Review of /e/ – Android-based alternative for mobile phones | Hacker News Reader

– Android-based alternative for mobile phones

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291 pointsivanvas231 comments

I have used /e/ as my main phone for 1 year - and I am a heavy user. It’s a bliss! I also got a phone with /e/ installed on it for my 73 years old mother. She loved it. It’s really surprising to see how the bigtech monopoly has nothing to do with the quality of their services, but everything with their unfair practices - Microsoft yesterday, Google today.

pretty much the same story for me. started 3 years ago, and got a phone for my 70 year old mother almost two years ago. she gets help to install new apps, but otherwise it works just fine for her.

And it’s « stable ». I mean it works and will keep on working for years.

How is /e/ making things easier for them? My folks are constantly puzzled by their galaxy phones: not only notifications and sudden app changes, but also touching the edges of the screen triggering unexpected things... What will another OS do better?

well, the problem here is that the general market is not targeting elder people. /e/ at least doesn't so far have any sudden app changes, because their focus and selling point is usability and and privacy, and not the latest new and shiny

From the /e/ Foundation website:

"The easy-installer beta version supports 15 devices"

This is the #1 problem, but it's not /e/ developers fault, as supporting devices is a time consuming and costly activity, and the risk of bricking an expensive device is just too high for normal users to want to try. Manufacturers are to blame. It's not a technical problem but rather a political one; manufacturers should be forced by law to unlock boot loaders and publish at least the bare minimum documentation enough for porting software to devices that became obsolete either by the introduction of a newer version, or after support has ceased. Until that happens, I'm afraid we'll see more and more projects supporting only a very small part of the available devices.

I'd expect the installer to support more devices over time, since /e/ officially supports 269 devices:

https://support.e.foundation/devices

It's promising that more and more alternative Android distributions are offering installers to make them more accessible to average phone users. On the Linux phone side, even Ubuntu Touch has an installer that supports 81 devices: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/installer/

But, device manufacturers need to make bootloaders unlockable for these installers to work, and I agree that regulation is a practical way to make this happen. I can see Europe taking the lead on this with the goal of reducing e-waste by encouraging the reuse of old devices.

That looks like a copy of the list of supported devices of lineage. I highly doubt that the e foundation can test their installer on so many devices. They (or their own developer community) would need to get access to these devices at least. I guess the only way to broaden support for the installer a lot would be to work on upstreaming it to the lineage project so that the broader community does the work for them.

LineageOS currently supports 179 models, so it's not a copy of the LineageOS device list.[1][2] These projects support different selections of devices. There are devices that are supported by /e/ and not by LineageOS, and vice versa.

[1] https://www.lineageoslog.com/statistics

[2] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/

The lists look a lot closer if you tick "Show discontinued devices" on the LineageOS site

Not one iPhone on the list.. Shame I have a perfectly good older iphone that just became a paperweight due to lack of support

It suffers from the same problem as all other Android forks: no updates to binary blobs that actually make phone a phone.

The Mediatek platforms, at least in their early days, were relatively open. The flash utility, which ran off a ROM in the SoC, meant that you could backup and restore the complete state of the device, effectively making them unbrickable. They didn't even seem to have any form of secure boot. Plenty of documentation (only available as leaked, but they didn't care much about stopping that) available if you knew where to look. Huge numbers of devices made with the same platform/reference design, and a correspondingly large (but unfortunately Chinese only) community around them. They were probably the closest to being a "standard Android device" for a while; of course, in the Western world they were mainly shunned due to their low cost and performance, while the lack of (user-hostile) security features was used as a further means of discouraging others away from them.

Unfortunately, the current situation is quite different. MediaTek does not release kernel sources to the public, while Qualcomm does.

https://www.xda-developers.com/mediatek-source-code-release-...

Device manufacturers are obligated to release kernel sources to end users to comply with GPLv2, but many do not, and Qualcomm's source code releases make supporting Snapdragon-based devices a little bit easier for ROM developers.

It's a shame, since the Dimensity 9000 performs better than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

MTK source code is(was?) available from the actual device manufacturer.

I can't say for Qualcomm in particular but from what I've seen in the past, open-source releases are not at all a good substitute for the actual documentation, which tends to be heavily guarded.

I'm a strong believer in the right of people to use their devices as they see fit...but there's a real-world problem here.

You know who else loves unlocked bootloaders?

Cyberstalkers and domestic violence perpetrators, who use them to install hidden stalkerware.

I'm a strong believer in the right of people to cut their food as they see fit...but there's a real-world problem here.

You know who else loves knives?

Criminals and thugs, who use them to engage in larceny and assault.

And guess what? In some jurisdictions, including some US states, possession and sale of some types of knives is banned or controlled, because they are used by criminals and thugs for larceny and assault.

You're also not permitted to upload whatever firmware you like to your car's engine if you want to run it on the street.

Note also that I didn't argue that uploading alternate firmware to phones should be banned. I'm just pointing out that there are real-world safety reasons for restricting modifications, and if you want the freedom to do so you should at least try and engage on the downsides rather than just yelling FREEEDOM very loudly.

This could be easily solved if manufacturers simply allowed for using a unique password to unlock the bootloader. Want to install a custom ROM? Simple! Put the phone in recovery mode, insert the unique manufacturer-provided password, unlock the bootloader, flash the new ROM, go back to recovery, change the password to one of your choosing, lock the bootloader again, add the ROM's official private key to enable safe boot.

This is entirely possible, and yet nobody wants to make it accessible.

So if you forget your password, your expensive device is instantly and permanently bricked and becomes e-waste?

No, the password is only to lock-unlock the bootloader. If you forget it you won't be able to install a new ROM but you will still be capable of upading your OS or factory resetting it

Forgetting a password shouldn't cause permanent loss of functionality of hardware.

I'm not understanding your argument. You say that unlocking a bootloader is dangerous, so what's your solution? You can't have non-unlockable bootloaders because that would mean a loss of hardware functionality, which you just suggested you consider unacceptable. You can't have easily unlockable bootloaders because that would be dangerous. So now what?

I proposed a very reasonable solution that gives the user control AND responsibility of their own device. If you don't want the responibility (and the control) then stick with your manufacturer's locked bootloader and never touch it.

I don't know about you but I would really like if my work phone had a company-set bootloader lock just like my work laptop has a company-set BIOS lock in case someone steals it or gets lost. There are plenty of professional and personal reasons why my solution would make a lot of sense in my opinion.

> You say that unlocking a bootloader is dangerous

I didn't say that. In fact, I believe the opposite.

> You can't have easily unlockable bootloaders because that would be dangerous.

I do want easily unlockable bootloaders.

I confused you with the person I originally replied to.

Still, my solution still allows to have a passwordless bootloader if you choose to not set a password, so I really don't get what would be wrong with it.

Laws against custom engine firmware and knives are unjust themselves, so they shouldn't be used to justify other things.

I hate to have to make this argument, but here goes...

...where do you draw the line? An M240 machine gun? A Stinger missile? A PFOS factory? A Special Atomic Demolition Munition?

We regulate private possession of dangerous items all the time, and pretty much everybody draws the line somewhere despite vigorous dispute where that line should be drawn in specific cases.

You said you're concerned with "thugs" using knives to do bad things. That's where you seem to draw the line. I am afraid what you'll try to restrict when you see the reports about these people breathing air.

