Hopefully this pushes Linux on Mobile devices to be a more daily drivable platform at least. Otherwise, guess we’re fucked since there’s no way Google will give in to the backlash since if memory serves me correctly they NEVER have. It’s almost like they’re basically a monopoly and can be as anti-consumer as they want or something…
We gotta rush the EU to pass legislation to prevent monopolies like this.
The EU sadly seems to be trying to age restrict us all and to tie that to Android and iOS (with no custom ROM suport): https://leminal.space/post/31858818/21120139
I currently run GraphineOS. I will probably buy one more refurb phone that can run it until Android is dead. Then I am switching to a dumb phone for calls and SMS, and a mobile hotspot connected to a pocket sized cyberdeck. I can still run the apps I want and no longer need Android. With a 3d printer, 25 years of being an electrical and software engineer I can easily make a device that does what I actually want.
Is this practical for the average person? Of course not. But this whole problem is something the average person can fix. STOP BUYING SHIT FROM COMPANIES WHO SCREW YOU!!! Use your power as a consumer and stop giving them money. Make them feel the pain of doing anti-consumer actions. None of this stuff is a requirement for life. If they see a hit in sales, if everyone who makes apps pulls them from the app store, they will change. But it requires everyone to act, and we damn well know most of yall will do nothing but complain.
This problem is a foot gun where we are all buying the gun, loading it, handing it to someone while sticking our foot out and we want to blame them for the bloody hole. Stop it!
I recently switched from Apple to a De-Googled Fairphone 6 (Murena e/OS), because I do not fully understand Graphine OS and I thought the Fairphone would be the easiest way to detach myself from Apple and Google.
Doin’ god’s work.
This was just inevitable for Google. Google is no longer an open source company. Hasn’t been for maybe a decade or more. They abused the good spirit of open source for their corporate benefit and are ending that relationship on their terms. Get used to it Android users.
Yes, everyone cares enough, they will definitely change that.
As far as I know, people are too stupid to even understand what sideloading is (it is about that, right? Edit: yes.)
E/Os all the way. Fuck Google
How’s the security/privacy? I don’t expect it to be as good as Graphene, but I’m not interested in buying a Google phone.
Is it good enough that I won’t have to worry about it? Any uses I should avoid on e/os?
Just make sure you can relock the bootloader after you install the e/os ROM or anyone with a USB cable can do as they please with your phones OS. AFAIK that feature is limited to pixel phones and some fair phones, so your options are a bit slim.
Definitely this. I have the Fairphone 6 and relocked bootloader afterwards. Installed NetGuard for added security
tbh the only thing that keeps people from jumping to a full deGoogle phone or an open source Linux phone is app. More specifically, IM and chat apps.
Social media and all those entertainment like Youtube, we can access via a good web browser. But those IM apps? Very hard because you can try to use an alternative, but people around you dont.
People thinking this isn’t a monopoly enforcement action in disguise are the same people who think banning Huawei was justified.
Google’s one mistake was that they sold Motorolla to Lenovo, who ran it as low cost shovelware to make the mobile phone market in the US not look like a complete oligopoly. They kept their cost low by using complete stock Google ROMs while every other OEM exited the market.
Until recently when Lenovo properly built up their hardware lineup and started jumping ship to GrapheneOS the moment Google started clamping down.
That and thinking that they won’t be sued to oblivion for this. People are looking for ways to do lawsuits and this is a big one
Of course the US won’t do jack shit. Google always wins in reality even when they lose in US antitrust courts. But other countries can maybe win. Please do!
I got grapheneOS on my phone right now. Go fuck yourself, google.
I will also do my damn best to make sure my older Samsung S23 doesn’t fall into that version. I have uses for that phone.
Can you explain a bit more? I’ve had one laying around for 2 years and haven’t updated it.
Yea but you had to buy a google phone right or do they support more phones now
You are right to point out that this hardware dependency on Google is bad and obviously this wouldn’t work for everyone if everyone were to switch to GrapheneOS, but you can totally buy a used Pixel if you don’t want to give more money to Google.
Sadly I had to. But Motorola did support… before I got a Samsung I had a grapheneOS compatible Motorola, but it broke down.
Motorola is starting to offer grapheneOS compatible phones or so they said, on the regular.
At the end of the day, all you can really do is to start treating your phone more like a phone and stop carrying it everywhere and using it for everything.
