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Degoogled Android – My Experience

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Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#51

Post by Pfhortune »

jerlam wrote: post #39
Pfhortune wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That and the social isolation from trying use a phone that can't keep up with the activities and communication preferences of friends makes an iPhone a necessary compromise. I am still shocked at how much blue bubbles seem to affect some folk's social lives. Does it really matter that much?

I don't think it is referring to iMessage (blue bubbles). But to install the messenger du jour on an Android phone with a custom ROM may not be easy or well-supported.

Ah, fair. It is certainly true that not everything just-works on a custom rom; that is a tradeoff of them. Everyone has a different level of tolerance for this kind of thing.

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#52

Post by Ender-events »

jcul wrote: post #48
Ender-events wrote: post #25

I've been using sailfish os with android app support + microg for over 5 years. It work for my daily low usage (browser, music, sometime bank) but missing nfc + bluetooth on andoid vm > Graphene describes itself as “The private and secure mobile operating system with Android app compatibility”. Like yeah no shit you have Android app compatibility. YOU’RE FUCKING ANDROID. If I remember an anecdote from the android cou…

I was really tempted to try sailfish a few times in the past. Do you have any issues with banking apps? It's a little scandalous that using a bank is so difficult these days without a smart phone.

I don't have issue with my banking apps (banxo caisse d'epargne) but i think they don't use strict safetynet test

My issue is more oomkillers (with my 3GB ram phone, twice a week i have the android support kill) and geolocalisation is really slow (took 5 to 10 minutes after toggle)

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#53

Post by Yodel0914 »

toastercat wrote: post #23
echelon_musk wrote: post #11

My deGoogled phone is an iPhone. Freedom isn't free and unfortunately the time wasted in trying to maintain a high standard of smartphone privacy is time I will never get back. That and the social isolation from trying use a phone that can't keep up with the activities and communication preferences of friends makes an iPhone a necessary compromise.

I would use iPhone, but I like Syncthing way too much.

There is Mobius, which works pretty well. Not as well as on Android, but better than nothing.

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#54

Post by Yodel0914 »

echelon_musk wrote: post #36
realusername wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just swapping a tech giant for another one, it's not really a solution

That's why I used the word compromise. I'm aware of the imperfect nature of my decision but I find it preferable to Android with custom roms. I say this as someone with roughly 10 years experience of using custom roms before giving it up.

I'm one of the few (it seems) that are with you.

When I switched from an iPhone 3GS to Android, it seemed that the trade-off was between control and freedom. These days, the trade-off is between control + ok privacy and not-much-freedom + no privacy.

I also ran custom ROMS for years. It got to be such a pain that I switch back to vanilla Android with throw-away google accounts, and now have come full circle and gone back to an iPhone.

It's a similar story on the desktop - I can't abide where Windows has gone with ads and AI. I have run linux for years (and still do on servers), but need to use software that won't easily run on Linux. So, I have ended up with a MBP.

Apple might be far from perfect, but for me at least, right now they're they best balance between not being actively user-hostile, and not taking a ton of effort to get working.

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#55

Post by em-bee »

_rdvw wrote: post #49

Most "degoogled" systems are not degoolged: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

this comparison looks good, but it claims that there is no opt-out for microG in /e/OS. yet, in the app settings i can simply disable microG completely. is that not sufficient for opt-out?

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#56

Post by tadfisher »

jcul wrote: post #46
SahAssar wrote: post #42

Regarding the maps thing... > My dad’s house wasn’t on the map. Neither was my mom’s house. Neither was my friend’s place. Obviously I can’t use apps based on OpenStreetMaps to get me places if the places I want to go aren’t on the map. What do they mean by not on the map? Is it not showing up in search? Is it the housenumber wasn't there? Is it the street not existing at all? If manually zooming to the place was it…

Yeah this is surprising to me too. Also, you can contribute to osm if a street was missing. The complaint about having to download the map seems unreasonable too. It downloads the world map and then the local map and you're done. Generally the local map for an area is like 50 to 100MB from memory. Perhaps they are in a very remote location with slow internet and no map data, but downloading the lineage ROM would be a…

They should learn from Google, and package their maps so they can be streamed to clients piecemeal. I bet they spend more in data egress than compute, and PostGIS is basically made for this.

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#58

Post by noman-land »

echelon_musk wrote: post #37
Pfhortune wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That and the social isolation from trying use a phone that can't keep up with the activities and communication preferences of friends makes an iPhone a necessary compromise. I am still shocked at how much blue bubbles seem to affect some folk's social lives. Does it really matter that much?

You need to take a cab? You'd like me to book it? No problem... Oh sorry the apk of Uber I sideloaded needs manually updating. I'll just go to apkwtfbbq.com complete some captchas and install the new apk. I've got enough signal and data for that. No problem! Oh, now I need to flash an updated zip file of the service I use to replace Google on my phone because I'm concerned about corporate surveillance. Oh, the latest…

All my apps on GrapheneOS update from various free app repositories and are automated. Everything always works.

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#59

Post by tadfisher »

prirai wrote: post #33
Zambyte wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't even install an app that isn't approved by Apple on an iphone of ipad I thought this was changing? I heard a lot about non Apple repositories recently

Yeah, but to open an alternative store, you need to pay a hefty sum. Even to publish apps on that alternate store, there will be high fees. Open source projects simply cannot afford that.

Has anyone tried asking Apple? I think an offer like:

1. Apps must be FOSS and reproducibly buildable on the store's servers, like F-Droid. 2. No monetization allowed, not even donation links. 3. The store itself undergoes yearly security review by an accredited third-party firm at its own expense. 4. The store undergoes yearly compliance review for these terms at its own expense.

Would be pretty much all upsides for Apple: non of their services are used; they don't pay infrastructure or human costs for app hosting, review, or developer support; and they don't pay these costs for apps that don't make them money anyway.

Re: Degoogled Android – My Experience

#60

Post by brnt »

SahAssar wrote: post #42

Regarding the maps thing... > My dad’s house wasn’t on the map. Neither was my mom’s house. Neither was my friend’s place. Obviously I can’t use apps based on OpenStreetMaps to get me places if the places I want to go aren’t on the map. What do they mean by not on the map? Is it not showing up in search? Is it the housenumber wasn't there? Is it the street not existing at all? If manually zooming to the place was it…

I specifically use OSM because it is by far the most complete. It has every trail branch on it while Gmaps, Bmaps usually are missing out any trails that aren't car driveable.
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