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Keep Android Open

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Re: Keep Android Open

#151

Post by paxys »

Tharre wrote: post #143
paxys wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as non-Google Android. At most you have people applying tiny patches on top of AOSP, but 100% of the code in the underlying project is still Google-approved, and none of the alternatives have control over that. It's the same as the situation with Chrome/Chromium. There are a million "de-Googled"/"privacy focused" alternatives to Chrome all using the same engine, and when Google pushed manifest…

> and when Google pushed manifest v3 changes to block ad-blockers every single one of them was affected. That's just objectively wrong, both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2 and are committed to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Even Edge apparently still has it, funnily enough.

Nope, actually "both Brave and Opera still support manifest v2" is objectively wrong.

Brave does NOT support manifest v2. They have instead hand picked exactly 4 manifest v2 extensions (AdGuard, NoScript, uBlock Origin, and uMatrix) and have hard-coded special support for them. They quite literally say in https://brave.com/blog/brave-shields-manifest-v3/ that all other v2 extensions will go away from Brave once Google fully removes support for them (which may have happened already, since it was posted a while ago).

As for Opera (https://blogs.opera.com/news/2025/09/mv2-extensions-opera/):

> MV3 extensions are the new standard and will offer a more stable and secure experience. Opera itself will shift to an MV3-only extension store.

Re: Keep Android Open

#152

Post by Atlas667 »

nazgulsenpai wrote: post #122
Atlas667 wrote: post #49

Capitalism is the privatization of human needs. As long as these tech platforms are owned privately they will be used to police and make money. This view NEEDS to be central to the tech freedom rhetoric, else the whole movement is literally just begging politicians and hoping corporations do the right thing... useless.

Aren't the politicians or their appointed bureaucrats who'd be making all the decisions if these needs were government owned? Why would state control lead to less policing? What incentive structure would lead to innovation without a profit motive, when even the modern communist world relies on capital markets? (these are honest questions and not "gotcha")

> Aren't the politicians or their appointed bureaucrats who'd be making all the decisions if these needs were government owned?

Well that would be true under a capitalist government.

> Why would state control lead to less policing?

Its not just "the state runs it", its "we actively become the state".

Collective ownership through peoples councils, peoples courts with a world view that keeps it all open: socialism.

The world view of not allowing individual ownership over collective goods, the world view of socialism, is the life line of the movement. The actual practice of daily democracy, of running production and of deciding social functions is everyones responsibility and it should not be left to what has become a professional class of liars.

Public office members, which should only exist where absolutely necessary, should be locals and serve as messengers with 0 decision making power. All power should be in the local councils. We can mathematically implement this today (0 knowledge proofs).

Every single book on socialism is on theory and practices of acheiving this. Thats what the "dictatorship of the proletariat is", the dictatorship of working people, collectively.

> What incentive structure would lead to innovation without a profit motive, when even the modern communist world relies on capital markets?

We've been innovating for hundreds of thousands of years before capitalism. You dont need to generate money to innovate, the innovation itself is the driver, AKA a better life. No need to lock and limit production behind the attaining of profits of those who lead it.

Re: Keep Android Open

#153

Post by MaPi_ »

dmitrygr wrote: post #125
exe34 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Party B owes you nothing. You are free to not use their products or start a company to compete. When 99% of government/banks/etc require you to use a certain service to access basic services, you need some way of ensuring you don't have to sell your soul to use it. Alternatives would be really great, but Google is part of a duopoly. Just because you build the rails doesn't mean you get to decide who gets to use the…

That is not their fault, though. I can see how you could complain to the people who mandate you use B’s products. Otherwise what you’re saying is that control of any intellectual property can be stolen from its owners simply by becoming popular outside of their control

It kind of is their fault because of Google Play Integrity APIs. They are effectively developing tools that are designed to make their product mandatory. There wouldn't be a backlash that big if we could just unlock our bootloaders and run a patched version of Android.

Re: Keep Android Open

#154

Post by microtonal »

stackghost wrote: post #63
drnick1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered Graphene since you own a Pixel? It's a huge upgrade over the stock OS in terms of security, privacy and general reduction of bloat.

Yep it's definitely on my list but my Pixel is on its last legs and I'm considering going back to iOS.

Having just gone from an iPhone as my main phone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS, GrapheneOS is such a breath of fresh air. No constant push of AI, iCloud services, etc. plus I actually feel owner of my phone and not living on some feudal landlord's plot.

GrapheneOS is great!

