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CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

calyxos.org

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Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#191

Post by sildur »

fitblipper wrote: post #28

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 compa…

B, of course. The FBI may or may not control that specific group of people. But you can bet it controls that company with thousands of developers.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#193

Post by kiawe_fire »

0x416c6578 wrote: post #17
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 used LineageOS without Google services for about a year now. The only big missing feature I've found is notifications which in some ways is quite freeing and makes me check my phone a lot less. LineageOS (and perhaps other ROMs) have the option to disable all networking features for apps, so I actually still use Google Camera, Google Photos (as an offline gallery) and Gboard (again all offline) and the majority…

Thank you for the suggestion!

It sounds like LineageOS for MicroG might be the friendliest way to ease into this for me.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#194

Post by windthrown »

dcow wrote: post #69

If you're unfamiliar with the context: Calyx Institute is a 501(c)(3) with a digital privacy and security mission. For a while they've offered, for a few hundred dollars a year donation, unmetered access to sprint's network. I don't know the details but I think they have retained access to the network through the merger due to some non-profit provision (something like the sprint merger was allowed with stipulation th…

I have the wifi pick, use it frequently and have been quite happy with it.

I got the impression when signing up that it was Sprint's terms that limited their ability to offer to other devices but they would if they could.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#195

Post by VoodooJuJu »

oh_sigh wrote: post #182
bubblethink wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, stuff like this is so depressing to read. Like this is supposed to be a forum for showcasing new tech, projects, etc. What's the point of having this if people in the industry are going to say, "I don't like it because it's not backed by a trillion dollar company". What will change ?

Many people run their entire lives off of their phones. Being concerned about security is prudent, not depressing.

>Many people run their entire lives off of their phones

This is the real problem, not the lack of security audits.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#196

Post by kiawe_fire »

johnbrodie wrote: post #90
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.

LineageOS + microG here, on a motoX4. It's been the phone I use every day for about a year. My wife has the exact same setup, and generally gets along fine with it. FDroid has _most_ of the stuff we want. Some apps just aren't available there, so we end up using the Aurora store for those, with Warden used to scan those apps and stub out as much tracking code as it can. It's all about compromises, especially for othe…

I do expect some rough edges on the UX front.

In fact I hope once I become familiar with everything that I can start contributing to some of the open source projects in the de-Googled space.

If I’m going to become a user of some of this stuff, seems like a good use of my time to also help move it forward.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#197

Post by scrps »

fitblipper wrote: post #28

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 compa…

I trust people with money as their motive about as much as I'd trust a serious alcoholic to hold on to a bottle of booze for me without taking a sip. Might not be a popular opinion but it is my 2 cents to spend.

Could a someone at an open source project slip in an obfuscated backdoor in some esoteric area of the OS? Of course. But the risks of being found out are so much higher, after the fact that all changes at an open source project are logged, diffed, and public (normally), even if only 10% of the userbase looks at the code, runs packet capture or an SSL bump on the network traffic, etc, that is 10% more than for products by Microsoft, Apple, Google, and unlike an insider with access who discovers something highly questionable at a massively powerful corporation, an open source project has almost no leverage to compel them to keep their mouth shut, meanwhile the risk for developers of an open source project that does something like that (even if they aren't in the know) is total loss of trust, forever.

Couple all of that with targeting a highly technical audience (drug kingpins looking for secure comms are more c-suite than engineers, they are still caught up on a good sales pitch more than hard technical details e.g. Anom ) and you'd be fairly stupid to try to pull the wool over their eyes and expect it to not eventually get discovered.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#198

Post by new_stranger »

I purchased a Pixel phone to test this stuff on.

I installed LineageOS and found I couldn't run some google apps. I reinstalled LineageOS with https://opengapps.org added during the install and made the mistake of transferring from my old phone which brought all the google services and everything back to the phone (mostly).

I then installed CalyxOS - much easier install process than lineage. Really liked the defaults. Could not get many apps that relied on google play services though. If I didn't need so many Google-tied apps I would pick this as my phone OS for basic stuff like messaging and browsing.

Installed LineageOS again, found there were a couple apps I could not get working after all (50 different apps installed).

In the end I gave up and re-flashed Google firmware back onto the phone. I spent about 10 hours on all this stuff and simply ran out of time for now. I though I could get away from Google but I didn't realize how much my apps needed Google.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#199

Post by kiawe_fire »

uhtred wrote: post #25
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/

Thanks, I hadn’t heard of /e/os until now.

I’m kind of surprised just how big this space of DeGoogled Android is right now. Far bigger than 6+ years ago when I last looked into it.

Re: CalyxOS – De-Googled Android Alternative

#200

Post by OJFord »

bubblethink wrote: post #176
fitblipper wrote: post #28

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 compa…

Man, stuff like this is so depressing to read. Like this is supposed to be a forum for showcasing new tech, projects, etc. What's the point of having this if people in the industry are going to say, "I don't like it because it's not backed by a trillion dollar company". What will change ?

That's not really the point though is it? It's more like 'I do like it.. is it sensible to use it?' At least, that's how I read it, and how I feel about such things.

I'd very much like my next phone to run Linux (i.e. be a Pinephone) though.

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