What about pre-installed spyware tracking you? Where do you draw the line there?

Did you know that, for example, Roborock stock firmware sends your wi-fi password to Xiaomi? [1]

Does that make you feel secure? Where are the calls for regulation on this?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhyM-bhzFsI&t=586

I use /e/ daily as does a co-worker (we aren't working in tech). It's the one piece of alternative software that I'm comfortable recommending to anyone. It "just works" just as much as Android "just works".

IMHO, this is the real value of /e/! I had a non-technical friend ask me how they could get an Android phone that would not spy on them. I could have suggested GrapheneOS (what I use) or LOS+microg, but instead I sent her /e/ because it hits that perfect balance of privacy and usability for a normal person!

But do apps like Uber, WhatsApp etc work ok on it?

Uber and WhatsApp work well on /e/ and other Android distributions with microG.

For microG compatibility, Plexus rates Uber 3 out of 4 (good), and WhatsApp 4 out of 4 (perfect).

- Plexus: https://plexus.techlore.tech/

I can confirm that the map in Uber can be janky at times, but the app is otherwise fully functional. Both the Uber web app and the Lyft app (4 out of 4 on Plexus) work flawlessly.

Great, I didn't realise this had moved on so much.

I specifically use /e/ because of its seamless microG integration. Even banking apps work great on it.

Impressive. Do push notifications work in these kind of apps?

In my experience, yes.

Teams does for example.

SafetyNet checks fail by default, I think. As far as I understand it, you can play a cat-and-mouse game with it, but that's the best on a custom OS.

"We are making a mobile phone ecosystem that lets users escape the permanent and industrial harvesting of their personal data."

I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. It feels like there's this giant bubble that the tech world lives in, and they are the only people who care about this issue.

Good it happens at all. These people are the last bastions of hope.

this is my #1 complaint as well. These OSs must be easy to install and reliable. Having parts of the OS crash, dealing with the terminal, using ADB over USB... all of that makes zero sense to the average person or someone pressed for time.

I now want my phone to work and that is why i use iOS. Having to replace the OS on your phone is already a step too far for most. The install instructions here require using the terminal and typing commands - not going to happen for most people.

IMHO, the easiest path to adoption is to have a hardware manufacturer put this OS on their phones. No installation required.

>Having parts of the OS crash, dealing with the terminal, using ADB over USB...

I bought a phone from /e/ and have never had this happen in almost 2 years.

Relax, OP is just reaching for whatever rationalization they can get to continue sucking on Apple's tit.

That's a shitty comment man

What is shitty is this attitude of accepting the "solutions" sold by Big Tech and finding fault at whatever minuscule issue with the free alternatives.

What is shitty is being on HackerNews and seeing (presumably tech-savvy) people more worried about the product's name and "marketing" instead of discussing the system on its technical merits. Or seeing comments like yours that think that privacy is something that only concerns a "small bubble".

That is just not shitty, it is profoundly depressing.

/e/ has partnerships with Fairphone and Teraphone to sell versions of their phones with /e/ preloaded. /e/'s sister company Murena produced its own phone (the Murena One) and they also sell refurbished Galaxy S9/S9+ phones preloaded with /e/:

https://murena.com/products/smartphones/

No terminal/ADB needed, and in my experience, /e/ is not crashy.

Honestly I am starting to hear it more and more from nontechnical folks. People are starting to realize that tech companies are profiting off their "private" data (just see the mainstream responses to Amazon acquiring Roomba). I now hear a lot of people saying they don't want Google/Amazon/etc to have all their data, but these folks are not sure how to avoid it.

All the Apple billboards in SF on 280/101 tout their Privacy right now.

A Ford billboard might have a picture of a fancy cupholder to advertise their car has more cupholders; doesn't mean everyone's walking around talking about cupholders. (Though they will if they see that billboard)

I know a couple in their 70s who literally just switched away from using their ISP email because the ISP is adopting Gmail for the email service. People typically care about their privacy regardless of age or technical ability. Sometimes it just takes some basic understanding of just how deeply tech companies/services can invade their privacy. Most non-technical people simply don't grasp how shockingly omniscient tech corps are. That said, sometimes it can take a while for them to understand, even with regular discussions on the subject.

> I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy.

I hear normal people talk about it all the time. The only place where I hear that only people on HN care about privacy is on HN, constantly.

edit: I suspect that tech people who work on privacy-invading technologies live in a rationalization bubble that tells them that the complaints that they constantly hear are from a vanishingly small nerd contingent that they themselves just happen to immersed in. They don't believe their lying ears.

What is your point? You're using loaded terms like "normal" to contrast with people who are tech hobbyists, and you sound as if it is bad for an organization to care about something moral if few people care for it.

Because it's like a trope now where a tech person builds a thing that bothers them but nobody else, and meanwhile most people are like "I just want to do X, why is it so hard". Like why does my Android phone take up 15GB just for system files? I care about having free space more than data privacy. Security would sure be nice too, seeing as I use banking apps from this thing.

Call me crazy, but I think most people care less about Nike knowing what their shoe size is, than they care about keeping their bank account safe or not running out of storage.

> Call me crazy, but I think most people care less about Nike knowing what their shoe size is

They don't care because they don't understand. "Most people" think their shoe size or what ad they see doesn't matter because they're right, those things don't matter. What matters is that all of the data being collected about them will be used against them at every opportunity so that other people can get more money and power at their expense.

The data they give up will be increasingly used in every aspect of their lives. Restaurants will use it to decide how long to leave them waiting on hold when they call for a reservation. Employers will decide to hire them or not based on their purchase history, their health, or their political views. Stores will decide how much to charge them vs their neighbors for the exact same products.

The data they've been handing over will be used by corporations to extract more money from them. It will be used by by politicians who want to manipulate them and to create maps that will limit the ability for their votes to make any difference. It will be used by activists looking for people they can target for doing things they don't like. It will be used by law enforcement who will use that data against someone anytime they think it might help them make an arrest, or win a case in court. It will be used by their health insurance company to raise their rates when fast food spending in their zip code goes up.

The data "Most people" gave up thinking it was about shoe size and ads will be leveraged against them in countless ways by people they've never had any direct interaction with at all. The data never goes away and it ends up in the hands of hackers and data brokers who sell it to others. "Most people" aren't allowed to know who is accessing their data, how accurate that data is, how (or if) it is being secured, or what the people who have their data will be using it for.

Well, although they'll never be allowed to know specifically what their data will be used for, in a general sense they can be pretty sure it will be used to manipulate them, to categorize (and often miscategorize) them and to assign them a position in one or more unregulated digital caste systems that will increasingly limit their options and cause them to spend more money.

They don't care about data privacy now, but as more of them figure out that what they've been giving up is going to impact the rest of their life in ways they couldn't imagine they're going to start caring more and more.

This is exactly what my original comment was talking about.

Tech people are talking about it because we understand the problems. The rest of the population will catch up as they become aware of it. I'm not sure how to accelerate that though. One thing I know we need to do is to be better about protecting children's data. We shouldn't be requiring them to sign up for google accounts and handing out locked down Chromebooks to students. We should be teaching them from an early age about the consequences of handing over their data.

