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CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

calyxos.org

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Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#21

Post by dtx1 »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #4

Anybody have experience using something like this (or others like GrapheneOS) as a daily driver? I’m interested in moving away from Apple and big tech in general, but I don’t know how practical that is yet.

I am daily driving GrapheneOS for over a year now as my only phone on a pixel 3a and I like it quite a lot. Here's how I handle stuff and what limits i encountered. Keep in Mind that you have to rethink your app usage aswell, meaning testing a lot of apps from F-Droid to see what works for you. You average FAANG Privacy Invasion App dejour propably won´t work and i´d be wary of hardware requiring an app to be used if you go all in.

1. E-Mail: Using Fairmail from F-Droid (paid version though) is great for GMail and most other Providers. Notifications are usually faster than G-Mail in the Browser. 2. WebBrowser: Using Fennec from F-Droid with Adblock. The Chromium Version integrated in Graphene is propably more secure though. But adblock is life... 3. OsmAnd from F-Droid for Navigation. Works well enough, UI is clunky though. But Offline Maps are pretty sweet to have. 4. Most Messengers work, Notifications are spotty sometimes. Telegram Signal, Element, Threema all do fine though Element sucks battery life down to unaccaptable levels. Haven´t and won´t test whatsapp. 5. OpenCamera + Nextcloud is good for Cloudsyncing and Camera. 6. Password Management with AndOTP and KeePassXC is sweet and integration of the fingerprint sensor is really useful. Useful enough that i miss it on my desktop linux 7. Paypal App works, my Banks app work but YMMV. 8. Biggest annoyances are local german Taxi Apps. They all don´t work but i was able to work around it using a website. Still can´t pay via app. ...Well i don't use my phone for much more than that.

Battery Life is great, Security and Privacy is also good. You can lookup App Compatibility to a degree here: https://plexus.techlore.tech/

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#22

Post by fragileone »

sparaker wrote: post #8

I don't know if they have this, but a good feature a privacy centric android experience would be, to have a simple accessible log of what app accessed what using which permission.

You're looking for Privacy Dashboard, which is available as a 3rd-party FOSS standalone app[1] or built into Android 12.

[1] https://github.com/RushikeshKamewar/PrivacyDashboard

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#23

Post by edoceo »

spinax wrote: post #18
grey_earthling wrote: post #16

From https://calyxos.org/about/ : > In social science, agency is defined as: the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. > built-in integration for Signal and WhatsApp calls Signal and WhatsApp are both fully centralised, tied to a single organisation each — they are antithetical to agency. Why not use open protocols like DeltaChat, Matrix or XMPP instead? > built-in free “Vir…

> Trusted by whom? Calyx VPN uses the same tech stack as Riseup VPN, which are branded versions of the Bitmask client - CalyxOS is a part of the Calyx Institute family. You can instead use the Bitmask client from the F-Droid repo and choose to connect to either service with the same app (rather than using branded apps for each service).

Well, I don't trust them either. Does it run Wireguard?

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#24

Post by m12k »

As someone who knows quite little about Android (currently in the Apple ecosystem, but considering jumping ship): When you use these privacy-focused Android versions without Google Play, is there a consistent way to get apps from the Play store to run on there? (e.g. download the APK from somewhere and sideload it). I'd really like an OS that doesn't spy on me, but there's e.g. some goverment ID apps, transit apps and so on, that I'd really not like to have to give up.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#25

Post by uhtred »

kiawe_fire wrote: post #4

Anybody have experience using something like this (or others like GrapheneOS) as a daily driver? I’m interested in moving away from Apple and big tech in general, but I don’t know how practical that is yet.

I've been using /e/os [1] for a while and I am very happy with it. It has microG integrated so any apps that rely on google play services should still work. [1] https://e.foundation/

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#26

Post by simonmales »

m12k wrote: post #24

As someone who knows quite little about Android (currently in the Apple ecosystem, but considering jumping ship): When you use these privacy-focused Android versions without Google Play, is there a consistent way to get apps from the Play store to run on there? (e.g. download the APK from somewhere and sideload it). I'd really like an OS that doesn't spy on me, but there's e.g. some goverment ID apps, transit apps an…

In short yes.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#27

Post by _jal »

spinax wrote: post #18
grey_earthling wrote: post #16

From https://calyxos.org/about/ : > In social science, agency is defined as: the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. > built-in integration for Signal and WhatsApp calls Signal and WhatsApp are both fully centralised, tied to a single organisation each — they are antithetical to agency. Why not use open protocols like DeltaChat, Matrix or XMPP instead? > built-in free “Vir…

> Trusted by whom? Calyx VPN uses the same tech stack as Riseup VPN, which are branded versions of the Bitmask client - CalyxOS is a part of the Calyx Institute family. You can instead use the Bitmask client from the F-Droid repo and choose to connect to either service with the same app (rather than using branded apps for each service).

The tech stack matters far less than the trustworthiness and competence of the operators running it. And the hard part with VPN services is that it is very difficult to prove those things to others.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#28

Post by fitblipper »

The thing which always makes me hesitant about these projects is that they don't receive frequent security audits and not having an expensive brand behind them makes them more at risk to being willing to trash their name at the cost of my privacy and security. I consider these to be a fairly critical part of any project which claims superior privacy and security.

I think about it this way: Should I trust

A. The company which has thousands of developers working on it and wants to avoid their brand being dirtied by failures in security and privacy.

B. The small group of people who have formed an organization which may or may not be another Anom like FBI controlled software.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely want to pick B, but I consider it much more risky since there are a lot more unknowns around that. At least with A I know what I'm getting (basically a free flow of my info to whichever government asks for it, but cross my fingers they don't ask for it or that A doesn't want too broad of a breach of trust).

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#29

Post by godelski »

m12k wrote: post #24

As someone who knows quite little about Android (currently in the Apple ecosystem, but considering jumping ship): When you use these privacy-focused Android versions without Google Play, is there a consistent way to get apps from the Play store to run on there? (e.g. download the APK from somewhere and sideload it). I'd really like an OS that doesn't spy on me, but there's e.g. some goverment ID apps, transit apps an…

You are always able to add playstore in. But of course this comes with some cost to privacy.

There's also other app stores like f-Droid. Usually these are populated with the same apps but often there are ones you are going to have a harder time getting.

Does anyone know if there's a way to do a sandboxed playstore? Like you can use it to download the apps and update (assuming this won't be automatic) but that it is contained otherwise?

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#30

Post by Mikkel-T »

m12k wrote: post #24

As someone who knows quite little about Android (currently in the Apple ecosystem, but considering jumping ship): When you use these privacy-focused Android versions without Google Play, is there a consistent way to get apps from the Play store to run on there? (e.g. download the APK from somewhere and sideload it). I'd really like an OS that doesn't spy on me, but there's e.g. some goverment ID apps, transit apps an…

There is an app store called Aurora Store that Calyx comes preinstalled with. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/
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