Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

f-droid.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 160 posts

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#31

Post by bluebarbet »

duozerk wrote: post #25
kgwxd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you not setup your work email through a regular email client? I thought the days of being locked into Outlook specifically went away with Exchange. Everywhere I've worked since has been able to. Also, what kind of banking are people doing that requires an app? I genuinely don't know what it could be.

> Also, what kind of banking are people doing that requires an app? I genuinely don't know what it could be. Close to every bank in the EU requires their user to have an app, for MFA (both for logging in and for validating transactions - transfers, payments). They use the smartphone's TPM. I have yet to see one that allows you to use your own MFA app. The few I've seen that don't require it will validate the same thr…

>Close to every bank in the EU requires their user to have an app

Possibly this was hyperbole but in any case it's not correct at all.

Anecdotally, of my two EU (massive legacy French) banks, neither requires a mobile app. SMS all the way.

Even Wise, a cutting-edge neobank, does not require you to use its app. And its website accepts standard TOTP authenticator for 2FA.

Revolut is app-only, which is why I never use it.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#32

Post by saintfire »

microtonal wrote: post #20
miroljub wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS works only with Pixel devices, which doesn't make it much useful for the vast majority of Android users.

Indeed. Sadly the reality is that most other Android devices are simply not secure enough. Many Android phones do not have a separate secure enclave (outside Pixel and IISC Samsung flagship and A5x range), so they are vulnerable to breaking PIN-based unlocking, side channel attacks, etc. Besides that they often only provide old vendor kernel trees, old firmware blobs, etc. So, you have to wonder whether you want such…

Reduced security has always annoyed me a bit as an argument. Sort of in the same way as signal deprecating SMS because it's insecure.

I get all or nothing when your threat model is state actors. However, for most people, the benefit is just freedom from corporate agendas.

Not everyone needs kernel hardening, or always E2EE (as with signal). Personally I just like the features it provides (e.g. scoped storage, disabling any app including Google play services, profiles etc etc

Its also an easier sell to people who are apathetic to security when the product is just better and more secure, the same way apple does (for whatever their reasons may be).

All that said, I get they're limited in funds and manpower, plus the things mentioned at the end there, so I can only be so peeved they chose a target and stuck with it. They typically cite security as the reason, not those other ones, however.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#33

Post by pmontra »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #28
scrollop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS, however have so many banking and (stupid) outlook for work.

Why do people need banking on their phones though? Banks have websites too.

This is asked again and again. Apparently you guys in the USA or in other parts of the world are still lucky, but in Europe banks must be compliant with regulation that more or less force them to do 2FA through their app with the biometric authentication of either an Android or an iOS phone. There are other ways (eg giving a hardware OTP generator to customers,) but apps are the cheapest solution.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#34

Post by zipping1549 »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #28
scrollop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS, however have so many banking and (stupid) outlook for work.

Why do people need banking on their phones though? Banks have websites too.

My bank has no website or physical branches. They’re mobile-only, but their app is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#35

Post by 4gotunameagain »

ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #27
scrollop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS, however have so many banking and (stupid) outlook for work.

> Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS grapheneOS only works with google phones.

I would rather pay a one off ransom to google, than have them harvest all my data and profit from them in perpetuity.

Better yet, you can buy a used pixel phone.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#36

Post by Novosell »

saintfire wrote: post #32
microtonal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Sadly the reality is that most other Android devices are simply not secure enough. Many Android phones do not have a separate secure enclave (outside Pixel and IISC Samsung flagship and A5x range), so they are vulnerable to breaking PIN-based unlocking, side channel attacks, etc. Besides that they often only provide old vendor kernel trees, old firmware blobs, etc. So, you have to wonder whether you want such…

Reduced security has always annoyed me a bit as an argument. Sort of in the same way as signal deprecating SMS because it's insecure. I get all or nothing when your threat model is state actors. However, for most people, the benefit is just freedom from corporate agendas. Not everyone needs kernel hardening, or always E2EE (as with signal). Personally I just like the features it provides (e.g. scoped storage, disabli…

Oh man, I am still annoyed about Signal removing SMS support. Had to add another app to my phone and I can now no longer accidentally discover that someone I'm texting has Signal, which happened more than once to me!

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#37

Post by burningChrome »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #35
ekjhgkejhgk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS grapheneOS only works with google phones.

I would rather pay a one off ransom to google, than have them harvest all my data and profit from them in perpetuity. Better yet, you can buy a used pixel phone.

Pixel 9 Pro handsets are going for around $500 on the secondary markets like ebay. That's a only a single generation off from their current Pixel 10 models and you still get OS and security updates until 2031.

Not a bad deal and pretty crazy how fast smartphones depreciate now.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#38

Post by scrollop »

kgwxd wrote: post #17
scrollop wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would love to ditch google and use grapheneOS, however have so many banking and (stupid) outlook for work.

Can you not setup your work email through a regular email client? I thought the days of being locked into Outlook specifically went away with Exchange. Everywhere I've worked since has been able to. Also, what kind of banking are people doing that requires an app? I genuinely don't know what it could be.

It's nice to have widgets.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#39

Post by CivBase »

microtonal wrote: post #20
miroljub wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS works only with Pixel devices, which doesn't make it much useful for the vast majority of Android users.

Indeed. Sadly the reality is that most other Android devices are simply not secure enough. Many Android phones do not have a separate secure enclave (outside Pixel and IISC Samsung flagship and A5x range), so they are vulnerable to breaking PIN-based unlocking, side channel attacks, etc. Besides that they often only provide old vendor kernel trees, old firmware blobs, etc. So, you have to wonder whether you want such…

Imagine if the Linux project had this same mentality. Thank goodness they don't.

Re: F-Droid Board of Directors nominations 2026

#40

Post by burningChrome »

microtonal wrote: post #21
echelon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This piddly open source effort pales in comparison to what we should really be doing: Horizontally splitting Google into multiple companies. Not division via department splits, but equal partitioning across the company into multiple horizontal businesses that compete on the same offerings. The EU and next DOJ/FTC need to force this.

I agree, but the probability that this is going to happen anytime soon is near-0. The current US administration is not going to rein in the tech broligarchy and if they did, it would be done out of spite and the pieces wold sold to administration-aligned oligarchs (e.g. Ellison), which might end up being worse. The EU is not going to force this, because it has enough fights to pick with the US, and this is not the hi…

Not sure if you know this, but both Biden and Trump (in his previous admin) had their DOJ file lawsuits against Google. "United States v. Google LLC," which was filed in 2020 and focused on Google's dominance in search and advertising markets. A separate case was filed in 2023 targeted Google's monopolization of digital advertising technologies. The State of Texas also sued them in 2020.

Google lost all three cases. The DOJ in all three recommended the company be broken up, but the judges disagreed. If you want to blame someone, then blame the judges, not the current admin or Bidens DOJ - both of whom said Google should be broken up.

Post reply on HN