11–20 of 137 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How well does it work with Waze? That is the only app keeping me on stock Android.
I haven't tried Waze. The (nonfree) mapping app it ships with works pretty well, as does Maps.me (frontend to OSM data).
Ungoogling is a fine step but the whole thing needs to be rebuilt:
- Sharing Contacts: Should be illegal and removed as an option. Apps shouldn't be able to trick/coerce/incentivise people to harvest and sell other people's private information. When people give out their phone numbers and addresses they do it with some expectation of care, not with the intention of having it immedietly uploaded to Flappy Bird. The most that should be allowed is perhaps some sort of hash of contacts to be able to bootstrap some friend graph, but that's it.
- Sharing Files: There should be a single general default "file manager" app that acts as the intermediary between your files, and other apps, giving them only the files they need for the specific task at hand. Permission for the filemanagers themselves can be given with multiple ALL CAPS permission warnings not to do it.
- Camera/Mic/Location: Trusted intermediate app should capture and provide the data needed for the task at hand. At the absolute minimum, permissions should default to only recording while the app is open (like android location now). Persistent background recording should only be allowed after multiple ALL CAPS stern warnings and suggestion to reject unless absolutely necessary.
- SMS/etc: Have intermediate trusted apps select and share the specific messages you need to share for the task at hand.
In short, data access should be handled by few, trusted, vetted, intermediary apps, with heavily gated permissions for those apps themsevles; and sharing other people's private contact information should be illegal.
I don't think this is a fight that's sustainable - a giant graveyard of Android privacy forks shows that. In the end, the major contributor to this OS is and will remain Google.
In that respect, Purism's PureOS seems like a more sustainable effort.
Why do we have to give access to our entire hard-drive to share one file once? How is it legal for someone else to give away your phone number, your addresses for the last 30 years, your email addresses, and the rest of your personal contact information, along with all the contact information of everyone else they ever met to any app they like? Why can apps run your mic and camera 24 hours a day in the background bec…
Why do we have to give access to our entire hard-drive to share one file once? How is it legal for someone else to give away your phone number, your addresses for the last 30 years, your email addresses, and the rest of your personal contact information, along with all the contact information of everyone else they ever met to any app they like? Why can apps run your mic and camera 24 hours a day in the background bec…
One of the things that feels a bit problematic here - the webpage is avoiding mention of the fact that this is still Android. In essence, this is still Google's OS and the team has decided to start a fight against Google by taking their opensource and perpetually fight against the main developer by removing their proprietary component. I don't think this is a fight that's sustainable - a giant graveyard of Android pr…
One of the things that feels a bit problematic here - the webpage is avoiding mention of the fact that this is still Android. In essence, this is still Google's OS and the team has decided to start a fight against Google by taking their opensource and perpetually fight against the main developer by removing their proprietary component. I don't think this is a fight that's sustainable - a giant graveyard of Android pr…
I think they legally can't call it "Android" in this case so it's not really their fault that they aren't mentioning this.
One of the things that feels a bit problematic here - the webpage is avoiding mention of the fact that this is still Android. In essence, this is still Google's OS and the team has decided to start a fight against Google by taking their opensource and perpetually fight against the main developer by removing their proprietary component. I don't think this is a fight that's sustainable - a giant graveyard of Android pr…
Android is not designed for the community to be hacking on it. While these projects occasionally appear they don't last because of the incredible amount of work required to maintain them. You're much better off finding a normal Linux distro/phone pair that can make phone calls etc.
Had me until it mentioned "the cloud" Does it force you to have data on the cloud? Or can you get by without using the cloud? Simply put: I don't want anyone having my data anywhere apart from me and my device.
Most people wouldn't think a smartphone OS was complete without an online component. If you truly don't want that postmarketOS and a number of Linux distros work on some older phones and the pinephone now.
Why do we have to give access to our entire hard-drive to share one file once? How is it legal for someone else to give away your phone number, your addresses for the last 30 years, your email addresses, and the rest of your personal contact information, along with all the contact information of everyone else they ever met to any app they like? Why can apps run your mic and camera 24 hours a day in the background bec…
What we need is a capability based security system implemented in the OS, which is not easy to implement. iOS is going in the right direction.