Great comment, I'd like to add:

Industrial-scale data guzzling is exactly like every vicious playground rumour (or vindictive people you may still be unlucky to know). Think back to school and remember how the bullies never forgot. How names and reputations were made instantly and never really shrugged. They used that information (demeaning anecdotes) to their benefit in every way they could. You had absolutely no control over the spread of rumours about you.

Imagine that, but on a much grander scale. I wish more people saw that it is the same kind of predation, probably perpetuated by the same types who have no conscience but are now adults.

Because the information is only valuable when tied to you, misuse of it is always against your interest. The use and handling of "personal data" is never neutral, even if "anonymised".

Yesterday I was reading that Facebook shares DMs with the police to find people that are thinking of leaving the state to get a medical procedure that is illegal in that state. Data privacy is now deeply relevant to 50% of the population that have reduced rights relative to the other 50%, they just might not know it yet.

0xbadcafebee:

> I have never heard any normal person ever talk about data privacy. It feels like there's this giant bubble that the tech world lives in, and they are the only people who care about this issue.

Honestly, I don't know if I've just missed your irony here, or if you don't realize there are lots of 'normal' people out there who have been thinking about this since like... the 50s of last century or something? Most certainly, they were talking about it (freely that is) since at least the 90s of the same century. Like, people who grew up under a totalitarian regime which could assign spies to eavesdrop and collect data on anyone, anywhere for any reason at all. Like the GDR for instance[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

The elders still sometimes say things like "shush, not over the phone". This didn't use to make sense for like 30-40 years, and, hey, it's a great comeback now.

My grandmother wouldn't give her bank details to anyone. She paid all her bills at the bank, cash in hand. She only had a phone line put in in the early 90s.

I thought it was extreme at the time, but now who is laughing?

If "normal" people didn't care about privacy, HIPAA wouldn't have become a thing.

So I went and check the instructions how to manually install /e/ on a device here [0]

I was welcomed with 5 types of warnings why not to do it. And I decided not to do it.

But here what the instructions should have been:

1. Adb - make sure you have a adb connection. More information here.

2. Run this script from you computer.

3. At the beginning of the script check a checkbox acknowledging that the data will be lost, and there is a small chance your device gets bricked.

https://support.e.foundation/devices/beyondx/install

15 devices are supported by the easy installer.

https://doc.e.foundation/easy-installer

Blame the device manufacturers for the rest.

I'm biased as a maintainer of my own OS, but there are severe issues with /e/OS: https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt

And it is honestly sad to see, because they could be a real viable option and instead choose to largely ignore or hand-wave away these issues.

> - Enables Safetynet checks by default which downloads and executes obfuscated proprietary code from Google

> - Includes proprietary Google Widevine DRM on nearly all devices

While proprietary code, obfuscation, and DRM are all evil, if /e/OS didn't support these things, then a lot of very popular apps wouldn't work on it, which would make it a lot less viable as a platform. Refusing to do those things wouldn't result in any less of those evil technologies. It would just result in less /e/OS adoption.

Linux solves a similar problem sometimes by asking the user if they'd like that feature or not. I'd really appreciate that, of course, while understanding that all these need a lot of extra effort.

My gripe is more so the outdated/insecure browser/webview, PDF viewer, and Tor daemon.

Very good list. As a daily user of /e/, I can attest to most of the concerns, which I agree are valid.

Advanced Privacy is a major WTF. Using TOR without mentioning it is strange. And so is their all-or-nothing location faker tool. Sounded nice until I wanted to use a navigation app, which too got my fake location. Then I had to disable the faking, making my location available to all applications - quite a headscratcher.

CleanAPK is another WTF baked-in dependency. I suppose they are running it themselves, just not in the open, because of copyright and other issues maybe? I don't know, they don't tell me, and why are we left guessing such an important thing on a privacy phone?

An update also borked my phone, forcing it into a reboot loop. Granted, it was from 0.something to 1.something, but still, it was the next update in line, I thought the updater could manage it.

Aside from these, I'm still a happy user of the system. I appreciate the degoogling effort over the mainline LineageOS.

I'd like to have a question about DivestOS. Which device(s) do you regard as the main one(s)? I mean, which do you think will receive the most updates, the longest support, and so on? I'd wager the ones marked "Tested working" are the most healthy?

Devices marked tested working are ones I have myself. But all devices receive the same monthly updates. If you're buying a device I recommend a Pixel 6/6a with GrapheneOS instead however.

It's not an "alternative", it's still Android, just a fork of a fork.

It's an alternative Android, rather than an alternative to Android. Or it's an alternative to stock-Android.

They used to have a shady app store when I last used it, sourced from cleanapk.org

https://nervuri.net/e/apps

Now, they have opted for forking "Aurora Store" than to choose more closer FOSS alternative like "F-droid".

https://www.xda-developers.com/murena-one-review/

If you like alternative services, great, but small companies are also prone to getting hacked, don't have resources to fight government warrants and can just go under and lose your data. Many store unencrypted data on common cloud providers like Amazon.

No hack required, they leaked data of users themselves: https://community.e.foundation/t/service-announcement-26-may...

And won't offer Nextcloud's E2EE option due to concerns with data loss.

That's a ridiculous issue. I feel better for hosting it myself.

What's the difference from AOSP as it is - can't find that in the article? AFAIK (I have it on my phone) there's nothing Google in there already, no changes needed. Google services and apps have to be installed and I simply didn't do that.

I think AOSP still does things like using google for DNS, connectivity checks, time sync, etc even without google play services installed.

As I understand it:

The Google related things that are excluded from AOSP are things that Google doesn't want them to be there, for whatever reason.

The Google related things that are excluded from this project are things that users don't want them to be there at all, i.e. everything Google related.

My point is, there's practically nothing Google related in my phone already. I am going through the settings and apps and can't find anything. Is LineageOS special in this regard? I thought this is the common AOSP experience, I had it the same with other ROMs.

AOSP by itself still contacts Google --- without any additional apps or services installed. /e/OS has described were/how this occurs.

In case anyone missed it in TFA, here is /e/'s whitepaper on how they substitute and proxy Google services:

https://e.foundation/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/e-state-of-d... (PDF)

There's also an updated description of /e/ here: https://doc.e.foundation/what-s-e

Are you sure about that? Running NetGuard reveals a lot of connections to G where one would not expect them (looking at you, Firefox, too). Also make sure you don't use 8.8.8.8 as DNS.

That said, /e/ is practically LineageOS, except you can buy it preinstalled on new phones.

From /e/'s site, de-googling (because the review didn't go in depth on this):

    - To remove or disable any feature or code that is sending data to Google servers, or at least to anonymize those accesses

    - To offer non-Google default online services, including for search.

    - the Google default search engine is removed and replaced by other services

    - Google Services are replaced by microG and alternative services

    - All Google apps are removed and replaced by equivalent Open Source applications. The one exception is the Maps Application (Looks like it also uses Google's browser Chromium, though with privacy patches)

    - No use of Google servers to check connectivity

    - NTP servers are not Google NTP servers anymore

    - DNS default servers are not Google anymore, and their settings can be enforced by the user to a specific server

    - Geolocation is using Mozilla Location Services in addition to GPS

    - CalDAV/CardDAV management and synchronization application (DAVDroid) is fully integrated with the user account and calendar/contact application

I wonder why these FOSS-y projects don't bundle Firefox for Mobile with them. It is a far superior experience with Add-Ons.

