Live data from Hacker News

GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

grapheneos.social

221–230 of 284 posts

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please elaborate on what you mean? Ubuntu does not aim to be a permissively-licensed system. It can include copyleft (e.g. GPL) and permissive (e.g. MIT) without issue. Permissively-licensed systems like FreeBSD and GrapheneOS cannot include GPL code if they want to remain permissive.

GrapheneOS does include GPLv2 code both via AOSP and our own but not GPLv3. We want GrapheneOS to have no additional restrictions beyond AOSP. AOSP uses GPLv2 but not GPLv3. We do need to be careful with GPLv2 due to license incompatibilities. For example, GPLv2-only licensing such as the Linux kernel is incompatible with Apache 2 and GPLv3. GPLv3 is compatible with Apache 2 so GPLv2-or-later can be compatible but on…

It seems like you have more freedom than you think you do. See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49594824> Packaging software shouldn't change the license of GOS as such. If you haven't had already, maybe the free software foundation could provide you with assurance?

I guess it will make your life much easier if you wouldn't have to restrict yourself that much.

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#222
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends heavily on country, yes. USA is extremely light on WhatsApp, and MMS use is widespread (and has been free for a long time now, and SMS even longer). RCS is a mostly silent upgrade for USA. I'm not sure which of the two is better tbh. Utterly dominated by a Facebook-owned system, or using something that's crappy enough that people spread out to a variety of systems?

Amazing how blinkered supposedly privacy conscious Europeans are when they willingly line up at the Facebook slaughterhouse.

The huge switch from SMS to WhatsApp in Europe was well done before they were acquired by Facebook. By then the damage was already done, because the network effects made it very hard to move away. By now, many people I know also have a Signal account, but it doesn't really get off the ground as long as, say, 30% of every group chat does not use Signal.

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#223
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the concern? They are working with Motorola as a manufacturer. It'll probably be a hard fork eventually but why not make it work in the meantime.

If they hard fork, a lot of apps that are generally "necessary for the average person" (e.g. Uber, banking apps, Gmail, Whatsapp/Wechat/Line) might stop working.

It's not ideal, but in the case a hard fork happens, they could implement the same APIs and most apps will probably continue to work. Similar to how microG is a replacement for Play Services and still works for most apps (not as well as sandboxed Google Play of course).

Above that, not much would change for a few years anyway, because apps still target ancient Android versions.

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the exercise is for Google and Apple to maintain control over the ecosystem. RCS is technically superior (protocol, transport, security, all of it) but is captured from the start on the technical level by design by the big players. From the perspective of the vast majority of users who have very limited technical awareness, it was silently slipped in as an upgrade at one point or another. This means that…

GrapheneOS does not want to adopt RCS for public perception. It is still a better option than SMS/MMS and providing it is beneficial. GrapheneOS will still recommend using better platforms and protocols but RCS being bundled and cross platform are great reasons to implement it.

Suppose GrapheneOS becomes highly popular. Then I have to fight the average Joe who insists RCS is fine enough.

I understood from other comments that RCS is the default communication channel in N.America an I can sort of see why you want to give people a somewhat less worse option here than Google's Messenger. But RCS should not be the default imho, because lazy people gonna be lazy. So I hereby endorse you to gently push newcomers towards a safe and privacy friendly default by pre-installing Signal or whatever meets the bar and give it a prominent place.

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarification. Anything first party from Big Tech is a lost cause privacy wise. At the same time, nobody uses it (maybe that is different in the USA, don't know). So for me this would be ultra-low prio as I (and I expect almost every other GOS user) will never use it. But I believe GOS knows what it is doing.

Nearly everybody uses it in the USA. It's very common to text people through the default messaging app on your phone there (probably an outgrowth of the popularity of iPhones and iMessage), and backup options would be Instagram, Snapchat for a certain demographic, or Facebook messages. Whatsapp is only for messaging foreigners, and Signal/Telegram are for messaging your drug dealer.

TIL. My deepest condolences. I thought that we, from this side of the pond, were upholding the honor of being the dumbest with our Whatsapp subjugation, but alas.

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nearly everybody uses it in the USA. It's very common to text people through the default messaging app on your phone there (probably an outgrowth of the popularity of iPhones and iMessage), and backup options would be Instagram, Snapchat for a certain demographic, or Facebook messages. Whatsapp is only for messaging foreigners, and Signal/Telegram are for messaging your drug dealer.

I was really disappointed when Signal went away from being used as an "everything" messenger, including regular SMS. I onboarded all my family and now because it's not a default messenger, nobody is using it.

Give them 2 channels, be clear about your terms of service and that your intent is to become exclusively available on Signal after one year:

- Signal. high priority channel, checked daily

- $PrivacyHazardApp. low prio, checked with steadily increasing intervals.

Make sure you communicate those intervals in advance, have them in the footer of every message you sent on $PrivacyHazardApp. Average Joe needs lots of patience and lots of education.

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RCS provides far better support for group chats, many small feature improvements and end-to-end encryption (E2EE) via Messaging Layer Security (MLS). E2EE for talking to GMS Android and iOS users without them needing to install another app is the main reason we care about it, but far better group chat support matters too. iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats.

This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? Most of the rest of the world doesn't really use or care about iMessage, even on iPhones. So, I think it's rather -US- iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats. The rest of the world is using WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, LINE, etc. for group chats (for better or worse), even on iPhone.

> This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though?

If what you say about “the rest of the world” using other messaging apps is true, then yeah, it probably is North America–centric. So what? Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS”?

GrapheneOS already supports WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, and LINE. What’s wrong with improving OS support for another widely used alternative, that for all its faults is mostly better than still another widely used alternative (SMS/MMS)?

There’s a thread on the GrapheneOS forum titled “Using RCS with Google Messages on GrapheneOS” with 2,192 posts in it. Clearly there’s a lot of interest in using RCS on GrapheneOS!

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#228

I hope they replace the AOSP keyboard with FUTO keyboard. I'm mostly fine with the other stock apps, but that keyboard was the one thing I absolutely had to end up replacing due to its jenky behavior.

I agree FUTO is the best right now but it's not open source so they won't.

curious: what are the advantages of futo vs leantype? i use the latter but never looked deep into it, it just seemed the easiest better than aosp thing on f-droid

Re: GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? Most of the rest of the world doesn't really use or care about iMessage, even on iPhones. So, I think it's rather -US- iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats. The rest of the world is using WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, LINE, etc. for group chats (for better or worse), even on iPhone.

> This is a very US-centric (and maybe Canada) thing though? If what you say about “the rest of the world” using other messaging apps is true, then yeah, it probably is North America–centric. So what? Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS”? GrapheneOS already supports WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Snapchat, and LINE. What’s wrong with improving OS suppor…

Are you agreeing with the OP who didn’t see any point and advocated that GrapheneOS “totally ignore RCS”

No. I think it is useful for GrapheneOS to work on this, the US is a substantial user base.

The comment I reacted to:

iPhone users very often don't want to have SMS/MMS users in their group chats.

I think it is useful to qualify that, because a lot of people from the US are under all kinds of false beliefs like: green bubble anxiety is universal, Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro do not support physical SIMs (Pixels support physical SIM in other regions), etc. (I could go on for a while.)

These misunderstandings repeatedly show up over and over again and discussions, so I think it is worth being specific. In this case most iPhone users worldwide do not even think about SMS/MMS users in their chat, because they do not even rely on iMessage as their primary messaging app.

Post reply on HN