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Keep Android Open

keepandroidopen.org

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Re: Keep Android Open

#501

Post by kevincox »

zb3 wrote: post #487
kevincox wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS is in some ways not an open OS. The official builds don't provide root access. So for example apps are able to hold your data hostage from you. I get that this is in the name of security hardening. And you can make a build that has limited root access and is officially supported. But GrapheneOS isn't the end-all solution to computing freedom. Although hopefully on those devices you will be able to install…

Raw root access isn't what I'd want apps to have.. it's that the Android permission system deliberately limits what the user can consent to, the rest is for "system apps" and to install those you need to unlock bootloader and start the whole "journey" while saying goodbye to banking apps. Implementing a more flexible permission model + sandbox would probably involve too much work for them. Hopefully AVF might make th…

I agree that a powerful permission model is a great feature. But that doesn't obsolete the option to have the "root permission" that you can give when required. Sure, for my specific gripe a "full filesystem access" permission would be sufficient and better. But there are going to be other use cases that require other permissions. So it is always going to be useful to have that backup root permission that you can assign to very specific apps when required.

Re: Keep Android Open

#502

Post by giamma »

Yokolos wrote: post #164
giamma wrote: post #145

While I understand the reasons behind this campaign, I have mixed feelings about it. As an iPhone user, I find it frustrating that deploying my own app on my own device requires either reinstalling it every 7 days or paying $100 annually. Android doesn't have this limitation, which makes it simpler and more convenient for personal use. However, when it comes to publishing apps to the store, I take a different view. I…

I don't understand how you can have mixed feelings about this. > However, when it comes to publishing apps to the store, This isn't about publishing apps to the Play Store. If that's all this was about, we wouldn't give a shit. The problem is that this applies to all stores, including third party stores like F-Droid, and any app that is installed independently of a store (as an apk file). > Given the growing threat o…

My elderly father unknowingly installed an application on Android after seeing a deceptive ad. An advertising message disguised as an operating system pop-up convinced him that his Android phone's storage was almost full. When he tapped the pop-up, and followed instructions he installed a fake cleaner app from the Play Store. While the app caused no actual harm, it displayed notifications every other day urging him to clean his phone using the same app. When he opened it, the app — which did nothing except display a fake graph simulating almost full storage — pressured him to purchase the PRO version to perform a deeper cleanup.

In reality, the phone had 24 GB of free space out of 64 GB total. I simply uninstalled the fake cleaner and the annoying notifications disappeared.

How such an app could reach the Play Store is beyond me. I can only imagine how many people that app must have deceived and how much money its creators likely made. I'm fairly certain the advertisement targets older people specifically—those most likely to be tricked.

For better or worse, I'm pretty sure that such an app would never land into the Apple App Store.

Re: Keep Android Open

#503

Post by AstralStorm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #476
noisy_boy wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "just use a second phone" cannot be the answer It is the best answer at the moment. You can keep an absolute basic phone with all the banking and such apps loaded and nothing else. You treat it like an appliance. Your daily driver will be separate and can be running PostmarketOS or LineageOS etc. There are several benefits off the top of my head: 1. Since you only install banking/govt type apps on your "important"…

There's just one problem: increasingly, everything that makes a phone a "daily driver" is the thing that can only work on the "important" phone. Banking/finance, government services, commerce, work, communications (thanks a lot E2EE), and DRM-ed entertainment - all the major players here are locking their software down and relying on remote attestation to ensure their locks stay shut. With this being the trend, you'r…

Still waiting for someone to make a tiny token sized phone. Unfortunately the smallest around, Unihertz Atom, is both outdated and too low resolution for some apps to work.

Re: Keep Android Open

#504

Post by fsflover »

jraph wrote: post #457
fsflover wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Librem 5 is awfully outdated now https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/ > doesn't have a good battery life It's far from great but you can change the battery on the go. Look, you can't fight for anything without making any compromises.

> you can fight for anything I suppose your mean't you "can't". I know, m'y life is full of compromises because of my various political opinions. > https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/ I agree and I intend to keep my current phone at least ten years (and I hope it will be able to run Linux at some point, it's very close!), but the Librem was released with outdated specs and that was 5 years ago. It…

Fair enough. See also: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/docs/community-wiki/-/wikis/F...

> I suppose your mean't you "can't".

Thanks, yes, fixed.

