If de-googling IRL, what is a viable webview alternative that retains not-inet related functionality in apps?
De-Googling my phone
171–180 of 192 posts
Re: De-Googling my phone
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
It's Firefox Klar in German speaking countries, and Focus on the rest, not to collude with Focus Magazine brand :)
Wow, that's dumb and makes everything even more confusing. Add to that the actual apps being different with the purpose being the same.
t. annoyed german
Re: De-Googling my phone
#173Earlier 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.
I understand you're frustrated, but there are a lot of us at Google who are also just trying to build cool open-source software, and in cases such as mine, building it so that others can use it to build even better things with less work. =(
But you're still there to make Google more money. What do you do when they tell you to build a feature that's supposed to Extend and Extinguish? I'm guessing often you wouldn't even really know.
Re: De-Googling my phone
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You end up in Apple's high walled closed source garden. Google’s ecosystem is just as negative as apples walled garden. If you want, you can build and sign your own apps and put them on your device on an iPhone. > And have to deal with whatever they remove from the next iteration of the device based on their whims and fancies. I presume you’re talking about the headphone jack, which google followed up by removing f…
> If you want, you can build and sign your own apps and put them on your device on an iPhone. HA! Sure. For $100 a year. And from a Mac. > I presume you’re talking about the headphone jack, which google followed up by removing from their pixel phone 12 months later? Why does apple get the hate here and not google? Because Pixel is not the only choice one has inside the Android ecosystem, as opposed to iOS one? Samsun…
> For $100 a year. And from a Mac.
And compiling every app, I'm guessing?
On Android you just download the damn package and install it on the devices.
Re: De-Googling my phone
#175Earlier 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.
so you know what all the google play services are doing on your phone? You can compile apps from source and put them on your own phone, you just cant distribute your own compiled apps without a paid developer account.
I can opt out of using Play services.
Re: De-Googling my phone
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
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/
I miss my N900 so much and for so many reasons. Unfortunately all of mine had abysmal build quality and fell apart after a few months. A friend of mine kept repairing his for many years -- maybe he still uses it. But a huge part of why I liked the N900 was the physical keyboard. What is the puri.sm stance on that?
I'm guessing they won't include it, but if they really do their job well it'll be easy to add your own.
Re: De-Googling my phone
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
you can use whatsapp without gapps
But backup, at least in the past, did require gapps
If you install the drive app, microG + whatsapp backups works. There is an open ticket to natively support this in microG as well.
Also, WhatsApp has long supported compressed file backups (non-cloud) for a while now.
Re: De-Googling my phone
#178I'm curious about the battery and reliability effects of push notifications without FCM. Using a single service for notifications allows a single wakeup across the device when fetching notifications. Last I checked, the minimum interval for coalesced timers in android is 15m and that's just in time for most telco NATs in the US to have silently killed your connection. [Source: I used to run a 3P push network on andro…
Well I'm not sure how Telegram does it, but I get messages pushed instantly, it doesn't use Google spy services for that, and it's super low in battery usage rankings.
I might be wrong but isn't it simply about building a tcp connection whenever Internet is available or changes, and the server will push whenever there's something new? You don't need a single thing polling (which would indeed save power) if the server is pushing. Recently I learned that sleeping (power-conserving) clients are even part of the WiFi spec, so that an access point will hold onto messages for some time until the client is listening again. I assume this is just some ms, but still.
Re: De-Googling my phone
#179If de-googling IRL, what is a viable webview alternative that retains not-inet related functionality in apps?
Doesn't Firefox add itself as option if you have the browser installed?
Re: De-Googling my phone
#180Interesting 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…
I thought hound was dead? There was hype a couple years ago but have never heard anybody using it since. It's not nearly as integrated with IOT as Assistant or Siri.