have the time! People need to know what they’re getting into!
I love my Pinetime watch. Really rooting for that company.
De-googled Android ROMs:
Aren’t most of them de-googled? Usually you install gApps separately, unless that’s changed
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
Not non-android out of the box, but just to add to your list: Ubuntu reports that nearly everything except VoLTE works on the Fairphone 4 and 5, but sadly they don’t support the 6 yet. PostMarketOS shows more issues
I would guess that most Android ROMs are OEM ones that are not degoogled (and have the added spyware of Cellular Service Providers or phone brands), I’m not familiar enough with AOSP Stock Images to make a judgment on those, and the rest that I know of—which are actively maintained and have been around long enough brand-recognition that I trust them to be non-glitchy and spyware free—comprise the above list.
If you got more suggestions, I will gladly add them to the list though.
Ubuntu reports that nearly everything except VoLTE works on the Fairphone 4 and 5
Oh snap, so is that UBPorts? I’m not sure how to classify that tbh, I might need a 3rd category that’s Linux Phone OSes that work on Android-focused phones. Actually, just looking at it rn and it looks like PostMarket claims to support over 700 devices…
With these steps, you might as well unlock your bootloader. WTF.
Still worth it for revanced!
Linux or Graphene?
I say Linux.
I read Linux phobe first and got so confused.
Graphene if you give a damn about security and privacy.
Both actually
Totally degoogled graphene phones can’t come soon enough.
you can use a pin instead of biometrics by the way
I haven’t used Google anything since 2010. What’s your struggle lmfao
banking.
public transport.
government anything.
…
Google banking? Google transport? Google government?
Is this your first day on Earth?
Those apps are all only avaible through the Google Play Store and downloading the banking app from somewhere else is likely causing serious trouble.
Name a bank without a website lmfao.
When you don’t have a real response, responding as if you’re a moron doesn’t help your point.
what have you used then? the only other option thats really viable as a complete daily driver solution is iphones and iOS and that has all the same issues just without pretending to be open source
Lmao you’re never going to get a genuine reply from this
I feel like you don’t understand what we’re taking about here
Oh?
There are two options for mobile phone operating systems and now both of them restrict their users freedoms to install software as they see fit.
So you either don’t care about software freedom or don’t understand the problem.
good linux phones can’t come soon enough
For anyone reading this, donate to PostmarketOS if you can so we can escape google forever!
they dont ship to the us. also the mobile-focused software is still early on linux, but as long as it is daily drivable I can handle that.
Unfortunately, Sailfish OS uses a proprietary (closed source) android compatibility layer, as well as a closed source UI. They also have a CLA that contributers must sign. It’s the HA-CLA-I-ANY license, which specifically allows them a perpetual Copyright and Patent license, and to relicense your code contributions to sell or package into a closed-source proprietary app.
Personally I’d be more comfortable supporting the development of PostmarketOS instead, since it is completely open-source with no CLA, meaning no chance of any rug-pulling in the future.
Disclaimer: yes, SFOS is made by a (small) for-profit company. Always has been.
For the parts they have open-sourced, they implementrd a CLA that contributers must sign.
Just to clarify, this applies only to previously closed core components. Not app developers. But thanks for the info.
I love the constant comparison to PMOS, which has exactly 0 daily-driveable devices. SFOS has been usable since 2013, and honestly I don’t see a rug-pull coming up. Call me naive.
It’s a European company btw.If you’re comfortable with it being a private company that has proprietary software and utilizes a CLA for its own components, then by all means, use them.
Personally I’m at a point where I distrust any essential software that isn’t GPL licensed, as that’s the only way to ensure that it’ll always be in the community’s hands. Otherwise, we’re just hedging that Sailfish won’t someday potentially be sold to a different larger publicly traded company, and utilize the potential lock-in factor that the proprietary parts of Sailfish and the CLA’d components bring.
PMOS is certainly not in a usable state for the average person yet, which is why I suggest people donate to it so it can become more polished and support more phones.
Having a CLA like that just screams “Were going to monetize all of this one day” lol
Exactly, it’s like a corporate wolf in FLOSS clothing, and huge red flag.
Is it just me or do Linux phones not support 5g
The new Jolla phone does support it
It’s just you. I can’t really disprove a negative, but e.g. SailfishOS supports 5G.
You can’t prove a negative. You can disprove a negative simply by showing an example. Which you just did.
