De-Googling my phone • Hacker News Board

Re: De-Googling my phone

#41

Post by WindowsFon4life » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:20 AM UTC

ApkPure is a very nice replacement for the play store.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#42

Post by John_KZ » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:24 AM UTC

reddotX wrote: post #28

Ubuntu phone is not dead, it's now developed by ubports http://ubuntu-touch.io/

It is dead. Someone forked it. I'm sorry but I can't trust some random team with almost zero funding to write my everyday os. Ubuntu phone died when Canonical dropped it. Same for Mozilla. It's a shame and kind of bizarre that Google can go on without any competition, but without the hardware manufacturers cooperating this isn't working out. We need open hardware for this to work.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#43

Post by pwg » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:25 AM UTC

efrafa wrote: post #37

tbolt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS Safari

To clarify, its kinetic scrolling that is broken.

Interesting. Because with Firefox 59 for Android, both kinetic and inertial scrolling work as expected (just tested). Odd that it does not work for iOS Safari.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#44

Post by glenstein » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:28 AM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #14

Great list! NewPipe is really good, far better than the proprietary YouTube app. K9 is also a superb app and holds up very well against the proprietary options. I have to recommend andOTP over FreeOTP, though, it's more featureful and does some important things like backups.

Agreed completely on NewPipe. I have installed NewPipe, and it's not a case of me tolerating a second-tier app because I want something free. I actually like NewPipe better than the Youtube app.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#45

Post by incadenza » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:31 AM UTC

greenhouse_gas wrote: post #36

psergeant wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Point taken, but Firefox is on iOS FWIW.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#46

Post by firic » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:35 AM UTC

zoom6628 wrote: post #19

For who ever is interested.... I live in China and have lived in a "google free" microcosm for some time forced on me by the government. Generally do not miss anything at all - at least I dont miss anything i dont know about. FTR i dont game or media watch on my phone. For me a phone is a mobile device for getting things done when im not at my desk. I use a Blackberry DTEK60. The apps I use: APKpure for getting apps…

Is there a way to verify that the apk on apkpure is the same as the one on Google play? Or is that site very reliable by itself?

Re: De-Googling my phone

#47

Post by catach » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:37 AM UTC

incadenza wrote: post #45

greenhouse_gas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Point taken, but Firefox is on iOS FWIW.

iOS Firefox is a reskinned WebKit, unfortunately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS

Re: De-Googling my phone

#48

Post by incadenza » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:43 AM UTC

catach wrote: post #47

incadenza wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point taken, but Firefox is on iOS FWIW.

iOS Firefox is a reskinned WebKit, unfortunately. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_for_iOS

Ah, got it, that's unfortunate. I remember some time ago, Mozilla said that they wouldn't put a browser on iOS unless it could use Gecko. When I saw the app I assumed that the restrictions had changed.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#49

Post by kqr » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:48 AM UTC

EvilMonkeyMat wrote: post #15

Very interesting. I've been looking for something like Syncthing for a while now, without luck. I ran into TLS/https issues (can't remember what exactly) while configuring OwnCloud/NextCkound, and realized it had some security flaws I wasn't ready to live with. I decided to stick with Google Drive. I'll give a try to Syncthing this summer. Thanks!

Syncthing is great once you get it set up correctly. On my first attempt it accidentally wept my $HOME[1], but on my second attempt it was really easy. Now I have it on all my devices and I don't want to live without it.

[1]: Still not sure if some sequence of commands looked like I intended to delete stuff, or if it was a bug that has since been fixed.

Re: De-Googling my phone

#50

Post by codetrotter » Fri, May 04, 2018, 4:49 AM UTC

cyphar wrote: post #40

ISL wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

Speaking of Ubuntu Touch (aka Ubuntu Phone), it should be noted that though Canonical shut down support for it, a community of people calling themselves UBports are keeping the project alive.

I recently bought a Nexus 5 for the purpose of running Ubuntu Touch. It arrived yesterday and I look forward to try Ubuntu Touch on it.