Re: Keep Android Open

#505

Post by theK »

microtonal wrote: post #64
theK wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you check the stuff murena has on offer? Most if not all of their phones come with an unlockable bootloader and the OS they come with isn't that bad to start with either.

They are pretty bad when it comes to security: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm

Hmm... that looks like a pretty skewed comparison. It's as if somebody took the security features that make Graphene stand apart and compared everything else to them.

No contention that Graphene is safe, but categorizing other OSes as "pretty bad when it comes to security" because they don't copy Graphene is a bit of a stretch.

Re: Keep Android Open

#506

Post by codexb »

liendolucas wrote: post #283

I'm going to say something that probably will get me down votes: Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously. So many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives. A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from Google. I've given PostmarketOS a go (with a PinePhone) and while today I can't say it isn't a daily dr…

I agree with you, but that only works if people value it and are willing to pay for it.

Look at email. It’s technically open, but in reality there are a few large players who control the majority of it.

The only way open source phone software succeeds is if there is real money behind it and there is an attractiveness to it that makes people pay for it.

Re: Keep Android Open

#507

Post by viktorcode »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #323
liendolucas wrote: post #283

I'm going to say something that probably will get me down votes: Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously. So many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives. A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from Google. I've given PostmarketOS a go (with a PinePhone) and while today I can't say it isn't a daily dr…

Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...). Those are the players that demand excessive control over end-user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem we're discussing. It's not that a new mobile platform couldn't possibly succeed. It's an open platform that cannot, because aforementioned players don't want it, and without them…

> Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...). Those are the players that demand excessive control over end-user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem we're discussing.

Those work perfectly via a browser, on any platform where the browser can run. As long as a hypothetical open OS has a browser capable with bog standard modern capabilities, it will be fine

Re: Keep Android Open

#508

Post by jayd16 »

liendolucas wrote: post #283

I'm going to say something that probably will get me down votes: Why do we have to beg Google to keep Android open? Seriously. So many open source projects have risen out of real and concrete needs and successfully made their way into our every day lives. A new platform needs to rise that breaks out completely from Google. I've given PostmarketOS a go (with a PinePhone) and while today I can't say it isn't a daily dr…

The short answer is its a huge costly chaotic mess to be in a standards/compatibility battle we don't have to be in.

It's far easier for everyone if Google plays nice than to put in the work to unseat them and still keep app devs and users happy.

Re: Keep Android Open

#509

Post by senko »

BeetleB wrote: post #400
TeMPOraL wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer: bank/financial apps, enterprise apps, government apps and copyrighted media (music, video, games, books, ...). Those are the players that demand excessive control over end-user devices, and thus the ultimate driver behind the problem we're discussing. It's not that a new mobile platform couldn't possibly succeed. It's an open platform that cannot, because aforementioned players don't want it, and without them…

This. Most of us do not want to carry two phones around. The reality is that there is strong utility for those non-open apps and they will never be replaced by open ones. In some parts of the world, WhatsApp is as necessary as the phone itself. Official business is conducted via it.

So what. Enough of us do that it just might be feasible.

I've used Linux for a loong time before some business-critical software ran on it. I had to have a Windows VM for years for netbanking, or before that, dual-boot for gaming.

If we're all too spoiled to give a free alternative a chance because it might be slightly inconvenient, we don't deserve the free alternative.

Re: Keep Android Open

#510

Post by luisml77 »

fyrecean wrote: post #490
luisml77 wrote: post #477

The discussion between open-source and closed-source is essentially a discussion between communism and capitalism. Anything that reaches a certain threshold of value to society and requires enormous effort to build and maintain has to fall back to a capitalist, for-profit, closed-source structure. That's all that's happening here. Of course, small stuff like a software library that doesn't require much effort to buil…

What about this is communism vs capitalism? Or even closed vs open source. There are billions of android devices in people's hands. Requiring a centralized authority to authorize what code people get to run on their own devices has nothing to do with a free market economy. This is a private entity telling us it's not safe to run code on our own computers without their approval. Linux doesn't need a for profit company…

Because everyone in this comment section is arguing that Android should be open-source and detached from Google. I'm saying some things are simply too big to be built by the community.

The developers need to get paid. And the developers only get paid if the system is closed-source such that the revenue can only flow back to Google which is where the developers are hired at. In other words, yes it needs to be centralized, and the reason is the money required to build Android is just too much and therefore needs to be developed under a for-profit capitalist organization like Google.

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