I heard they cause aids too
i have come to love just not owning a smartphone anymore.
World is way more of an adventure when you out and about without internet connection on you.
Wana know how to get somewhere? Find a map or ask someone.
Pay something? There is cash for that.
Wana take a picture? Just take a camera with you, because lets be real 99% of the pics in your smartphones camera roll wont get viewed ever again anyhow.
Wana meet with other people? Well make out a time and spot before u leave the house…
Wana be reachable to others while u out and about? Dont! Its a wonderfull feeling not to be.
Wana pass some time while waiting for someone/something? Bring a book.
Sure it may be inconvinient for others that you are not instantly reachable 24/7. But its a wonderfull feeling not to be. To comunicate on your own terms.
Damn, it must be nice not to have any responsibilities or people that count on you for things.
Incredible, huh, that nobody in the pre smartphone era had any responsibilities for the whole of human history…and now with em we all suddenly do.
Its your choice to be reachable on your terms. Everything else is u caving in to peer pressure of a over communicative society.
Oh my, I hadn’t accounted for the fact that things hadn’t changed at all in the past 40 years, you’re absolutely right. Nothing is different, no one has any needs or expectations outside of what happened back then.
It’s your choice to live in the 80’s. don’t let anyone pressure you to become a useful part of society!
I’m sorry no one ever calls you or cares about you. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with you being an insufferable bloviator.
Are you speaking from personal experience there?
lmao project harder troll
Spoken like someone who isn’t responsible for others. My kid is ADHD and autistic. She’s high functioning, but that doesn’t mean I get to just be unreachable. I’m several people’s emergency contacts. I have to travel unknown places all the time and be there exactly to get the help my kid needs.
I’m a single mother. I trade off whatever they are stealing from me for the ability to get cheaper versions of what my kid needs. My job is flexible, so it allows me to take my kid to what she needs with the understanding that I can answer questions when I’m away.
Oh, I also have a deadly neurodegenerate disease that is only kept in check by this specific medication that I need to be places for a while to get. I like my phone reminding me to go get that and also being able to fill out the paperwork on my phone because of my shitty hands.
A lot of people I see who are like, “Just live without a phone!” Are not the people who are actually responsible for people and/or things. I was like that when I was young, but then you know, I became a pillar of my family and friend network. People who are unreachable when needed are dropped from my network. I know several people who when I actually needed them and it was very dire, were unreachable. I left them messages and everything. Nope. Don’t think they ever knew the issue. Dropped. Sorry even in the 90s and 00s, you were expected to listen to your voice mails promptly. I shouldn’t have to mount a search party to find you, which is actually necessary for some people I know.
you were expected to listen to your voice mails promptly.
i do, when i am back home.
Tell me how many people rely on you? Because being unavailable for hours can actually be deadly to a child you are responsible for.
I have 3 examples I have experienced, one with my own child where if I or the other person was just unavailable while they were outside of the house, irreparable damage would have happened to the child. Or in my in kid’s case, she would have just died.
Sorry that you’re dealing with a rough situation. But you don’t need to get mad and make assumptions just because someone lives differently from you.
Sorry but making kids was your life style choice, and i wont feel sorry for not making any.
That’s life before 2000, or even up to 2005 or like. Was not bad, really. Internet was slow and stuck in computers, astalavista, radium, emule and burning dvds The evolution of cellphones into smartphones was somehow a bad move for humanity
Don’t worry bro we got AI now bro that’s all that was holding us back
A lot of those things are possible, if a bit inconvenient. BUT I am old enough to have lived through the time before GPS and smartphones and navigating without it - especially in an unknown city - is simply terrible.
If you have never experienced having to park your car and walk around, looking for a street name, just to find out where the hell you are… Count yourself lucky.
Listen to an old timer: I never want to go back to that.
Anyone who says otherwise simply doesn’t drive around a lot or only in well known areas.
Sounds wondeful, though it’s not possible in some parts of the world. Here in Sweden you need a phone to use a lot of services, and very few places still accept cash as payment.
Luckily I’m still at the point where nothing I need to do absolutely requires a smartphone with either iOS or Google Android but it sure feels like that day is coming.
I did float to myself the idea of essentially stripping a phone bare of everything except necessary apps though, would get 80% of the way there
At that point would not stripping a smartwatch be better? No need to carry around a phone.
I already have a phone I can strip. I do not own a smartwatch.
