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/e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

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Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#171

Post by miramba »

hexfish wrote: post #112
dminik wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large part of "degoogling" to me means "stop giving google money" and "cut off Google entirely from my life". If I have to give Google a lot of money every 4-6 years to remain "de-googled" then I never was.

Thats a very binary way of looking at this.

I think it’s very valid. I want to be hardware-independent, not only OS independent. I need graphene to work on a fairphone, jolla phone or whatever other alternatives there are. E/os can do that (to an extent), Graphene can’t for probably very good reason, but still: It‘s not an alternative then.

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#172

Post by seanhunter »

abustamam wrote: post #154
enriquto wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the app my electricity utility provides for viewing and paying my account DISABLES ITSELF FOREVER if you so much as enable USB debugging on your phone (even after you've disabled it again). These are self-inflicted problems by these apps. Nothing to do with the OS. These apps simply don't work. Complain to the companies that push these broken apps to you. Would you buy a microwave oven that kills itself if you play…

The problems may be inflicted by these apps but the reality is that in many cases you're stuck with them. Electric company freezes your account if you enable USB debugging? Well, you can't choose a new electric company. We can complain to these vendors all we want but they just ignore us. So these problems become problems of the OS, not because the OS has a problem, but because it affects the reality of using the OS.

It obviously depends on where you live. In my country you certainly con choose a new electric company. I mention that because we really should use consumer choice to overcome these types of problems where we can. Ie if you can switch to a bank/electricity provider/whatever that has a less terrible app it’s really good to do so.

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#173

Post by Tharre »

goldenarm wrote: post #9

Tweaking user-hostile OSes into user-friendly ones is impressive, but not sustainable. Even worse, it slowing us down from leaving Android entirely. Look at the AdBlocker crackdown of Google Chrome. Every single chrome-fork has shut down MV2 extensions, even Brave is about to do it, because it is impossible to maintain features that complex on a browser that Google spends >$1B/year to develop. Same story for /e/ and…

> Tweaking user-hostile OSes into user-friendly ones is impressive, but not sustainable. Even worse, it slowing us down from leaving Android entirely.

Not sustainable as opposed to what, exactly? Developing and maintaining a completely different mobile operating system? Focusing on truly open platforms sound nice in theory, but completely falls apart the moment you consider what people want to do with their phones compared to the developing resources available.

> Every single chrome-fork has shut down MV2 extensions, even Brave is about to do it

That's just wrong, there are other forks that still support MV2 extensions right now, and at least brave has no plans of shutting down MV2 extensions even after Google removes MV2 from upstream completely. It will certainly add maintance effort on brave's side, but they already patch a million other things that upstream doesn't support.

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#174

Post by theK »

spudlyo wrote: post #167
odeckmyn wrote: post #141

I wanted to add a perspective from actual daily use, because a lot of this thread sounds theoretical. I’ve been using a Murena/Fairphone running /e/OS as my primary phone for a while now, and honestly the experience has been much smoother than I expected. My banking apps work, GPS/navigation works reliably, messaging and everyday apps behave normally — I’m not constantly fighting the device or giving things up. After…

This account has three comments on HN, all of them essentially the same type of /e/OS advocacy pablum. "I wanted to add a perspective from an LLM sockpuppet, because I know you're all not deeply cynical and mistrustful yet."

My account has more comments than that and I share OC's opinion and experience. I've been daily driving /e/ since its FP3 era and lately the experience has been really well polished. Even things that had been "tricky" in the past, like Android auto integration, now work seamlessly.

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#175

Post by Vinnl »

goldenarm wrote: post #47
Vinnl wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even worse, it slowing us down from leaving Android entirely. I appreciate the vibes where this is coming from, but does it really? I think that assumes that everyone that works on this would work on a true open source OS otherwise, and that if they did, that would result in us breaking free from Android where we otherwise wouldn't. I'm not confident about either of those assumptions. Meanwhile I'll keep complainin…

There are more OSS devs active on Android ROMs than OSS devs working on independent mobile OSes. We are running out of time, and we are misallocating ressources. It's like bailing out water from the Titanic. We should prepare the lifeboats instead.

And there are even more devs working on Windows. It's like we're actively drilling a hole into the Titanic.

The thing is that those people aren't "resources" that you can just "reallocate". And even if they were, two extra buckets weren't going to save the Titanic.

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#176

Post by cogman10 »

odeckmyn wrote: post #169
spudlyo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This account has three comments on HN, all of them essentially the same type of /e/OS advocacy pablum. "I wanted to add a perspective from an LLM sockpuppet, because I know you're all not deeply cynical and mistrustful yet."

so what? Am i supposed to comment on subjects know nothing about ?

It's pretty strange that the only subject you seem to have expertise in is e/os. Over a year and that's the only thing you've felt comfortable in discussing?

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#177

Post by Mordisquitos »

IX-103 wrote: post #152

So we replace an OS owned by a search engine (Google) with an OS owned by a search engine (Murena)? You're going to need to give me more details than that before I consider switching.

I'm an /e/OS user with a Murena account and I had never even heard of Murena being "a search engine". After searching (on DDG), I see that they in June 2025 they launched a collaboration with the Qwant search engine to launch a Murena-branded version: https://murena.com/discover-murena-find-your-new-privacy-fir...

That does not make it "an OS owned by a search engine".

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#178

Post by em-bee »

theK wrote: post #174
spudlyo wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This account has three comments on HN, all of them essentially the same type of /e/OS advocacy pablum. "I wanted to add a perspective from an LLM sockpuppet, because I know you're all not deeply cynical and mistrustful yet."

My account has more comments than that and I share OC's opinion and experience. I've been daily driving /e/ since its FP3 era and lately the experience has been really well polished. Even things that had been "tricky" in the past, like Android auto integration, now work seamlessly.

same here, except for banking apps. the one i am supposed to use now doesn't work.

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#179

Post by [deleted] »

enriquto wrote: post #144
safety1st wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that there are people out there working on stuff like /e/OS, but the number one question I have when I learn about a mobile OS that isn't iOS or "Googled" Android is: will the banking and payment apps I need to operate in the modern world run on this OS? A lot of people don't think this way because they haven't had any problems. But then one day it happens to you and you realize, ok, this is the one thin…

> the app my electricity utility provides for viewing and paying my account DISABLES ITSELF FOREVER if you so much as enable USB debugging on your phone (even after you've disabled it again). These are self-inflicted problems by these apps. Nothing to do with the OS. These apps simply don't work. Complain to the companies that push these broken apps to you. Would you buy a microwave oven that kills itself if you play…

[deleted]

Re: /e/OS is a complete, fully “deGoogled” mobile ecosystem

#180

Post by odeckmyn »

cogman10 wrote: post #176
odeckmyn wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what? Am i supposed to comment on subjects know nothing about ?

It's pretty strange that the only subject you seem to have expertise in is e/os. Over a year and that's the only thing you've felt comfortable in discussing?

and so what? should I ask for permission to discuss something? it's crazy how omniscient people are aggressive on the internet. Is that your normal behaviour IRL??
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