Re: Keep Android Open

#155

Post by anp »

dmitrygr wrote: post #125
exe34 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Party B owes you nothing. You are free to not use their products or start a company to compete. When 99% of government/banks/etc require you to use a certain service to access basic services, you need some way of ensuring you don't have to sell your soul to use it. Alternatives would be really great, but Google is part of a duopoly. Just because you build the rails doesn't mean you get to decide who gets to use the…

That is not their fault, though. I can see how you could complain to the people who mandate you use B’s products. Otherwise what you’re saying is that control of any intellectual property can be stolen from its owners simply by becoming popular outside of their control

> any [] property can be [taken by the state] from its [original] owners simply by [those owners becoming more powerful than the state wants]

When rephrased like the above, I think what you’re describing is pretty common in history. Many industries and assets have been nationalized when it serves the state’s interests.

IMO the moral justification is that there is no ownership or private property except that which is sanctioned by the state (or someone state-like) applying violence in its defense. In this framing, there’s little moral justification for the state letting private actors accrue outsized power that harms consumers/citizens.

Re: Keep Android Open

#156

Post by bityard »

idiotsecant wrote: post #39
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We heard from developers who were concerned about the barrier to entry when building apps intended only for a small group, like family or friends. We are using your input to shape a dedicated account type for students and hobbyists. This will allow you to distribute your creations to a limited number of devices without going through the full verification requirements. In classic Google fashion, they hear the compla…

I think you've omitted the next section, which seems more relevant. It seems like they will still allow installs, just hide it behind some scare text. Seems reasonable?

The whole point of TFA, if you read it, is that they SAID they would do that, but there has since been ZERO evidence that they actually will. This feature is not present in anything they have released since that statement.

Re: Keep Android Open

#157

Post by ivell »

afh1 wrote: post #133
ruuda wrote: post #8

I contacted the EU DMA team about my concerns and got a real reply within 24 hours. Not just an automated message, it looked like a real human read my message and wrote a reply. I'd urge other EU citizens to do the same.

[flagged]

EU did bring regulations that helped consumers. I have a feeling that criticism of EU regulations mostly come from people who are not in the EU.

Re: Keep Android Open

#158

Post by nazgulsenpai »

Atlas667 wrote: post #152
nazgulsenpai wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't the politicians or their appointed bureaucrats who'd be making all the decisions if these needs were government owned? Why would state control lead to less policing? What incentive structure would lead to innovation without a profit motive, when even the modern communist world relies on capital markets? (these are honest questions and not "gotcha")

> Aren't the politicians or their appointed bureaucrats who'd be making all the decisions if these needs were government owned? Well that would be true under a capitalist government. > Why would state control lead to less policing? Its not just "the state runs it", its "we actively become the state". Collective ownership through peoples councils, peoples courts with a world view that keeps it all open: socialism. The…

Thanks for responding.

Re: Keep Android Open

#159

Post by bpye »

hbn wrote: post #138
fermigier wrote: post #62

It is a disgrace how Google has managed this situation. To recap the storyline, as far as I understand it: last August, Google announced plans to heavily restrict sideloading. Following community pushback, they promised an "advanced flow" for power users. The media widely reported this as a walk-back, leading users to assume the open ecosystem was safe. But this promised feature hasn't appeared in any Android 16 or 1…

Who could Android be possibly recommended to at this point? I know iPhones aren't affordable for the layman in many countries. But for anyone with an option, why would you buy an Android? All the "customization" things I cared about when I was on Android are either doable on an iPhone now with better implementation, or something I don't care about. I was a die-hard until I went through enough cycles of Google depreca…

I switched back to Android in large part for KDE Connect. You can get continuity esque features that work with any desktop operating system. I also get to use real Firefox instead of a Safari wrapper. I still use as few Google services as possible, pretty much just Maps.

Re: Keep Android Open

#160

Post by gizmo686 »

akdev1l wrote: post #116
microtonal wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The impact is a direct threat to independent AOSP distributions like Murena's e/OS/ (which I'm personally using). I don't think this is true, right? An AOSP build can just decide to still allow installing arbitrary APKs. Also see this post from the GrapheneOS team: https://mastodon.social/@GrapheneOS@grapheneos.social/116103...

You can’t really do that long-term as Google will change code that will not match however you are not enforcing this policy So at the very least you’d have to keep patches up to date. Long term divergence could be enough that’s it’s just a hard fork and/or Google changes so much that the maintainer can’t keep the patches working at the same pace I couldn’t read your link as it asks to join mastodon.social

All distributions involve maintaining patch sets. The question is what the marginal burden of this particular patch is.
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