The convenience of it has made it way too easy for people to spy on you.
No. You can do a lot more. You can develop alternatives and enforce anti monopoly legislation.
This. Degoogling and using FOSS alternatives can only take you so far. We should drastically reduce smartphone usage. I got a dumbphone so I can be reachable. Outside of work, my smartphone is mostly powered off. I can’t realistically get rid of it, as I need a bunch of banking apps, authenticators, Google Maps at times (and no, there’s no real alternative to this, everything else sucks). But I only use it when I absolutely need it. It’s gathering a lot less data than it used to. I’m striving to be as low value to big tech as possible. Reducing smartphone use has also done wonders for my wellbeing. I read more, I’ve regained my attention span, I have more time to do stuff I like. Stop scrolling, there’s nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you’re not missing out on anything. Stop trying to replace one app or site with another. Just let it go, it was never worth it.
Stop scrolling, there’s nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you’re not missing out on anything
Not sure about you, but I actually lookup something useful from time to time, while being “in the field.”
That’s not what scrolling means in this context. If you are intentionally seeking out specific information, you may need to scroll, but you aren’t “scrolling”.
Yep. My disdain for the combination of fascist government where everything is surveillance, and sociopathic corporations and billionaires where everything is a cynical cash grab, overcame me excitement for tech “products” a long time ago. I’m in the US so it’s especially bad.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old, and I do of course use it every day, but I consciously avoid using it every hour. I love when I misplace it in my own house, to then not look for it for hours. The only person who is going to message me anything urgent is my wife and she knows where to find me.
Constant phone addiction is one of those situations where when you remove yourself from it you can more easily see it in others. It’s like there’s a new form of body language where when you see that slight forward tilt of the head you know they are in the Phone Zone without even seeing the rest of their body.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old,
Mine is an older model too, thankfully. I never needed the bells and whistles other people are into, which probably helps me stay more secure.
But I also just love that I’m not reaching for my pocket every 30 seconds for another dopamine hit too.
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My wife would hate it, if I were no longer reachable.
No. I haven’t used Google apps on my phone for years already. That includes Google Play Services and the Play Store. Most apps are open source and I’m self hosting my media.
We gotta claw this shit back.
In case you are looking for Google alternatives to other services, I highly recommend Organic Street Maps or Magic Earth or Kagi Maps instead of Google Maps. Also FreeTube or Yewtu.be instead of YouTube. And mail providers like Proton or Tuta Mail that are end-to-end encrypted. And VPNs like Proton or Mullvlad. And most of all search engines like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia or Kagi or Tor to onionize your search experience. There are many alternatives to Google. I try to recommend for people to move away from Google where they can. I realize Google has worked their way into many websites and can be hard to get around in that sense, but ad blockers and DNS resolvers like uBlock Origin and NextDNS help to prevent tracking from Google.
Do you have a good alternative to drive? Specifically we use it to share files in our household.
If you’re comfortable using a NAS, that is probably the best option, but Proton offers drive storage services that are end-to-end encrypted. For photos Ente Photos is a good option.
Google’s algorithms go through all the files you upload to their servers and check them for anything that might go against their terms of service. I mean you could encrypt yourself prior to uploading, but that’s a lot of work. If their algorithm labels even one file as violating their terms of service, they may lock you out of all your data and your account. Their appeal process is useless and is likely just checked by the same algorithm that closed the account in the first place or rubber stamped by a person who goes through thousands of reports a day. Most appeals are rejected and they just delete lifetimes of data/memories like it’s nothing. Of course backups are recommended. Their AI algorithms were rolled out too soon and should never be used as judge, jury, and executioner for people’s data.
Google reports cartoon images and family photos as well. Forbes for reported on it (https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/12/20/google-scans-gmail-and-drive-for-cartoons-of-child-sexual-abuse/). They closed a biggish profile YouTube channels account for cartoons as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoki_Saito). Same for family photos/medical photos, of which there are plenty of reports from various news networks, the most prominent were probably the three from the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveillance-toddler-photo.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/technology/google-appeals-change.html, and https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/27/technology/google-youtube-abuse-mistake.html). Plus more from El Pais (https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-09-19/google-closed-my-account-over-sexual-content-but-theyre-not-telling-me-what-it-is-and-ive-lost-everything.html), Buisness Insider (https://www.businessinsider.com/google-users-locked-out-after-years-2020-10?op=1), Android Police (https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/03/08/when-google-locks-you-out-of-your-account-begging-the-internet-for-help-is-your-first-and-last-resort/), India Times (https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2022-09-19/google-closed-my-account-over-sexual-content-but-theyre-not-telling-me-what-it-is-and-ive-lost-everything.html), etc. And tons of self reporting (https://piunikaweb.com/2026/02/03/google-photos-false-csam-flags-users-locked-out/).
