you never had any freedom to begin with
No thanks.
I’ll keep my phone and my freedom by removing Google from it.
- Embrace open source
- Extend services into proprietary layers (Google Play Services)
- Extinguish third party development
We’re entering the final phase of Microsoft’s famous EEE strategy from the 90s.
They couldn’t even fucking be bothered to spell check their slop banner?
I read the sloptext as “Goosing Android” initially, which seemed to make sense!
Can someone tell me why legislation hasn’t stepped in yet? I honestly don’t understand this. The EU made Microsoft show a pop up on Windows so users could choose their own browser. And this was idk how many years ago. Yet it seems to be perfectly ok for OEM’s to make phones where it’s impossible to install another OS on…
yeah, you’d think an open mobile stack would be at the top of the priority list when it comes to tech sovereignty
And this was idk how many years ago.
There’s your answer. No one cares anymore.
Money
That’s why Android needs to be forked and have an independente development asap.
EU is ditching big US corporations, however Google is restricting third party app stores, and control over which apps can be installed.
Google Services are built-in on almost Android devices, giving access to everything that happens on those devices (phones, tablets, Android TV…), which is basically an rootkit, it can remotely access any app, any file, and control the device.
EU and any other nation needs an alternative to Android or iOS, truly open source without external control of any corporation
PS: I know there are open source alternatives like PostmarkedOS, but lacks of apps, and still requires Android to run Android apps
That’s basically what GrapheneOS is, and why I’m hopeful that Motorolla and other vendors start releasing devices using it. The main risk is that Google will cut off its services and store from it, and if there are official vendors making devices then it’ll be harder to do that.
From my understanding, Graphene is still extremely dependent on upstream development of Android so they can focus on their security improvements. I don’t think they have the manpower to properly fork it.
There is a solid basis though, and it wouldn’t be unthinkable to create a foundation around it that could take it forward on its own. And if there are vendors shipping it, then some money might get thrown at the effort too.
I unfortunately think you underestimate the workload here. Developing an OS is a massive undertaking, and it would require a huge community of developers to come forward and take up the job. I just don’t see it happening spontaneously. In my opinion, if they ever lose upstream support, Graphene just dies.
What is an OS? is Android an OS or just an application layer? Because most of its deep close-to-metal components are not maintained by Google.
What is “developing”? is keeping things stable “developing”? I actually wish Google stopped releasing breaking changes…
IMHO, I actually think Android would be a better off if Google stopped experimenting with it, “developing” it, and adding stuff nobody asked for.
I’m not saying it would be easy or would happen spontaneously, just that it’s not impossible. There is already a solid base to work off and there is a lot of interest in having an open mobile platform. I reject the notion that only large corps can do such things.
And Android piggybacks on Linux. Turtles all the way down, until you get the actual developers committing real effort. And no one is talking about spontaneously, rather realistically 0.5-20 million euros in funding from the EU. Is it viable then? If not, realistically, what would be the threshold for viability?
realistically 0.5-20 million euros in funding from the EU
time is running out for the europeans economically before they switch to austerity – they better hurry up.
True, Graphene would be a good start.
China don’t have Google PlayStore, but only their own apps market, also Amazon and Samsung have their own app stores.
It’s not impossible to have a different apps market, it there’s an user base, and developers will follow the market
Yeah, if there was an independent app store that popular apps would get published to that would be ideal.
At some point we’re going to want to ditch Google’s services entirely. This is simply a trust/societal problem, not an engineering one. Most proprietary apps rely on Google’s app attestation. The main hurdle I see for an Android fork becoming mainstream without Google is establishing a 3rd party root of trust, like how SSL already works. It is actively against Google’s interest to allow this to happen, so they will push as much closing of their OS as they can without “boiling the frog” so to speak.
Yeah, I’m waiting for the same thing, and even if they cut off their services, so long as the phone can be degoogled and replacements installed I wouldn’t really care.
Banking apps could be the only problem I foresee, but then I guess I’ll just go back to debit and credit cards.
Also, if someone releases a working Linux phone with some extra polish that has actual global distribution that would also be a good option for me.
I find the big one is communication platforms. A lot of people use stuff like Slack or Discord, and if you need to use these platforms you’re kinda screwed.
I’ve used the discord web client on graphene quite a lot. It has fewer features than the app but I feel better about it. Same with my bank- I can just log into the website via my phone’s browser.
It’s ok, but not quite the same as having actual apps unfortunately.
Why not use Revenge for Discord? Or on Linux Equibop and Slacky
For one, they’re not guaranteed to work all the time since these are closed protocols and the companies change them as they please. I’m not saying that workarounds aren’t possible, just that it’s not the same as having official clients if you actually need to use these apps reliably for work for example.