In fact, I don't even use most apps anymore, most websites' web versions are more than adequate nowadays. In fact at least in one instance viz. Duolingo, the web experience is far superior than the app.

I agree that Firefox is great, and addon support is one of the reasons why it is my browser of choice. However, chromium is faster and more secure.

Is there any Android alternative that works with Android Auto? One of the primary uses of my phone is plugging into my car to play music and navigate.

I've been searching for an alternative to Android Auto itself. After an update some months ago, launching the app takes me to a settings panel declaring that Android Auto is no longer supported for phone screens (i.e. it is now only designed to run while linked to a car with a compatible display), and the app itself refuses to run as it used to on just the phone.

Add that functionality to the Google graveyard, I guess...

Possible workaround: downgrade to an older version and disable auto-update?

I don't think Android Auto works without Google Play Services at this time. Here's the feature request for Android Auto support on microG:

https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/issues/897

Lineage works perfectly fine for me with Android Auto

Can you please share your specifics? Phone model, LineageOS version, Android Auto version if you can?

It will work if you install a Google Apps package, but not otherwise.

In my humble opinion, relying on custom ROMs running mandatory non-free drivers is a road to nowhere, long term, due to their unavoidable planned obsolescence. And it always has been. Supporting GNU/Linux phones is the way to improve future privacy and security (despite they may not be as secure as some Android custom ROMs are yet).

Unfortunately for that idea, I would like my phone to actually just function normally, and have support for programs that Android uses. You are making perfect the enemy of good here.

I'm using Pinephone as a daily driver (and waiting for Librem 5 to replace it) and avoid all proprietary Android apps. But you in principle can install them with Waydroid or Anbox.

WayDroid is more usable than a lot of people would expect. Here's a demo from 10 months ago:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dyOgI8PRt9w

> I'm using Pinephone as a daily driver

What OS? Does MMS work out of the box for you?

Mobian. I'm not using MMS; according to [0], it's in beta state.

[0] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=pinephone

Can you share the current state with regards to basic functions (phone calls, SMS, mobile data)? Does it work reliably?

Phone calls and SMS work fine (but I don't use them much), mobile data also (and I do use it a lot). Rarely, typically during the use of mobile data, the modem disappears. Reboot always helps. Telegram and Firefox are somewhat slow but generally work reliably. Even calls on Telegram work (with the sound coming from the speaker). Noscript helps a lot. Calendar is not very usable. Heavy usage with high brightness can drain full battery in a couple of hours, but suspend lasts more than 24 hours.

I have a pinephone pro sitting idly until I find the time to install an OS to try on it.

I'm keen to try sailfish, I had a jolla in the past and really liked it.

At the same time, I'm weird enough that I want to use the terminal on it wherever possible! For calendar I was thinking of using calcurse.

Pinephone users don't tend to mention that the phone is about as powerful as a Galaxy S3. So keep that in mind.

The Galaxy S3 could do everything back in the day, it was and still is plenty powerful. Banking apps, messaging apps, social networks, web browsing, etc. Of course it won't do fancy real-tike Snapchat filters and AI image recognition, but if Android 4.4.x was indefinitely maintained I would have zero problems using one today.

> I'm using Pinephone as a daily driver

Just in case you're not aware, because you seemingly are trying to convince other people: That fact alone indicates that what you're willing to trade off exceeds by an order of magnitude what the average user requires their main phone to do. And that even extends to the average tech-oriented user.

I am speaking to the HN audience here and expect that most people have more technical knowledge than ordinary people. Also, I acknowledged that today AOS might be superior, but it's important to support alternatives, because it will have problems long term, because it's controlled bu Google and heavily relies on proprietary code.

You can wait for the Librem 5 for a very long time, they haven't shipped any significant software update for a long time for mine and its in the state that if you turn on auto-suspend (i.e. don't always go at full 100% CPU) it freezes and needs a hard reboot.

Linux on phone is still very much in the enthusiasts-only phase. Not for me, not for most. And I'm saying that as someone that is a KDE/Linux geek!

Maybe that will change, but for now the e.foundation OS has most definitely a large potential audience that those phones are not going to be able to fill just yet.

I am well aware of the state of Librem 5 shipping. Every time they get the CPUs, they ship another banch of the phones: https://forums.puri.sm/t/estimate-your-librem-5-shipping/112....

Last I checked the forums, Librem 5 works for 10-12 hours on one charge, without suspend. This is mostly fine with me: it should survive a working day and one can buy a spare battery for emergencies. The work on suspend did not stop. Yes, I am undoubtedly an enthusiast.

If you're using "function normally" as a euphemism for "be android," then you're misusing "perfect as the enemy of good," because if you wouldn't be satisfied with a non-Android phone, you certainly don't consider it perfect.

Check out sailfishOS. Not a fork of android but you can get andorid app support on it. You can even get microg on it and use the banking apps (worked for me). The problem is that, officially, they support only a small number of sony models.

there's irony in having "degoogled" Phones built upon a platform that is at the technical discretion of Google, but you'd discount a lot of mindshare that grew around Android to say GNU/Linux is the only way long term. I don't know if the community could sustain a AOSP hardfork (or if it's necessary), but combining a mainline kernel with open firmware is a possibility for Android handhelds too.

The software is not a problem, the hardware is. You should be able to run AOSP on Pinephone and Librem 5 just fine. They do not depend on the proprietary drivers and can run mainline Linux.

the road to nowhere is proprietary firmware for hardware, not if it's running an aosp customrom or gnu/linux. I wanted to make this distinction as your parent comment read as if the gnu/linux part is a precondition. I agree on the downside of having less or no say in android product direction, but it's up to the firmware (and carriers frankly as they control the mobile towers) when obsolescence for a device happens.

I think that they should reduce as much as possible, the background services, telemetry, animations, etc to try to allow battery power to last longer, reduce service fees for internet, etc. Privacy is one issue but it is not the only one. (Furthermore, some manufacturers will include hardware kill switches, which might be able to further reduce power requirements and improve privacy and security.) Functions can still be working if the user specifically activates and controls them, though. App permissions could be done by a proxy implementation; this allows better user controls, for example you can create two separate files with the same app and the files don't know each other (and later move them using file manager if wanted), or to make it access a empty contacts list or one filled in with random data instead of the actual data.

I've been running /e/ OS on Fairphone 3+ for the last 2 years or so. My general experience is very good, the only serious downside is that I cannot purchase a premium license for Locus Map (which has to be purchased via Google app store).

I've been reading for a while about LineageOS. If i recall correctly, i felt like the camera didn't work at all.

It was my takeaway that you couldn't have a "full" phone (meaning, calls, sms, camera, full network, etc) if you were planning on migrating away from iOS or Android from the carrier.

Looks like the e phone has the full experience.

I would prefer to buy an older android phone and install my own OS so I'm able to switch away if I want to.

Is there a good option if that's the desire?

It depends on your phone. LineageOS works entirely on mine (asus z2 or z3, I don't remember), no compromises needed.

edit: Forgot to mention you have to install microg in addition to LineageOS to get notifications.

