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Comment by cm3 | Hacker News Reader

Is there an Android fork where this isn't a problem and which you could suggest?

It's called Replicant. It is aggressively free in the GNU sense and has a limited installation base because of strict requirements in hardware due to blobs and general functionality.

http://replicant.us/

If you want a compromise, like me, Cyanogen with out GApps. What other options do you have?

The more I got into Android, the sooner I realized it was a crap shoot when addressing your question and my core interests in hobbyist computing on phones just like computers.

This code won't be in Android but in the Google apps which are pretty much essential if you want to use Android (Play store, Chrome, Maps, Google play Services)

Play store alone has enough permissions to collect call metadata

Part of the problem is the large percentage of apps that are now tied to proprietary Android, and won't run without Google Apps installed. Even Microsoft apps like Outlook and Skype won't load without Google Play Services installed. (The version of Skype on the Amazon Appstore is around a year old, and won't even take my login credentials.)

So even if you find a relatively safe Android version to use, you're getting a heavily gimped experience where a very limited selection of apps work. (Generally, what you find on F-Droid.)

Hmm... so effectively Android is no longer open.

It is a challenging definition, but I would argue that it is not. Because while the core OS is open, you are not effectively able to fork it. Google's developer advocates heavily encourages the use of proprietary Google APIs in app development, which binds those apps to Google's proprietary packages.

I guess the question is how you define a platform or an operating system, but I think that the platform apps on it run off of is a major part of it. And the difference in what will run on AOSP and what will run on Google Play flavored Android is staggering.

Is there a page to check what popular app does not work on F-Droid or Cyanogen? Say something like Nokia's mapping app.

I don't know, but please tell me if you find one. I have F-Droid and Play on my phone, and disabled Google Play Services to see how many of the apps I have installed and use continued to work. Many gave me "must update Play Services" dialogs, some just crashed outright. I've been trying to transition to open apps or apps available outside the Play Store, but unfortunately, Skype is one need I can't work around right now.

I suppose Skype might work in a mobile browser via WebRTC, but from what I gather it's not there yet.

You can be pretty certain that any free software apps found in F-Droid will not require proprietary Google APIs. Every other app in the Play Store can be assumed to require them.

It was never really open.

And even though it uses Linux as kernel, even that doesn't matter.

The API surface that NDK code is allowed to use is so constrained that they could replace the kernel with something else and only OEMs would notice.

It's open enough that direct competitors, like Amazon, for example, can base their own OSs that have their own ecosystems on AOSP.

Google could be more open. But there isn't any evidence the parts of Android that are not open are not open in order to stop open or even competitive semi-closed Android derivatives.

They are open enough enable competitors to use the same technology platform, including some very valuable technologies like the ART compilers. If they intended to lock out competitors, they could easily have done so.

No, it's actually so closed that only Amazon-scale competitors can make viable forks. Samsung is maybe the only other company with the scale and scope to accomplish that, which is why Google has entered into some special arrangements with them.

Viable platforms require viable ecosystems. I don't see how you can get around that fact. That's what sets the lower bound for scale. If you do not have a an ecosystem that's comparable or, alternatively, sufficiently non-overlapping then you can't compete. Amazon's OS crew is relatively small.

Samsung can't compete because there is no viable Samsung ecosystem, and Samsung has not aligned with an ecosystem partner other than Google.

This is false if Android is an open platform. Because then it's "viable" by the very nature that tons of apps exist for it.

The problem is that Google is creating a walled garden, to prevent competing app stores. Apps developed on Android could be easily listed, downloaded, and installed on any flavor of Android. Samsung, Amazon, etc. could all have their app stores, and developers could script a simple command to update their apps everywhere.

However, by creating a proprietary layer like Play Services, Google has effectively made a proprietary fork of Android the dominant one, requiring different levels of effort to support non-Google phones.

Both Google-logo Android and AOSP Android OSs are open to alternative app stores, unlike Apple's products. Where are the garden walls? Conversely, most major apps are distributed through multiple app stores. Indeed that's the only way to sell in China. Only a narrow category of 3rd party apps need Play Services, and almost all of those can treat those APIs as optional.

You're not missing out with Outlook... it's absolute garbage on Android. Use Nine instead, it's better and will work without Google Play Services.

Yeah, that's fair. Unfortunately, Skype is the requirement for me. I just noted Outlook because a Microsoft PM for it said Play Services was required and there wasn't any way around it.

That sucks. Is abstaining from Gapps a choice, or is it because of licensing?

You could try this: http://opengapps.org/

Not to mention that Outlook stores your email on their servers to bring you push notifications.

You are like the first person ever to say that Acompli (now Outlook) sucks.

Fantastic, does that come with a ribbon?

Depending on how it is implemented. If it's coded into Android OS that's a bigger problem, if it's included in Gapps, you can just remove them of block their connections on firewall.

If I correctly understand `Last modified: June 28, 2016, they are writing`, this feature should not be available before that date, so either it comes as an update to a gapps or to Android.

Well when you first boot a custom rom like cyanogenmod or replicant or self-compile android, there is no such terms that you have to agree to. So this privacy issue is not with Android Open Source Project, but rather with the proprietary google apps.

Related question: given how short supported update cycles for Android devices are, which of the sub 100EURO Android phones on AliExpress are a reasonable choice in terms of installing an Android fork? I'm eyeing a cheap phone because I expect to buy another one in less than 2 years because of update support politics.

Not <100€ but I can only recommend the Wileyfox Swift [1] which replaced my old Nexus 4 (which I really loved). It runs Cyanogen OS (a commercial version of CyanogenMod).

[1]: https://www.wileyfox.com/swift/

Thanks for the suggestion. That one seems nice but too expensive for my use case. Since support cycles are abysmal, I'd like to get cheap devices and treat them almost as dispensable.

Very happy with my ulefone power, though there seems to be some hotspots on the backlight. Very capable device for the money.

Cyanogen?

Seconded. Does anyone know if the phone home "feature" has been removed from CyanogenMod?

Presumably any of Google's data gathering will use Google Play Services, and so using Cyanogenmod would be no protection against it if the gapps package has also been installed.

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