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De-Googling my phone

piware.de

31–40 of 192 posts

Re: De-Googling my phone

#31
Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google?

I get a bit of solace knowing it's open source... But I certainly won't be crawling through the code and compiling.

I hope others do...

Re: De-Googling my phone

#32
post #31

Isn't it ironic that lineage is still basically Google? I get a bit of solace knowing it's open source... But I certainly won't be crawling through the code and compiling. I hope others do...

Its Google as in the code was written by Google (AOSP). But the binary is built by themselves, on their build server (As with any other custom ROM).

It's like Chromium on Debian. It's Google code compiled by Debian

Re: De-Googling my phone

#33
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F-Droid is attempting to support reproducible builds--if you have a Debian system, you should be able to re-build the same .apk, or at least a similar enough .apk that the original package signature still passes. That said, by my quick count, only about 18% of the F-Droid packages are reproducible right now. nokogiri https://verification.f-droid.org/ -e '$_.css("a").each{|a|puts a.text}'|sed -n 's/\.txt$//p'|sed 's/.…

And what about the binary blob drivers?

F-Droid doesn't package Binary drivers. They don't package drivers altogether, and they don't package anything they don't compile. They used to package upstream Firefox, but they don't seem to do that anymore.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#34
post #6

Your increased trust in these stores is motivated by .... what governance and audit structure? yes, its a devils-advocate position. You might (for instance) have high trust because you know them from hacker traeff you've been on, f2f. I can't have this a-priori knowledge. From here, this looks no better than "trust google" and in some dimensions looks significantly worse. Of course for the primary goal of "distrust g…

Consider the incentives. Google: track every detail of your life and use it to serve up ads that support their bottom line. Implements changes that serve themselves at your expense. F-Droid et al: build cool open-source software cause they like cool open-source software. Implements changes because they make the software better.

Missing option: Apple iPhone. Just works, aggressive security team.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#35

Interesting article. You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant! I'd be curious to know if anyone has had any positive experiences with any of the non google/apple OS phones or if there is a comparison out there as I'm so fed up with that duopoly. Apple has terrible battery life and intentionally obsoletes their expensive equipment every year. Not to mention they rip off thi…

> You can add Hound as a surprisingly powerful alternative voice AI to Google Assistant!

Is this available on F-droid? I didn't see it there.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the incentives. Google: track every detail of your life and use it to serve up ads that support their bottom line. Implements changes that serve themselves at your expense. F-Droid et al: build cool open-source software cause they like cool open-source software. Implements changes because they make the software better.

Missing option: Apple iPhone. Just works, aggressive security team.

Downside: 1. Do you really know what your apps are doing? You can't compile from source.

2. You may only use apps Apple approves. So no Firefox for you.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#38
post #6

Your increased trust in these stores is motivated by .... what governance and audit structure? yes, its a devils-advocate position. You might (for instance) have high trust because you know them from hacker traeff you've been on, f2f. I can't have this a-priori knowledge. From here, this looks no better than "trust google" and in some dimensions looks significantly worse. Of course for the primary goal of "distrust g…

Something I haven't yet understood -- why hasn't a ~Debian of Android-compatible phones emerged?

Are we lacking a UI? Kernel? Apps? Interest? Interface with existing closed-source apps? Is stock Android too good?

Re: De-Googling my phone

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about the binary blob drivers?

F-Droid doesn't package Binary drivers. They don't package drivers altogether, and they don't package anything they don't compile. They used to package upstream Firefox, but they don't seem to do that anymore.

They don't package upstream Firefox, but you can get GNU IceCat Mobile (which is the GNU fork of it). And they also package Firefox Klar (which is the European edition of the "always incognito" version of Firefox they released last year, with all the telemetry disabled).

Re: De-Googling my phone

#40
post #38
post #6

Your increased trust in these stores is motivated by .... what governance and audit structure? yes, its a devils-advocate position. You might (for instance) have high trust because you know them from hacker traeff you've been on, f2f. I can't have this a-priori knowledge. From here, this looks no better than "trust google" and in some dimensions looks significantly worse. Of course for the primary goal of "distrust g…

Something I haven't yet understood -- why hasn't a ~Debian of Android-compatible phones emerged? Are we lacking a UI? Kernel? Apps? Interest? Interface with existing closed-source apps? Is stock Android too good?

Purism is planning on fixing that[1]. The funny thing is that we've actually reverted backwards, you could install a Debian-based distro on the Nokia N900 -- not really possible on newer phones (though you do have stuff like Ubuntu Phone).

[1]: https://puri.sm/shop/librem-5/

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