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Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

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Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#111

Post by BlueTemplar »

rvense wrote: post #85
quaintdev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's getting more and more difficult to use Android without a Google Account. Good that is how they shoot themselves in the foot. The more they do this, the more people will realise they need alternative and ditch Android.

Just like they've ditched Windows? People don't care about Android. They care about their apps. Some are fun, some are necessary. In my country, cash has been almost replaced by an app (just one), and it's getting harder to exist here without it (as I try to). That's just one example. I've heard of other places where compulsory national ID systems only exist as apps. And so on. Unless those apps becomes available out…

A compulsory national ID system already means they are living in a police state, so they have worse issues to worry about than this.

Also, maybe at some point the UE countries will start to enforce the CJUE directive that banned US companies (and especially GAFAMs) in 2015 (after the war is over ?), this would open quite a space for competition !

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#112

Post by pyeri »

Grimburger wrote: post #70
deng wrote: post #33

Has the author of this article ever used a custom ROM? There are so many free alternatives for these apps out there. If I remember correctly, LineageOS ships with their own version of Dialer/Messages anyway. I usually replace them with the versions of SimpleMobileTools, which work just fine. The main difficulty for custom ROMs are not these standard apps. The real issues are bootloaders which cannot be unlocked, undo…

> Just look how Google effectively broke the AuroraStore App recently. For anyone who has been hit by this, you can workaround the api issue by long pressing on a playstore http link and clicking open in app (aurora icon). So you can't search using the app anymore, but if you have the link to what you want you can still install without playstore or a google account. It's frustrating but isn't the end.

Not a very clean solution but if someone (power user) wants to avoid the playstore entirely, they can perhaps do so by simply force-disabling the app (using tools like adb), and then use something like apkmirror[1] or apkpure[2] or aptoide to install the APKs for the apps directly and bypass the store entirely?

[1] https://www.apkmirror.com/

[2] https://m.apkpure.com/

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#113

Post by fsflover »

charcircuit wrote: post #100
jraph wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounds a bit pedantic to me, but okay :). Ah, the distinction is important indeed :-) The expectation is that things are improving. I think many people in the mobile Linux do think Android is doomed, or at least is not an interesting path anymore for the long run. That's what drives them. Android works, but has some flaws this ecosystem can't see being avoided. Being stuck with the custom kernel and the proprietary…

>Being stuck with the custom kernel Android already works on the kernel. You don't need a custom kernel. >and the proprietary drivers If it uses proprietary Linux kernel modules they will still be proprietary kernel modules without the rest of Android.

> If it uses proprietary Linux kernel modules

Librem 5 doesn't use them.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#114

Post by surgical_fire »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #111
rvense wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like they've ditched Windows? People don't care about Android. They care about their apps. Some are fun, some are necessary. In my country, cash has been almost replaced by an app (just one), and it's getting harder to exist here without it (as I try to). That's just one example. I've heard of other places where compulsory national ID systems only exist as apps. And so on. Unless those apps becomes available out…

A compulsory national ID system already means they are living in a police state, so they have worse issues to worry about than this. Also, maybe at some point the UE countries will start to enforce the CJUE directive that banned US companies (and especially GAFAMs) in 2015 (after the war is over ?), this would open quite a space for competition !

> A compulsory national ID system already means they are living in a police state

Such a bizarre take.

Many countries have national ID systems that are compulsory (or effectively compulsory) and do not fall under any reasonable definition of a "police state"

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#115

Post by fsflover »

palata wrote: post #41
0xedd wrote: post #30

Great opportunity to take the plunge into a Linux phone, like Pinephone. Still in beta quality but with more people, more can be done. Personally, I daily drive it with compromise. Had I been a secretary, it wouldn't cut it.

I guess anything is an opportunity to mention one's favourite project. Don't get me wrong: I like mobile Linux distros (played with PostmarketOS), but I think it is completely off topic. All this article says is that Google will stop supporting 2 apps. Open source apps maintained by others will replace them, for sure.

This is not completely off-topic. Google is moving away from open-source making Android more and more proprietary. If you care about it, there should be a moment after which you abandon Google and look elsewhere. For me, it already happened.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#116

Post by fsflover »

yMEyUyNE1 wrote: post #37
0xedd wrote: post #30

Great opportunity to take the plunge into a Linux phone, like Pinephone. Still in beta quality but with more people, more can be done. Personally, I daily drive it with compromise. Had I been a secretary, it wouldn't cut it.

I am waiting for PostmarketOS to go mainstream.

It doesn't need to go mainstream for you to use it.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#117

Post by mavhc »

eloisant wrote: post #103
deng wrote: post #33

Has the author of this article ever used a custom ROM? There are so many free alternatives for these apps out there. If I remember correctly, LineageOS ships with their own version of Dialer/Messages anyway. I usually replace them with the versions of SimpleMobileTools, which work just fine. The main difficulty for custom ROMs are not these standard apps. The real issues are bootloaders which cannot be unlocked, undo…

Yes, but this title is much more clickbait than just "Google stops developping 2 open source apps".

if only they were open source, then anyone else could take over

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#118

Post by KingMachiavelli »

Catholic_Tree wrote: post #105
KingMachiavelli wrote: post #57

The real concern is not the loss of the AOSP apps but the lack of new but mandatory features in AOSP and even more undocumented APIs. For example, RCS only works with Google messenger and there's no sign of that expanding (unless your Samsung). Even Visual Voicemail which should/is an open standard has a lot of carrier specific code (I think it can still be extracted from the Google Phone app but I'm not sure on the…

I am curious, how is the experience of running GrapheneOS on the Google Fold? On my Pixel 6 it runs quite well, but I would imagine that the Folding aspect brings in quite a bit of additional complexity.

So far it's been good, it's a lot faster than my Pixel 5 on GOS. I didn't play with the stock OS much but basic UI for the fold works the same.

It's individual apps that need fold and/or tablet support like I have the use Gboard to get a decent tablet mode keyboard and the Pixel Camera to support the different camera modes.

Overall it's quite obvious that it's really a phone + tablet which means a lot of things work OK but won't handle the 90 degree fold mode (table top) well. Also the tablet UI of many apps (especially FOSS) are unpolished.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#119

Post by realusername »

CrampusDestrus wrote: post #22
crote wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you call Windows "open source" just because you run a few open source apps on it? Google is slowly but surely turning more and more components of Android into closed source code. This is a targeted effort to kill AOSP and lock consumers into their ecosystem. The end result will probably look a lot like macOS: a few open source parts, but primarily a proprietary stack.

Windows is not open source, AOSP is

There's not a single phone on earth running AOSP though

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#120

Post by fifteen1506 »

Dwedit wrote: post #40

The much bigger thing making life difficult for Custom ROM fans is the "device fingerprint" nonsense making your device condemned to fail SafetyNet. Hope you never want to run a banking app.

That is probably the unlocked bootloader.

On GrapheneOS (bootloader is locked at the end of installation) I get no problem nor warning.

Google Wallet does does not allow to add a card, though, due to that failure of the "CTS Profile Match", which I assume is what you mean by "device fingerprint".

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