The camera issue is real. Phone cameras are kinda bad, because they are very limited, and so, a lot of the beautiful magic comes from software. Samsung, quite horrible, put some magic into their kernel, as well as into their camera software. Therefore, one can't just use their proprietary camera app, on a different base system. You can't even shoot slo-mo videos either; I tried the S7 and now the S9 and neither can do it with LineageOS. The still images are not bad with OpenCamera though, although I can't say I'm a connoisseur either.

So full experience? No. But you can slap it on an older phone and enjoy a system that's never even supported officially, and now it's being updated every month. Some rough edges here and there. I'm personally a happy user.

I have been using for years. It is quite usable, improves every day and even replaces things like Google of Office365 clouds (in a self-hostable way). I recently installed on a Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (first version) and I now use it as a laptop whenever I need a very long battery life or something smaller than my full sized Linux laptop. And, it is a real product, one that is thought to be used.

I love LineageOS and have used microG services for so long but forks like this strike me as sad as needing to assimilate to the look and feel of iOS. It comes off as cheap and unoriginal. Now this is harsh criticism I understand but I do appreciate how much effort it must have taken to make all of these app forks. I only wish the effort was spent building something more interesting.

Android launchers are like Linux desktop environments. There are plenty of options, and everyone can pick the one that works best for them. It's easy to install another launcher and set it as the default.

/e/'s Bliss Launcher is going to feel more familiar for people who are coming from iOS. For a more traditional Android experience, Lawnchair* would be a better fit. It's just like how GNOME and KDE are closer in design to the desktop environments of macOS and Windows, respectively.

Every Android distribution has to pick a default launcher. /e/ choosing an iOS-like launcher by default is their way of attracting users who want a simpler user experience.

* Lawnchair: https://lawnchair.app

I use /e/OS with Discreet Launcher. It does not mimic iOS.

It does look like /e/ mimics iOS by default, though, which is where I think the original poster's criticism is aimed. The screenshot in this article showing bliss is very iOS-y.

I really don't care as long as it doesn't mimic Google and try to destroy my privacy. Lots of other launchers to choose from and changing is easy.

> It comes off as cheap and unoriginal.

To me it comes off as Apple fans doing Apple-type shit. I'm not an Apple UI fan, but if someone is, they should imitate what they like instead of trying to invent some entirely new garbage paradigm, without any particular inspiration, when they really just wanted to make a nice distro that they would enjoy using.

the forks create a great burden of keeping them up to date, and they can't keep up of course with constrained resources. Though it gives them independence to achieve orthogonal goals.

Having default apps colors aligned is soothing, not sad at all. It's not iOS-y beyond the launcher.

I think they have even less amount of effort that they can spend. And all of that is spent keeping the builds up to date, the infra up to date and working, and other low level things like that. I wish they get enough resources to employ more people to increase efforts on QA, UX and other such things.

I have installed /e/ on my old Xiaomi phone for months now, and it is amazing. The OS is stable, and I can install many apps from the apps store. It also being updated frequently, so at least it has the latest security patch covered. If only my phone doesn't have a charging problem (it is a hardware problem), I might have used it as my main phone.

This is unrelated from the rest of the project, but why do open source projects in general have such inexplicably bad marketing? To the degree where you can't believe that somebody actually thought this would work? To the degree you can't believe someone with no marketing experience could be this inept?

What is /e/? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? How do I tell people about it? Does it stick out in a Google search (which it does not)?

But on that line, why do we have GIMP, GNOME, Everything starting with the letter K on KDE, KDE itself, Hector Martin's "Asahi Lina" nonsense, and on and on...

> why do open source projects in general have such inexplicably bad marketing?

Because they don't pay a marketing team to work 9-5 alongside them? That's probably the reason why all the art is ugly too, their website kinda sucks, et al. But that's not really the main appeal of this project, and I think it's honorable that they're focusing all their effort on the product rather than the vanity. If they did spend time writing marketing double-speak, the HN refutation du-jour would be that they're not focusing on privacy enough.

> But on that line, why do we have GIMP, GNOME, Everything starting with the letter K on KDE, KDE itself, Hector Martin's "Asahi Lina" nonsense, and on and on...

Why was one of the first NES emulators called Nesticle? Who knows, and who cares? The quality of the software spoke for itself, and it opened the doors to decades of unsuccessful litigation from Sony and Nintendo. The same thing happened for Linux, Nginx, Kubernetes, BSD... you name it. The utility of these projects far outweighs their respective sex appeal, so why even bother making a pretty landing page?

While we're on the topic, why does Apple have such a bad history of choosing names for their stuff too? "Xcode" doesn't confer anything to me as a user, at least "Visual Studio" tells me I'm about to be using an IDE. Also makes it sound like an x11/Xorg tool, which it certainly isn't. Similarly, "Logic Pro", "Final Cut" and even "iTunes" are dorky titles. Even Microsoft, the patron saint of bad UX design, has the balls to just call their app "Music" and "Photos".

I'm a little hung up on the fact that you think between "Xcode" and "visual studio" that the latter is the one that more suggests you're about to be writing code in an IDE.

On every Unix box I've ever used, any tool prefixed with 'X' usually relates to the display server technology. MacOS is the only outlier here, and the 'X' doesn't really mean anything to me as a user. The word 'code' hints that it's a tool for development, but altogether it could mean anything from a compiler to a Xorg IDE. At least Visual Studio conveys the idea that you're going to be using a GUI application with designer/compositional tools, and adding 'Code' to it clarifies that it's a visual tool for manipulating code.

It's a bit of a reach, but if you think the average iPad user could tell you what "Logic" does, I'd be inclined to disagree.

Do you need good marketing to guide your decisions? Do you need someone else validating your choices? Why do you care about "good marketing"?

> How do I tell people about it?

"hey, the website is https://e.foundation, here is the link"

That was not so hard, was it?

Why would you put work into something meant for others to use, and then make it hard for people to find it?

Who said that is hard to find it? Is it hard compared to what? How much does it cost (in times and resources) to make it "easier" to find it? The people working on it are doing it for free (as in, it cost me literally nothing to download and install /e/OS on my phone) and you think you still feel entitled to get "good marketing" on top of it?

If you think that the product is lacking in some part, how about you CONTRIBUTE to make it better instead of just diminishing the work of others?

What a fucking lame attitude.

It's like if your buddy created an awesome website that provided a great free service and then called it jflasdjfjasdfjkereifsd.yzy

You'd wonder they shot themselves in the foot like that. It would've been easy to give it a good name but instead they severely limited the potential of their hard work for seemingly no reason.

It's not entitlement, it is confusion.

Also why are you so confrontational?

I don't need to type the address to use it. If the site is "awesome", I will use it regardless of the name.I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE NAME, I care about what it does and what are the guiding principles.

I am confrontational because your "confusion" is just stupid concern trolling. Do you think that it is important to get more people to be less dependent on Big Tech? Then here is an operating system that works pretty well. This is what you need to be telling people, not how you think that the name is bad. Stop worrying about the "marketing", and just use and promote better alternatives. By being and acting self-conscious about something that does not matter, you are not collaborating at all.

> I will use it regardless of the name.I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE NAME

Your preferences are not consequential. We are concerned with how the public behaves. And names matter a lot for discoverability.