Fair enough.
I mean, getting verified as a developer is a similar pain in the ass in other ecosystems. I recently got an LG smart TV and the developer mode there automatically runs out and deletes all unofficial apps after 9999h if you don’t manually go into the developer app and extend the time.
My hot take is that you shouldn’t have to claim that you’re a developer to sideload content. It should be allowed for normal users 🤷
Ok this sucks, but there is something that seems to be not implied. Wait one day, then confirm with biometrics, then decide if you want this only this time, or 1 week, or forever. You have to only deal with this one time if you choose forever (as long as you don’t reinstall, I assume).
This is by no means ideal, but I think I’m ok with this. In a way I believe the rhetoric they are framing, to protect the vulnerable populace (e.g. the elderly) from frauds. For your phone, you can get the hurdle over one time, if you are installing for your parent you can do “don’t ask me for a week, or ask me again everytime”, so they don’t install something malicious as part of a guided “tech support”. Not saying that will prevent all and any spams but it will add some barrier. Just my opinion though, I could be off base with this.
I do wish that 1 day waiting was a bit shorter.
You’re off base with this. Almost unbelievably so.
They know they aren’t concerned with scams, why are you pretending? The move is to restrict competition and improve surveillance capacity as much as possible with as much legal protection as possible for Google. “Vulnerable people” don’t typically know how to use F-Droid, and scammers would take a week to find out am effective alternative even if this was somehow their main tactic; which it is not and they did fine before it was an option.
I own my phone. I get to pick what is installed on it. The fucking mandatory Google apps were already too far, this is straight up telegraphing intent to commodify as much of my life as they can get access to. Even beyond how fucking bad this is for the overall health of tech development and sovereignty, I dont want a company that is complicit with a fascist state to force me or anyone else who would challenge that state to register our fucking identities with them. For all I fucking know, they’d get me thrown into a camp as readily as they’d cut off my access to pirated media. You think it’s a coincidence they’re doing this shit at the same time liberals and fascists are desperately trying to seize some kind of control over the internet? It’s for grandma’s safety? The fuck it is.
I dont want a company that is complicit with a fascist state to force me or anyone else who would challenge that state to register our fucking identities with them.
Now in fairness to google, they’re complicit with multiple fascist states.
This would mean something if the old people google is pretending to give a shit about couldn’t already download all sorts of scammy shit from google’s official store.
Yes exactly.
The same with “oh we need the app creator/publisher to register so people don’t submit random shitty apps”. <looks at google’s play store populated with bunch of random shitty, scammy apps>
Okay so why not fork android and do everything foss?
Graphene os is a good alternative to android. Its privacy and security focused, and also does not come with google serviced preinstalled. The only problem is that its only supported on google pixels, and porting it to other devices is impossible.
Didn’t I hear that they’re planning to release graphene on Motorola?
Yes, that will be my next phone provided the price is decent and it has a headphone jack and everything else I need
I’m hoping for a MicroSD card slot. I’m on a Note 20 Ultra which I planned to run for far longer but it got the infamous “random green line out of nowhere” problem. I think Sony is the only one who still puts it in flagships
Shoot I also recently got the freaking green line a few weeks ago. Yeah I also refuse to have a phone without a microsd option, why TF are they doing away with that?
To sell cloud storage.
Pretty much. On a Sony Xperia 1 V and it works great (best phone I’ve ever had). Downside is that the bootlocker for the US version is locked (AT&T thing) so I can’t just put lineageos on it or something, so I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement recently, and the pickings are pretty sparse.
I’m probably gonna have to ride out the stupid Google bullshit for a few months until there is a decent alternative, as the graphene phone from Motorola probably won’t be released this year (and even then it probably won’t have a headphone jack and a micro SD card slot) and pretty much all of the Linux phones available now don’t really meet my needs (also no headphone jack on something like the jolla phone, which as someone used to Linux for years, I know Bluetooth headphones aren’t much of a solid option).
Really hope they’ll have an alternative to Google Wallet. One thing I’d miss.
Thats it, planned, and not yet released. But its good that at least in future there will be more options for a smartphone with foss operating system.
Also, while in practice it would propably never happen, i hope that in the future, more smartphone makers will put alternative operating systems on their phones, or at least make it easier to install third party operating systems on their phones, like it is done on googles own pixels.
Don’t be cartoonishly evil?
You have a very low bar for what evil is apparently.
