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Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

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Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#121

Post by kkfx »

Few small notes:

- we can't have privacy on mobile PERIOD. Mobile platforms are not "open" like PCs (witch are less and less open, more and more stuffed of proprietary fw, but still far less closed than mobile SoC);

- we can't win Big Tech at it's game BUT we can win, and relatively easy, at OUR game, witch means self-hosted services, decentralized protocols, the hard issue it's not on sw per se but on humans who do not know nor understand that, fortunately a scam at a time people start to understand that the commercial model turned to subscription is not a good idea for them, so there is a bit of hope anyway.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#122

Post by nani8ot »

fisian wrote: post #50
porcoda wrote: post #41

Basing something around a Google OS isn’t really an alternative to big tech. Given the reaction I’d expect if a Microsoft Open Source project was the basis of an “alternative to big tech”, I don’t see why something with a Google pedigree should be treated differently.

And listing microG as an opensource alternative to Google services is disingenuous. It still uses the same Google servers to make requests, just the client is open.

It's not possible to do push notifications for proprietary apps without making some requests to Google. The location services of microG support other providers and don't use Google. microG even replaces the Google map some apps integrate with another provider, at least it did a few years ago.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#123

Post by burningChrome »

janosdebugs wrote: post #52
nh2 wrote: post #27

F-Droid still has some big tasks in order to be useable for the general public, when comparing it with e.g. Google Play Store. For example, if you search it for "browser", Firefox will not show up because A) It's called Fennec B) The F-Droid search seems to be exact infix search, and Fennec's title is "Fennec F-Droid -- Browse the web", in which "Browser" does not appear, only "browse". So it doesn't find it. In gene…

I think policies[1] are blocking F-Droid more than anything from being a viable alternative. A bank will likely never release their app as open source, nor will any of the big authentication vendors. This means that you cannot completely replace the Google Play Store with F-Droid if you have to use any of these, you can only use it as an additional store, at which point many won't be bothered. [1]: https://f-droid.or…

I used Graphene OS on a Pixel 4 for a few years and loved it. I feel like I'm a total minority user who doesn't attach themselves to specific apps so not having Firefox available wasn't really a huge thing for me. There were several apps I did have to have, but they were all available through the F-Droid store.

Graphene was easy for me but like you pointed out, many will not use it because it doesn't have exactly what they use/need. To some degree this inflexibility reminds me of people not switching to the Windows Phone platform for the same reason - which is sad considering we only have two choices now because people wouldn't take the chance and Microsoft abandoned the OS before really giving it a good opportunity to thrive.

Kind of a sad state of affairs when people are totally comfortable handing over all their personal information to the likes of Apple, Samsung and Google.

Full disclosure: Yes, I'm a totally disgruntled former Windows phone user. Yes, there were a lot of factors that led to its demise, but I felt at the time we finally had an alternative to what we were being spoon fed in Apple and Google.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#124

Post by metalliqaz »

codexb wrote: post #53
sneilan1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Internet is 99% controlled by a small set of corporations that most people haven’t heard of I would love to know more if you have time to elaborate.

See this post that talks about how hosting email yourself doesn't really work anymore, despite it being an open internet standard -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32715437 Not sure about people never hearing about them, but the internet is no longer a network of sparsely distributed connected machines hosting and consuming content as it was originally designed. The content is all hosted on very small set of ne…

personal email failed because email is a flawed system that was initially designed to work in a trusted environment free of bad actors

I'm as worried about massive platforms playing gatekeepers as much as the next guy, but it's also fairly clear to see that any service that isn't constantly moderated will be overcome with a flood of malicious crap. it practically guarantees closed platforms will proliferate

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#125

Post by palata »

wicket wrote: post #68
palata wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But being open source means that one could fork AOSP. Also the Google proprietary stuff comes with the Play Services, not AOSP. So AOSP is a lot better than the alternatives, I would say. I have a different feeling about Chromium: it is open source, but through it Google gets to control the future of the Web. But Android is not a standard, it's "just" one OS, so changes made by Google in AOSP don't really impact, say…

Let me know when the efforts of Mobifree lead to something that will allow me to install mainline Linux.