My point is that it is not black and white or as simple as don’t download it. There are plenty of cases in which a person would not know such as downloading an AI training set (https://www.404media.co/a-developer-accidentally-found-csam-in-ai-data-google-banned-him-for-it/). If they truly wanted to follow the law, it would be knowing possession that should end with a persons account being terminated. All other cases should end with maybe the file reported and deleted. But their system is highly flawed and most appeals are denied, which is nonsense when less then 1% of these reports end up with an arrest and even fewer lead to convictions (https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:pr592kc5483/cybertipline-paper-2024-04-22.pdf).
To be honest, I don’t think this is all a failure of Google or Meta or Microsoft, but the NCMEC and Thorn. They are the real threat to child safety, as they use their platform to claim to want to save children, but have other agendas (https://www.techdirt.com/2024/08/08/the-many-reasons-why-ncmecs-board-is-failing-its-mission-from-a-ncmec-insider/ and https://www.jezebel.com/ashton-kutcher-thorn-sex-workers-1850852760). Plus, at least Thorn has been found to lie about their numbers of children rescued (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kutcher-software-child-trafficking/).
All Google, and the others, are doing is over reporting and making harder to find actual criminals. It hardly worth celebrating when one is caught while thousands of innocent people are being harmed. There needs to be penalties for false reports or an ability for people to reclaim their data/accounts when cleared of wrongdoing. The number of false positives is absurd and Facebook and LinkedIn researchers have both found it to be highly erroneous (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/googles-scans-private-photos-led-false-accusations-child-abuse?language=en).
I think we desperately need data privacy and data protection laws. And the “think of the children” or “I have nothing to hide” arguments against them are just trickle down ideas from these data brokers who profit heavily from invading personal data.
Do you have custom ROM + no gapps? Gets harder and harder if you want a new phone once in a while.
Bought the Fairphone with e/OS.
Problem is many see Android equivalent with Samsung and Samsung is the worst when it comes to customize your HW because they really lock down their shit.
For my phone I just bought a new battery after many years of use and it’s back to working as if it’s new. Before that I had a Shift phone (with Google, I think) which allowed me to replace the camera module once the autofocus in the camera broke.
Not sure if I’m old fashioned, but I like to own my devices and modify them if I please.
I have thought about trying to get away from shit but it’s hard. If I want to stop using my phone regularly I need to purchase a GPS unit, wire up a charger for it on both my bikes (go deep in woods some times so I use gaia on my phone to figure out where I am), I’d need to get an mp3 player for music, and no more scheduling everything on my phone calendar. It’s an effort, but the more this convenience starts to cost (both in $ and privacy) the more willing I am to make the effort. Another major gripe I have with phones is their all so goddamn big now too, last comfortable to hold phone I had was a damned s3 now everything is a mini tablet and I have big hands. My SO hates phone shopping cuz her hands are tiny! Can’t hold the damn things with one hand anymore lol
If you are going through this much effort you could consider getting an /e/OS or GrapheneOS Phone?
My buddy has a pixel with graphene and loves it. I am not familiar with /e/os how does it compare? I have a not terribly old Moto G (2025) right now as it was the cheapest phone I could get locally after loosing my last one deep in the green mountians so I hate to have to get a new phone again already as this one seems to be unsupprted by either G or E os’s
Graphene os gives more options. If your minimalist you can use the phone as-is without a Google account, it has all the basic apps you need. If you need more you can install f-droid and use Foss apps. And finally I’d you still want Google based apps, you can set up sandboxed Google Play and use it as a fully featured android phone, all while keeping granular permissions on the Google Play services, depending on what you need it for.
I don’t know your budget but I got a pixel 9 that I put graphene on, and a year of 10gb monthly cell service for 550 total. The pixel was from eBay, and the cell service is from usmobile. You could go cheaper with a pixel 8 and a different provider
Yea. Also have an old moto g and am sad to find that E and G os are not compatible.