If you really cared about more people using /e/, you should be concerned that the name is needlessly reducing its reach. I plan on trying /e/, but you are not doing the project any favors with your attitude.

> We are concerned with how the public behaves.

Speak for yourself. I am not "concerned" about anything so abstract as "public behavior". All I am "concerned" about is my personal ability to keep my freedom and my choices, and by extension I am concerned about others having the same freedoms. Being concerned about "behavior" is the last of my worries.

> And names matter a lot for discoverability.

It didn't stop you from finding out about it, did it?

> you are not doing the project any favors with your attitude.

Why? Are you worried that if people see you using a phone with /e/OS you will be associated with grumpy rude graybeards?

I think it’s pretty clear now. The answer is that some people like the person you replied to think it doesn’t matter. The truth is it actually matters a lot.

They appear to enjoy being angry.

What does it matter for, exactly?

It matters if you equate success with total domination, or think that something is only worth doing if it can create a huge gathering of people blindly supporting it.

What if we simply don't care about that? Here we have a system that works well, that can do all the things that I need and that respects my freedoms. I've mentioned it to other people already, all of them simply said "ok, cool" and went on with their lives.

Do you think that the name was the reason that it stopped them from changing it, or do you think that the main thing was "wait, but I want to continue using Google/Apple"? Do you think that their indifference made the product any less useful to me and the other thousands of people who use it? Do you think that my identity is tied to the OS of my phone?

Honestly, can you make a solid effort of explaining what matters so much about marketing, and why?

From /e/'s website:

> Our mission: make technology that respects user privacy accessible to everyone.

https://e.foundation/about-e/

I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that /e/ should rebrand itself, if the new name makes /e/ more accessible to potential users who are searching for it. Good marketing doesn't necessarily mean "total domination", but it can help /e/ fulfill its mission by extending its reach.

Being accessible has nothing to do with being popular.

> I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that /e/ should rebrand itself

Unreasonable, it is not. It is just vapid bike shedding. It is the kind of discussion topic that I would expect from corporate MBA types and useless hacks who never built anything in their lives, not something worthy of so many comments here.

> Being accessible has nothing to do with being popular.

I didn't say that. Something that is accessible is "easy to find or reach": https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/learner-engli...

/e/ wants to make its technology easy for others to find and use, and a rebrand can help them do that.

I’ve tried to search for supported Samsung devices, especially the S20 FE, and it’s a nightmare to find anything relevant using Google. Google Search ignores /e/, making it all but impossible to find anything about the /e/ project.

I can relate to the OP, /e/ is nit a very handy name for Google searches. It’s like it doesn’t exist. What’s the point of a name you can’t Google, or pronounce?

In case someone might have the same question: the Samsung Galaxy S20 FE is not supported. In fact all recent Samsung devices are not supported. Support for new Samsung smartphones seems to have halted, most recent model in the S-family is the S10, released more than 3 years ago.

Does anyone know why recent Samsung devices are unsupported? After all, Samsung is one of the biggest smartphone makers. It seems odd to ignore such large user base.

In recent years, Samsung phones sold in the U.S. generally have bootloaders that cannot be unlocked, so it's not possible to flash other OSes onto them.[1] The Samsung devices that can be bootloader-unlocked tend not to be mod-friendly. For example, Samsung phones permanently disable the Knox security feature when the bootloader is unlocked, and it is not restored even if the bootloader is relocked after a factory reset.[2]

/e/'s lead developer is based in France, so /e/ does support some non-U.S. Samsung phone models.

[1] https://www.thecustomdroid.com/sampwnd-unlock-bootloader-sam...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/galaxys10/comments/c91f8a/is_knox_n...

GIMP really bothers me. It makes it really hard to recommend.

Minor unrelated, but very happy with how quickly the webpage loaded and how it's just pure content (viewing from mobile)

I'll never use a custom ROM that includes microg by default. LineageOS with no gapps of any kind is my preference. I can get apps from f-droid or even aurora store, and everything I need works. I don't want any google stuff on there, not even a slightly less sketchy version.

Sure, but, unfortunately, a lot of apps require Google Play Services to work at all, so microG is the only sane alternative. The fact /e/OS includes it pre-configured OOB is a positive for my use case.

My primary device runs GrapheneOS, but a secondary device with /e/OS is the next best thing for apps that refuse to work without Google Play Services. Or those that I just want to keep off my main device.

I might be misunderstanding it, but microg is not (like the name suggests) a stripped down version of the google services. It is a reimplementation of the APIs that the google services provide to installed apps. It doesn't reuse any code (it couldn't, because the google services are not open source) and doesn't connect to google servers, afaik.

> doesn't connect to google servers

Microg optionally supports Firebase Cloud Messaging for apps that require it for push notifications.

As per their motto, MicroG is "A free-as-in-freedom re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries". They absolutely do connect to Google services, just not with the proprietary Google implementation of the softwares, but with a reimplementation. I think this is very similar to NewPipe for example. Google's proprietary services, with an open source frontend.

I have been using LOS since 17.1 on OP3T and OP6. How would my experience with /e/ differ?

How are you using Google services on LineageOS now? Do you have microG preinstalled (LineageOS for microG)[1], did you install GApps, or are you not using Google services at all?

/e/ has microG installed, just like LineageOS for microG. Compared to the proprietary Google Play Services in GApps, microG is a FOSS library that allows apps to access Google services. microG lets you selectively enable/disable push notification access for individual apps that depend on Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging, and also lets you choose a location provider other than Google. On the other hand, microG is not compatible with all apps that depend on Google Play Services. For example, Android Auto and Google Pay are not supported.

Also, /e/ and LineageOS support different versions for different devices. Since LineageOS supports Android 12 on OnePlus 6T,[2] while /e/ has that device on Android 11 (R),[3] LineageOS for microG may be a better choice on that device. Both /e/ and LineageOS support Android 11 on the OnePlus 3T.[4][5]

[1] https://lineage.microg.org

[2] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/enchilada/

[3] https://doc.e.foundation/devices/enchilada

[4] https://doc.e.foundation/devices/oneplus3

[5] https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/oneplus3/

have been using microG (as LOS for microG) up until about two years ago. but it seemed less and less actively developed, so I switchted to vanilla LOS. No GApps. Everything I need works (even stuff like Signal or Google Maps). Only type of apps that don't work are some actively and unnecessarily screening for Google Services or stuff like Uber which uses an integrated map.

> LineageOS for microG may be a better choice on that device

LOS for microG always seemed a bit fishy - the way the project is run and executed. Seemed less transparent than vanilla LOS. microG's release schedule is a bit gappy for my taste. sometimes no updates or fixes for several months :/

https://doc.e.foundation/devices

> while /e/ has that device on Android 11 (R)

The versioning of /e/ seems to be about as confusing as the project name itself but as far as I can tell from that table there is no device with a version beyond R. so, I'd assume they just need some more time to release it?

since you seem knowledgeable..

I noticed when apps are installed on Chinese androids they generally magically work just fine. I remember reading that at install time the app detects if it's on a western or Chinese phone and it reconfigures itself accordingly (this was with Signal)

The issues appear when you install on a western phone and disable Google play services and the apps keep trying to access them

For instance on my mainland xiaomi Instagram works just fine, but on my Taiwanese xiaomi (with the global ROM) it won't do notifications and I don't know how to fix it

If there a way to have apps install in this Chinese mode?