Try PostmarketOS?

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#126

Post by palata »

realusername wrote: post #74
palata wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But being open source means that one could fork AOSP. Also the Google proprietary stuff comes with the Play Services, not AOSP. So AOSP is a lot better than the alternatives, I would say. I have a different feeling about Chromium: it is open source, but through it Google gets to control the future of the Web. But Android is not a standard, it's "just" one OS, so changes made by Google in AOSP don't really impact, say…

> But Android is not a standard, it's "just" one OS, so changes made by Google in AOSP don't really impact, say, iOS. That's interesting because I personally do believe that Android is kind of the mobile standard, it has everything to be one, from the wide variety of devices to the certifications of conformity.

Much less than Chromium, right? Almost all users run Chromium, whereas you can run iOS and it has nothing to do with the AOSP codebase.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#127

Post by yencabulator »

jraph wrote: post #78
janosdebugs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No tracking? Providing an alternative? Not strengthening the Google-Apple duopoly on the mobile phone market? I was looking at it as a platform to publish an app on, which the open source requirement stopped dead in its tracks. I didn't have a viable open source business model for it at this time because it was a straight "customer pays money, gets software" deal with no tracking or other nonsense. As-is, F-Droid wil…

I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. I know I will sound extreme (although I think it shouldn't be the case in among developers) and no offense, but this sounds like a happy outcome to me. I believe proprietary software to be unethical. I'm not interested in being proposed non free software. The software industry should figure it out and start respecting its users. However software funding is a real concern an…

> I won't trust no tracking if it's non free.

Meanwhile, lots of non-mobile free software includes tracking (telemetry) these days. The cynic in me has had to switch to

I won't trust no tracking if it's not enforced by a security boundary.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#128

Post by nh2 »

janosdebugs wrote: post #88
t0bia_s wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not using Google play or any other services on android over 6 years now. You don't need banking apps for making transactions.

I live in an EU country and I, in fact, cannot use online banking without a Google-enabled Android or an iPhone. There is exactly one bank that offers a desktop authenticator, but we had a really bad experience with them when we tried them for a year.

I have accounts at 1 Swiss bank, 2 German banks, and 2 UK banks. None of them require an app for any functionality.

You can get a little hardware thing to generate their OTP codes, as an alternative to apps.

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#129

Post by rakoo »

janosdebugs wrote: post #119
rakoo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said you're in the EU right ? SEPA works. The only moment I need to confirm identity with my bank is when I buy frivolities, not for my bills.

Here's the problem: I can do a SEPA transaction using online banking (with a Google-enabled phone) or by walking to my bank personally.

I might be lucky enough to have online banking work with sms and a pre-shared secret. My bank (also in the EU) didn't tell me I could do it automatically, they only mentioned it when I told them I lost my phone (it was true) and that I didn't know when I could buy a new one. Maybe it'll work with yours ?

Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem

#130

Post by Dalewyn »

mid-kid wrote: post #65
janosdebugs wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think policies[1] are blocking F-Droid more than anything from being a viable alternative. A bank will likely never release their app as open source, nor will any of the big authentication vendors. This means that you cannot completely replace the Google Play Store with F-Droid if you have to use any of these, you can only use it as an additional store, at which point many won't be bothered. [1]: https://f-droid.or…

I'm not entirely sure why this is a problem. Nothing's stopping you from using f-droid as an app source as well as some other store - it doesn't need to cover every use case. It's already a viable alternative for apps which can't go on the Play Store due to Google's policies, like AdAway, NewPipe and Termux. The fact there's no freedom respecting bank applications is a problem on its own, though. I will continue avoi…

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