But what about D?
I like to run poverty spec phones because I have a poor track record of breaking them. Shit I shattered a phone screen picking up a tire once, and I run case and screen protector at all times. I can’t be having a 600$ device in my pocket lmfao too big a loss when the inevitable happens.
Same here. Neuropathy fucked my hands so I drop shit all the time and phones have become unwieldy as fuck since touchscreens became the norm.
I literally shattered my phone screen dropping it on a skittle once.
I understand.
It’s a bummer what we have to consider to avoid people snooping, but it’s (at least in my humble opinion), necessary.
A good way to start breaking the habit and only using it when you need it is to just keep it in another area of your home. I keep mine in a bathroom drawer.
A big one is just using a real computer for things that are actually better on a real computer. Don’t browse the web or deal with emails on the phone, for example. Make a habit of grabbing a laptop, or even sitting down to a desktop to do those things.
Anyone got any ideas on how to force another OS onto my phone? I’m fed up with it.
The best general resource for instructions on how to unlock your phone’s bootloader and flash alternate AOSP ROM’s or non-Android OS’s is https://xdaforums.com/
Please note that not all carriers and oem’s allow you to unlock the bootloader though, so choose your device carefully for this.
You will also most likely need a PC (desktop or laptop) with adb & fastboot on it. These are apps used in the terminal, but you only need to copy and paste a few commands into them to use it.
If you have a Google Pixel then best option is Graphene - https://grapheneos.org/
For other devices you can use a “degoogled” Android ROM and get apps from the open source F-Droid app store - https://f-droid.org/
Some choices for this are:
Lineage - https://lineageos.org/
crDroid - https://crdroid.net/
/e/os - https://e.foundation/e-os/
Iode - https://iode.tech/iodeos/
OR use a a true alternative mobile OS. Options for this are:
Ubuntu Touch - https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/
Sailfish OS - https://sailfishos.org/
Mobian - https://mobian-project.org/
Postmarket OS - https://postmarketos.org/
Plasma Mobile - https://plasma-mobile.org/
Droidian - https://droidian.org/
You can also purchase devices with alternative OS’s already preinstalled from:
Volla - https://volla.online/en/devices/
Jolla - https://jolla.com/
Fairphone - https://fairphone.com/
Murena - https://murena.com/
Furilabs - https://furilabs.com/
Brax - https://www.braxtech.net/
In order to load a custom OS you first must be able to unlock the bootloader ofthe device. The list of OEMs allowing that is sadly getting smaller and smaller and vendors are becoming actively hostile towards custom firmware development.
see: https://github.com/zenfyrdev/bootloader-unlock-wall-of-shame
Keep in mind, that Brax uses misleading YouTube videos and their devices are as secure as my 2017 Redmi with LineageOS and a non-relockable bootloader (which I use with caution).
Also: mobile linux doesn’t even offer the security of Secure boot on laptops (maybe Purism does, as they have a good track record on their laptops).
Please don’t be an idiot, use GrapheneOS as it is the only security focused mobile OS.
“Don’t be an idiot” - yet the big idiocy I see over & over on the Fediverse are Graphene evangelists that want to knee jerk condemn the multitudes of other mobile libre projects that are doing some good things, with its supposed (and disputable) “perfect”.
Graphene is indeed the current best solution towards security hardening for mobile devices, and I would certainly recommend it as first choice especially for anyone working in truly sensitive areas (e.g. journalism, political activism, closed source design, utility maintenance, etc.), or for whom anyone for which security is their primary concern.
However - at this point Graphene is 100% dependent on Google for continuance - both to a large extent the coding of its AOSP base, for the timely security updates Graphene prides itself on, AND in ALL of the hardware it currently supports. As such, given Google’s direction, with the next gen Pixel phones likely not to be easily unlockable, and with security updates possibly only provided in a timely way to an insiders list of oem’s, until Graphene issues their own devices, or expands beyond only Pixel support, it faces a potential expiry date (similar to what has happened for CalyxOS).
Meanwhile there are TONS of use cases of people with devices from all kinds of oem’s, that simply want an experience on these that offers better privacy and more digital sovereignty relative to what Google & Apple offer. As such one can achieve a close to an ad free & data mining free, with much less overall tracking, experience on all of the solutions I listed. And many of these solutions, unlike Graphene, do not depend on Google for their software & hardware. Do some of these solutions have flaws in their security & privacy? Absolutely. For which the thing they need is folks to join in to help fix these flaws. And I’ve been happy to see increased momentum across lots of these projects to do exactly that recently.