It depends on how the developer chooses to implement the notifications and on how the app is distributed. The Play Store distribution of Signal uses Firebase Cloud Messaging (via Google Play Services or microG) and falls back to WebSockets if FCM is unavailable. The website distribution[1] of Signal only uses WebSockets. I don't think Signal tries to detect whether the phone is Chinese, only whether FCM is available.

Since Google services (including FCM) are blocked in China, apps that serve both Chinese and non-Chinese users usually find some way to support both FCM and the Chinese equivalents. For example, Airbnb serves users both inside and outside of China, so they distribute two builds of their app. The Play Store distribution of Airbnb relies solely on FCM for push notifications. The Chinese distribution of Airbnb,[2] according to an App Manager[3] tracker scan, bundles push notification libraries from JPush,[4] Xiaomi, Huawei, and Vivo.

Developers can choose to have one app distribution that support all of these services, or they can release separate builds that each handle some of these services. This varies from app to app.

[1] https://signal.org/android/apk/

[2] Visit https://www.airbnb.cn on an Android phone and the download banner appears at the bottom.

[3] https://github.com/MuntashirAkon/AppManager

[4] https://www.jiguang.cn/en/push

Ohhh, releasing multiple apks. That hadnt occured to me but it makes sense. I do use the Huawei app store which may be why I generally don't have issues

Im still not super clear why Instagram/Messenger don't give notifications. It could be that they started using Google services at some point and I hadn't noticed, though I'd find that surprising given theyre competitors. Maybe I should try this AppManager. Also LINE will not work - but I've never had that work in the past. Another workaround that sometimes works is finding a "Lite" version or the all. But they've been mostly deprecated in recent years

It has some preinstalls that make onboarding more straightforward (and opinionated of course). These include MicroG (takes care of some Google services dependencies, should some apps need it), an App store which fronts Google Play, a navigation app. Updates are possible from within the system. With their Advanced Privacy app, you can block trackers in apps (TrackerControl fork I believe), fake your device location, or force all network traffic through Tor.

Advanced Privacy is at its core original, with the exception being TorService from Orbot and the basic of the blocker from personalDNSFilter.

Developed on grant from NGI: https://ledgerproject.github.io/home/#/teams/e

/e/ docs say it uses Android keyboard, wouldn't that be a source of a data leak?

The "Android Keyboard (AOSP)"[1] in /e/ is a fork of the LineageOS keyboard.[2] Neither of these keyboards have network access.

This is different from the keyboards that are preloaded on some Android phones, such as Gboard and Samsung Keyboard, which do connect to the internet.

[1] https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/os/android_packages_inputmetho...

[2] https://github.com/LineageOS/android_packages_inputmethods_L...

Sadly, most of newer smartphones are getting shipped with more default google apps like Phone, Messaging & Keyboard.

AOSP alternatives of these apps works well, but manufacturers are choosing/forced to choose more Google apps as default which is really sad.

I don't want Google updating "Phone" app every few days.

Really embarrassing level of blatant copying of iOS icons and design language, here.

"Picasso had a saying. He said, 'Good artists copy; great artists steal', and we have, you know, always been shameless about stealing great ideas."

-- Steve Jobs, in Triumph of the Nerds (1996 documentary)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jeZ7m0ycw

This isn't Steve Jobs.

Seriously? Here's the transcript straight from PBS, the distributor of the documentary:

https://www.pbs.org/nerds/part3.html

I welcome you to defend why it's embarrassing.

It's embarrassing, a priori.

There's so much here that is embarrassing that we'd have to have about five beers to even cover it on a surface level. So much that was just lazily copied verbatim rather than anyone TRYING to do something original, or even do just a slight, semi-creative variation.

Copying good design on a volunteer project is not shameful. We disagree.

So will Google pull the rug out from under this if it starts getting real traction?

Google Pixels generally have the best support for alternate OSes, especially from a security POV. See CalyxOS and GrapheneOS, which primarily/only support Pixels thanks to their ability to re-lock the bootloader.

I doubt third party Android distributions pose any real threat to Google given that 99% of people will stick to the default.

According to comment by head graphene developer on twitter, google devs really like what they are doing and are happy about it.

Apple also recently made changes into their Mac code supposedly to help Asahi Linux team.

They haven't done that so far, and the predecessors were getting plenty of traction (CyanogenMod, LineageOS). Neither have they controlled the alternative Chromium distributions too much. Nevertheless, the project depends on Google on the long term.

after being an android user for about 13 years i switched to an iphone se this year, and i’m very satisfied. you just can’t compare apples and oranges, android is sluggish even with a high end phone

I suppose it's all personal preference past a point..

I tried switching from an old Pixel 3 to a new iPhone recently and just couldn't get on with it. Simple things like not being able to order the home screen how I want it drove me nuts.

Dropped back to a Pixel 4a (5G) and I'm very satisfied. No issues with sluggish performance that I've seen.

Surely you haven’t tried all Android phones out there, so why make such a generalizing comment? I’m daily driving a mediocre Pixel 4a and have no such issues. I also tried an iPhone 11 Pro alongside my Pixel for a few months. What an unwieldy brick that was and they’re only getting heavier. Notifications handling and navigating the settings suck big time, and overall it felt very restricting to use.

I switched to an Iphone 11 Pro last year after many years with Android, but I'm going back to Android when two years has passed (I'm on agreement to be able to switch every 2 years), although I would happily look into /e/ instead. One and a half years with IOS has been a misery so far, due to lack of separate media volume the switch is almost always on silent - thus I regularly misses many calls. I feel shortage of RAM on IOS, and the way they have solved it is by having some form of pseudo multi tasking.

please tell me this is pronounced "slashyslash"

Every time this OS is linked on HN half the comments are about pronunciation. That’s probably not a good thing when it comes to marketing..

I agree. It's good that it's distinct, but it's very hard to pronounce or google.

Not to mention include in filenames.

Calling it an alternative is an insult against actual alternatives. It's still Android, just less googly.

Cool, except... What alternatives are there? With the caveat that phone calls (roaming too), SMS and mobile data must work reliably. Is there an alternative that provides this? Librem 5 maybe? Last I checked neither PinePhone nor Purism were there yet.

The problem with Android based "alternatives" is Googles licensing. The licensing agreements for Googles apps require that Google gets to decide which android forks device manufacturers are allowed to sell if they don't want to be completely cut of from Googles ecosystem. So if you actually plan to use it for anything bigger you wont even be able to find a manufacturer willing to touch it, even Amazon had problems getting the Kindle produced. Any attempt to de google Android will be stuck as a niche product for enthusiasts.

It sounds interesting but I cannot connect the dots.

So, the Google-authored apps' use can become illegal in future on a specific ("bigger") fork of Android you say? But that's just the license terms of Google apps. I don't understand what would a manufacturer be afraid of, exactly? (Does Kindle need any Google apps?...)

Most big manufacturers currently sell Google approved Android with Google apps. Selling even one not approved Android device voids the license for Google apps on the manufacturers entire existing lineup as far as I understand. It is either all or nothing.

Imagine yourself convincing Samsung to dump entire warehouses filled with Google (TM) Android phones and any chance of future success in that market in the trash over a handful of ebook readers. That is what Amazon had to deal with.

