161–170 of 653 posts
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> Pixel phones are not sold worldwide Still boggles my mind the fact Google doesn't sell their phones worldwide. Obtaining a Pixel has proven to be quite difficult for me.
It still boggles my mind that the most popular privacy OS requires Google manufactured hardware, that fact alone makes me not trust it at all.
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> Banks don't want the headache of supporting multiple weird phone OSes and it's understandable. Commercially, this makes sense. I am surprised that most nations of the whole world are fine with every citizen relying on one of two american companies for their lifestyle interactions though. I would have thought more nations would legislate their banks must support other options for sheer sovereign resilience.
> Commercially, this makes sense. Does it though? The people in this thread are like "just use a card". Well I've done that for years and had my card skimmed, lost, and stolen over the years. The cost wasn't trivial either. The credit card company knocked it off my balance but also lost on sales when I didn't have my card while they issued me a new one. It cost the credit card company actual money in both lost sales…
I've been using Graphene on my Pixel 7a for about a year and I'm happy I made the switch. For sure it is a bit rougher than using Google's OS, but not enough to make me regret it. The main things I miss are (1) when I'm entering text I can't swipe left and right on the space bar to scroll the cursor left and right, and (2) the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message…
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I agree and have moved mostly away from everything Google. But it's hard to replace maps. I know open street maps exists but it's hard to beat Google's data gathering.
There are players in the OpenStreetMap ecosystem attempting to change that. I know the team behind Organic Maps are actively working to make their app as viable as possible by sourcing appropriate data for example.
I actually find that it blows Google Maps out of the water for cycling (which is why/how I discovered it). I haven't really used it for driving much because my own car has a builtin nav, so can't really comment on that.
YMMV of course.
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What you are describing is not Google’s alturism but keeping competition in check. If Google didn’t “allow” GrapheneOS it opens up a new market segment for other smartphone manufacturers. Apple really cashed in on privacy for a few years so it’s not unfathomable that Xiaomi or someone else goes all in on “privacy focused android” in absence of pixel+graphene combo. Edit: Apparently Motorola is doing just that.
Otherwise Huawei would have already jumped into that gap. They have their own Google-independent OS now so they could have marketed it to privacy enthusiasts where the lack of Google services would have been a positive not a negative.
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When I got a new phone last year, I purposely got a Pixel (open box 9a) to put GrapheneOS on it immediately. Been happy living the de-Googled Android life since. I was sad that I had to go through the OOBE setup on the stock image to unlock the bootloader. At least it doesn't force an internet connection and login, unlike Windows.
Is it possible to install basic Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, Maps, Drive without googlifying the whole phone? I'm not looking to fully de-Google but I want Google as apps and not my OS.
You can install nonprivileged google stuff on the main account.
Alternatively you can setup a private space (accessible to the main user but mostly separate from the main system) with a few clicks in the settings.
If you prefer more friction / isolation you can setup a separate user where you can install the google stuff.
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TBF if Google locked down the devices like that it would be a GPL violation. Not their first or whatever but still, there's a reason for them not to do that beside "being nice"
Not really. Tivo did that eons ago. Whether you view this as a "flaw" or "feature" of GPLv2 it's ultimately why GPLv3 now exists. The Linux kernel developers see what Tivo did as a "feature" rather than a "flaw" and refuse GPLv3.
Linux is no longer the community-driven choice. It's big business with billions hanging on the line. The grassroots origins are long over.
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It still boggles my mind that the most popular privacy OS requires Google manufactured hardware, that fact alone makes me not trust it at all.
It's ridiculous is what it is. It makes me deeply distrustful of the organisation behind Graphene that they would make such a crazy choice.
What other phone would you pick?
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> I'm not looking to fully de-Google but I want Google as apps and not my OS. This is entirely possible as other posters have explained. But I think it kind of defeats the point of Graphene, at least somewhat. Google is already profiling every aspect of your life by reading your emails, files, calendar, location, etc? In that case, OS access becomes moot. I think that GrapheneOS makes most sense as part of a broader…
I agree and have moved mostly away from everything Google. But it's hard to replace maps. I know open street maps exists but it's hard to beat Google's data gathering.
Maybe for cars Google is better but I don't use those. But even there I see really detailed stats.
OSMAnd is a really great full featured mapping app. A real tool that you can configure in detail. And Organic maps is more simple and quick like Google maps.
There's just two things I still need Google for: most businesses don't bother keeping their opening hours etc updated on other mapping services, and in my city they have live data on the public transport network. This should really be mandated to be offered to open street map too.