I haven’t looked into it much yet but grapheneOS has apparently come a far way and has an easy installer nowadays.
Only reason I’ve paused is I have to use a private 2fa authenticator for work and not sure if it’d work on the OS, but it looks like they’ve gotten most major bank apps work on it so that’s one less obstacle
Unfortunately they don’t support any devices besides Google’s Pixel: https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
Supporting at least major Samsung models would help adoption.
Unfortunately Samsung is making it more difficult to impossible to unlock the bootloaders of their recent devices, but you can reflash some of their older models at least to ROM’s like crDroid - https://crdroid.net/
GrapheneOS puts 0 compromises on user-security in addition to privacy. They don’t really have anything to gain by supporting less secure hardware to drive adoption.
Motorola seems to be cashing in on providing the alternative, though, which is a win for everyone
Buying Samsung is never the solution to anything. Plus, Motorola will have some cutting edge devices supported by GOS in about a year or so.
Or so…
I hope that means under a year, haha.
Saying the year of the Linux phone is the new year of the Linux desktop.
For me it has been the year of the Linux desktop for the last 8 years. I haven’t missed anything for this long. I’m looking to get some detachable laptop, Intel 10th gen or newer to install CachyOS + GNOME on it, and make this the year of the Linux tablet for me. For the Linux phone, I’m not holding my breath, but certainly hope it isn’t long before we can just choose to get rid of Android as well.
Had not idea, that really sucks. Guess im in the same boat with samsung…
which 2fa do you use for work? microsoft? authy?
Authy doesnt work so I am transferring all to Keepass Not sure about microsoft though
Its their own proprietary one, not sure what runs underneath it.
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It’s not an easy install if it literally can’t be fucking installed on most devices.
You just won the most moronic phrase of the week. That’s like saying there’s no point to sd cards because there are devices that don’t have a way ro use them.
If you were already talking about limited storage on devices that typically can’t use SD cards, then yes, you’re a fucking idiot if you say “Just use an SD card to increase your storage! It’s EASY!” Which is what you’re doing when people are talking about Android issues and you say the same fucking thing about GrapheneOS.
TL;DR: There’s a moron here, but it isn’t me.
Had no idea, no reason to get hostile about it.
Sorry, I’ve had a lot of assholes telling people to use GrapheneOS like it’s super easy for most people to just go out and get a specific phone that is relatively low in market share (making them harder to find second hand too) like it’s as easy as running to the store for a loaf of bread and they get super aggressive when called out on it and it has, in turn, been pissing me off.
GrapheneOS is legitimately great IF you have a device that can run it, which most people don’t. A lot of it’s fans are raging assholes. Sorry for assuming you were one of them.
No worries, I had actually assumed that with all the people suggesting it it was a bit more ubiquitous, but apparently I was mistaken.
We need go start talking about the year of the GNU/Linux phone
Or the year of free (as in freedom) pocket computers, since the global telephony system goes against the freedoms.
PostmarketOS isn’t GNU
Anyways it’d be interesting to see more niche OSes on phones (there’s a mobile port of Genode/Sculpt OS for example)
Love that some megacorp can just make decisions like this that affects billions of people.
Really just feeling the fucking freedom. I hate everything.
The megacorps can do anything they want with their product. The chef can change the menu anytime and he can refuse you service - it’s his restaurant. Our problem is that it’s a duopoly and there’s nowhere else to go.
The only way out is open standards and platforms, enabling true competition.
Real quick.
Just imagine you order a plate of pasta. You’re only two bites in, and it’s DELICIOUS.
Then here comes chef. While making full eye contact, he tips your plate and dumps all of that pasta in the trash.
Chef proceeds to take a giant wet shit onto the plate. He brings a new set of silverware and a fresh napkin right before your server comes back with the check.
You insist that you didn’t order a giant wet shit, but they won’t take it off the bill.
Let’s stop pretending this is an inevitable oopsie. This shit is egregious.
Daddy Googs won’t be happy until it’s a walled garden just like iOS
“Fascist oligarchy of capitalist dictators continue to implement totalitarian surveillance apparatus. Majority of talking chimps sleepwalking into dystopia.”
