How can this be "de-googled" but I can also use "all my favourite apps"? I'd love to step away from Google, but I have some requirements on apps from the play store for work (slack, okta) and personal communication (whatsapp).
E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
51–60 of 137 posts
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#52How can this be "de-googled" but I can also use "all my favourite apps"? I'd love to step away from Google, but I have some requirements on apps from the play store for work (slack, okta) and personal communication (whatsapp).
WhatsApp actually provides an APK download on their website[0]. I'm not entirely sure whether they keep it as up-to-date as the version on the play store though.
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the graveyard of Android privacy forks is that big? All I can think of is CopperheadOS which died because it was company-backed. You could argue CyanogenMod died, though really it's still well alive in LineageOS. (and CyanogenMod wasn't really privacy-focused) I have a very high respect for all the work that's been done on the various GNU/Linux mobile distributions, but it's still so far away from Andro…
The original developer of CopperheadOS is continuing the work as GrapheneOS, after a split with his former business partner, over dilutions of the privacy guarantees, among other things. https://grapheneos.org/
Always feels like treading google for some other random developers
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because J Random Grandma just wants to share photos of her grandkids or whatever and doesn't understand all this "computer nonsense". I agree that security needs to be rethought, but putting more moats / popups in the way is not going to work. We already learned that from the past- it doesn't matter how many warnings you put in a web browser, those that are uneducated are still going to mash the install button to get…
Good point but one additional advantage on mobile is the app stores. Currently apps are (supposed to be) rejected if they ask for more permission than their app requires. The problem is that the permissions themselves are too broad. If permissions were divided between regular permissions and super permissions where the latter were flagged for extra approval time and care in approval, it seems like you could have a sc…
>Good point but one additional advantage on mobile is the app stores.
True. That, however leads down the walled-garden path. Which honestly might be our best bet, but I'm not comfortable with that thought. In order for the walled garden to work, you have to trust the gardener, and I don't trust any of the current ones.
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was the conclusion I came to after using android 4-5 for a while. 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.
Nowadays I single-handledly (well almost, I do have some contributors, thanks to them) maintain a pure unmodified Android that works on hundreds (probably thousands) of different devices. It has become a lot easier thanks to Project Treble.
Hi phh, I remember using your software to root my Nexus 5X a few years ago, thanks for that! Good to see you're still in the scene.
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#56Why 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…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12625015
> android.permission.DVB_DEVICE
DVB as in the Digital Video Broadcasting standard? I'm surprised Android has a specific permission for this.
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#57There were several privacy problems with this ROM, not sure if they corrected it.
https://infosec-handbook.eu/blog/e-foundation-first-look/
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to elaborate on the "rough edges"? Is it a reliable day to day phone?
I have been using it for I think over a year now as my only phone, on a Samsung Galaxy S9+. It's honestly not much different from Android (although a little out of date), and the only real issue I have is that installing software is a little inconvenient. (The built in app store doesn't work reliably.)
I assume in-app purchases are also a no go, right?
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#59One 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 guess it depends where your priorities lie, but this effort seems _more_ sustainable to me because it can run most proprietary android apps, and everything on F-Droid right out of the box. PureOS has to try and reimplement an entire mobile app ecosystem just to get to parity with existing competitors.
PureOS is trying to use desktop apps instead and fit them to the phone screen ("convergence"). I think it is a viable strategy.
Re: E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services
#60/e/ is mud among the LineageOS community (which is upstream of it), due to several reasons. Sadly I can't find the relevant /r/lineageOS posts .
Here's some reading that covers the basic points though:
https://intangiblesheep.neocities.org/rants/eelo.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20191224031946/https://ewwlo.xyz...