> Selling even one not approved Android device voids the license [...] on the manufacturers entire existing lineup

Ummm, that is not how licenses work legally, so I had trouble believing that exact link in the reasoning chain.

But I went and check... And you are right. It turns out that Google Apps are services, by which I mean they are governed by ToS not the license. And with ToS anybody could be cut off, duh.

I've been using SailfishOS for 3 years now as my daily driver, never had any problems with calls, sms or mobile data. Roaming or not. It is not a fork of android but if you get the paid version you get android app support on it. At one point I even got microg on it to see if my banking application would work and it did. Officially they support a very small number of phones, I think only some sony models.

The asinine name gets an F.

Store brand iOS

I feel like I wouldn't use this based on the name alone. How do I say it? forward slash ee forward slash? I don't understand why anyone would think it was a good idea to name it this!

My immediate reaction was that it was some sort of 4chan project, tounge-in-cheek named after their softcore porn board (also named "/e/").

I'd wager I'm not the only one thinking that.

Careful, your powerlevel is showing.

When I see slash letter slash I think "a board on 4chan". In this case, it happens to be a pornographic board.

Bad name all around.

Hey, at least it isn't a political board or something. That would be much worse.

A solid product name is important for marketing, to be sure.

However, it's also a way that native English folks prejudice against foreign products that are arguably very useful and valuable.

I'm not saying you're wrong in doing what everyone does and allowing the marketing naming to sway your decision. However, I would gently suggest that you take a more critical approach and evaluate the actual product instead of letting something as simple as naming deter you from using a product.

After all, kubernetes is complicated and stupid sounding, but we can just rebrand it to "Google Cloud" or whatever and people will love it. Same can be done for /e/... they'll just call it "NextPhone" or some other catchy name.

something named /e/ has literally no obvious means of pronunciation in any human language. This really is on a different level of stupid for a name.

You mention Kubernetes. I raise you Microsoft Kaizala. That is such a stupid name in English even though i recognise and know the language it is from - Marathi.

Naming is a delicate game and there are numerous examples of brand names that transcend language - Ikea, Nissan, Mitsubishi and so on.

but but, /ɪˈkeːa/!

edit: hmm... that settles it then: the pronunciation is simply, /e/. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/

I don't immediately understand why Kaizala is a stupid name, in or out of English.

I see how you latched onto the bad Kubernetes example and clearly ignored the “discounting non-English products” part.

I’ll grant you my Kubernetes example was bad but I have no idea what you’re getting at with Microsoft Kaizala. Probably cause I’ve never heard of it or Marathi.

I think it’s understandable that people judge a name, but at the same time, judging can be a form of discrimination. I feel it’s important to ask myself how I might be biased when I make off the cuff judgements based on just a name.

Also, I think the reason Nissan, Mitsubishi, etc transcended languages is because the product was good even if the name was different or weird for the time. People saw the product was good and didn’t care what it was called.

My internal monologue pronounces it as "ecchi".

Nno, what are you doing step-phone!?

I have been following this project for years. I think they lost their original name to a copyright claim (the claim seemed a stretch, but whatever). /e/ was supposed to be the temp name, and they have forever been discussing how it needs to change.... Not sure why it has never happened.

There is nothing more permanent than a temporary solution --some genius

/e/ sells smartphones preloaded with /e/ OS through its sister company Murena:

https://murena.com/products/smartphones/

It would make sense for /e/ to rebrand to Murena OS, if they're willing to change their name.

Every time I see it, I just call it e. Why deal with the cognitive overhead of trying to figure out a shit name?

and how do I look it up on google if I need help with something?

A lot of websites (including TFA) are calling it "/e/ OS", which seems to work fine for searches.

People should just call it Slashy Slash...

I don't understand either; especially the fact that no one seemed to have done any research on any existing usage of /e/. The only explanation that makes sense is they were deliberately referencing the 4chan board, which is indeed a place best visited with privacy.

At least they didn't call it /b/.

the original name was eelo. then they discovered that eelo was a trademark owned by someone else. /e/ was a stopgap measure, while they were looking for a new name. already some years ago they said they had a new name, but they were working to make sure the name was rock solid (trademarking it in several jurisdictions i guess).

i think murena is that new name. i don't know why they don't use that for the OS. but i guess it's because once you have a brand, it's difficult to change. maybe over time when murena is more well known they will try to rebrand the OS too.

branding is hard. rebranding is even harder. especially if you don't have a large marketing budget.

Murena sounds like an IUD.

Did no-one else immediately think of (or relate it to) Enlightenment?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(software)

Absolutely - and Carsten kind of worked / works in this space.

I thought it might be referencing an upside down G.

When the title said "Android alternative", I was actually expecting an alternative OS (like Sailfish or Ubuntu Touch), not a mere LineageOS fork. That's like calling Ubuntu a "Linux alternative".

It's closer to calling Rocky Linux an alternative to RHEL.

Ok, we've Android-based it in the title above.

Eventually it would be nice if they could contribute to Osmand and get it up to snuff for daily use and replace Magic Earth.

Organic Maps has a simple user interface that makes it a more similar FOSS replacement for Magic Earth.

- Organic Maps: https://organicmaps.app

OsmAnd is a heavyweight with more features, including an advanced OSM editor, trip recording, Mapillary street view, and other plugins, for those that need them.

- OsmAnd: https://osmand.net

I can vouch that organic maps is really quite nice, straight forward and familiar.

OSMAnd is more fun, in my opinion, because of all the features but if you're looking for familiar, organic maps is the way to go.

What I'd really like is for all OSM apps to agree on a place to store the offline OSM data.

I don't mind having multiple navigation apps with different strengths/weaknesses but I don't want to download several gigs of offline maps for each app I might use.

Organic Maps is nice, thanks for the pointer.

Maps.me looks very similar - are they related somehow?

Yes, Organic Maps is a fork of Maps.me. The original Maps.me was acquired by Daegu Limited, a subsidiary of the financial services company Parity.com, and they stopped publishing source code afterward.

- Press release: https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/MAIL/mail-r...

- OSM removed from Maps.me, then re-added: https://github.com/mapsme/omim/issues/14076

- No more source code releases from Maps.me: https://github.com/mapsme/omim/issues/14157

Organic Maps was forked from Maps.me when they started adding ads and trackers.

In my experience, where the open source apps often come up short is not really mapping but rather turn by turn navigation. The first, most obvious indictor being the voice prompts. If they sound like a bad video game from the 90's, you can bet the directions are equally flawed/bad.

For me, the biggest issue is business information.

I rarely use map apps to find directions, except while hiking or having a stroll, in which case, yes, OSM is superior.

Most of the time, I need to either:

A) Look up a certain type of business, check its opening hours and (if applicable) menu, phone or message them to ask any questions, and only then drive to the business in question

or B) get somewhere without a car, and figure out the fastest route by public transportation without having to find multiple different websites and cross-reference their respective timesheets

These activities aren't really the job of a mapping or navigation map, they're the job for a data mining app.

OSM often has better paths than Google Maps, but Google's commercial and transportation databases aren't going to get beaten by any open source service any time soon.

OSMAnd currently has spyware built in, per the App Store privacy label.

I don't think it is an appropriate choice for a privacy-focused OS.

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