More like you go to the restaurant every day and eat your favorite meal and one day its just not on the menu anymore.
I am not buying a new phone every day. I have already purchased the phone and now the functionality is being changed.
You could technically stop updating. But thats not feasible since it would put your device security to peril. Until or only if we were to use a FOSS system would we be able to chose which parts of the updates we don’t accept. It sucks but google can basically do anything they want to android and if you’re on a proprietary vendor you’re stuck with that patch
Don’t overstretch my analogy like that. How about this:
Google has standardized The Restaurant. The kitchens all have the same tools and ingredients and are open to anyone. Seating and billing is standardized, and you can easily order and pay at your table, and the food is delivered straight to you via pneumatic tubes and nicely packaged. The food might be expensive or cheap, tasty or revolting, but the experience is always the same.
There are a lot of hobby cooks that like to cook in the Google restaurants. If you want to eat their food, you might have to pick it up straight at the kitchen, or nicely ask the hobby waiters. The cooks have been there for years and whipping up nice creations - mostly for free, beacause the ingredients and tools were free, and they really like to cook. Because the food is so good, some people tip the cooks or waiters directly.
Now Google introduced a new rule: everyone has to use their billing and pneumatic delivery system, citing improved food safety. The hobby cooks and waiters are infuriated, and even some of their customers, and they demand that everyone can still come to the kitchen or the waiters. But Google just says: look, my restaurant, my rules. If you don’t like it go make your own.
But also I had to pay to access the restaurant in the first place, and after I did so Google introduced this new rule.
Except that google’s "standardized, “packaged” food is just as unsafe or even less safe than the hobby cooks’, and they’re only using “food safety” as a pretense to capture the market and hold clientele hostage.
And this change has also been preceded by buying out every other restaurant chain in town, except for the “Apple Restaurants,” which are already a walled garden, which Google is now trying to emulate even though most of its user base came to it specifically to avoid Apple’s business model.
And there are a few other smaller chains based on Google’s standards, but they’re considered niche and don’t all support every feature (“sorry, no ATMS”). Also, since most of their equipment comes from Google, Google likely has a killswitch and can cut off their stoves and refrigerators at any time.
It’s clearly an anti-trust issue, but since Apple has already set the precedent and the US is pro-corporation and anti-consumer, everyone is kinda just screwed.
The point is that Google’s head chef can come out and shit on your plate, and if you don’t like it then it sucks to suck because there aren’t really any viable alternatives.
as much as i despise microsoft, at least windows phone was competition.
Ironically, apparently it got shut down for ostensibly being too monopolistic…
Android was an open standard and platform, a LONG time ago. Then Google did a rug pull with all new features of android requiring 100% of their services to function.
You can still install AOSP based distributions on supported devices
No, it wasn’t ever. It always belonged to Google who benevolently open sourced parts of it and retains control.
Safetynet and PlayIntegrity are under Google’s control. The PlayStore is Google’s. All of the APIs are Google’s! Hardware blobs are closed and belong to the manufacturer.
Just because some of the stuff shows up on GitHub doesn’t make it an open platform.
Android was out for at least five years before Safetynet was a thing. I’m surprised people weren’t louder in their objections to that then.
Trouble with this analogy is the pasta they serve you eat for about 2 years and they can change what’s on your plate at any time.
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It doesn’t feel so invisible if we’re the ones who have to build and test it.
It’s more like:
There are 2 grocery store chains in your city and zero restaurants or other ways to get food not owned by those chains. One already has a supply of only expensive, big-brand products, with nothing organic and very few healthy items The other chain has more independent items that are healthier and more reasonably-priced, as they allowed smaller companies to sell there. Now they are closing the door to these smaller companies, making them appear as a clone to the first chain.
And just manage to push it unilaterally too. This shit must be opposed.
this is a reply from further down that is actually correct:
This is being presented as more doom laden than is warranted. Ostensibly it is an effort to stop less technically able users from installing malware, certainly there will be unspoken ulterior motivations but such is the world we have allowed to grow around us. As far as overarching evil plans go this is quite a benign example.
Which is bullshit. You already had to enable external installs this is just them even farther encroaching on our ownership of our devices.
Get that boot out your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been.
I have felt this way about my phone for a long time. This is probably good because it will probably create a viable alternative to the apple-android ecosystem. Maybe Graphene will support more phones and new privacy focused mobile-OS will pop up.
