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To me, this situation only serves to illustrate the importance of computer owners optionally being able to create systems "from scratch". Versus the only option being to use some "we-already-did-the-work-for-you" facility such as a "software development kit" or whatever the terminology is these days.

Custom ROMs might seem like "building from scratch" but to me, it is still far from it. People are still stuck following rules made by someone else, and not the hardware manufacturer. Those rules can change any time, for any reason, long after purchase. Google's ability to easily frustrate people trying to control their pocket-sized computers suggests that whatever control they are able to achieve, it is not enough.

Until I can run NetBSD on an old "phone", or some other pocket-sized computer with similar form factor, I'm not satisfied.

I don't share your experience wrt apps and root checks at all. Only once in a blue moon do I encounter an app that does this, and when they do it's just a good reason not to use it.

In the rest of the cases, say games, the basic root hiding of magisk/kernelsu do wonders, and since recently w/ kernelsu the safetynet bypass comes out of the box. Of course, I avoid relying on this for anything I can't go without.

That said, a big part of this experience might be related to how I primarily run applications from F-Droid these days. The free software app ecosystem is absolutely massive and very mature compared to when I first went gapps-less around 2015, to the point it's rare for me to use anything from the android market at all.

they suppressed hackability since the beginning though, but of course not as much as Apple... For example, by default, they block native Linux apps, block ad-hoc WiFi, rooting your device can be a pain, etc

Getting rid of rooting is not a "war on general computing." General computing means that you can write a wide variety of software for them instead of the computer being meant for a specific use case. The app platform on Android allows for such a variety of apps. Just because it's not possible for an app to record your microphone without asking the user for permission that doesn't mean that the phone isn't general purpose.

If I own it, I should be able to make it do what I tell it to do. Its a simple concept, no need to water it down to please our corporate overlords.

If I don't have root on my device, is it really my device?

Yes. That line of logic is like thinking you don't own a hard disk if the firmware on it prevents you from scratching / destroying the platter.

"Installing software I want" and "physically destroying my device" are not the same thing, and shame on you for trying to equate them.

"Installing software you want" and "getting access to the root user" are not the same thing either. The root user is a means to an end and not the end in itself for one's desires they have with a computer.

When Google decides that you're not allowed to install a piece of software you want on a non-rooted device (such as a phone call recorder or an ad blocker), and the only way to bypass those restrictions is using root access, then they become the same thing.

A hard disk firmware module isn't connected to the internet and reporting on you (yet).

Side note I'm super sad the fabric connected hard drives that were popping up seem to have vanished. Drives already run pretty fancy ARM controllers; having a 2.5Gbit network connection out would be such a sweet sweet sweet game changer.

I mean... yes? If a disk has firmware that prevents the owner from destroying it when desired, that's really not okay. It even has a practical angle in cases where you need to make a disk unreadable.

One unstated part of that "if I don't have root on my device" statement is "...and someone else does have root on my device". On normal Android, Google does have root on your device, while you don't. For instance, whenever you tell the Android Market app (nowadays caled "Google Play Store", but internally it's still the same app) to install an application, it doesn't actually install the application; it tells the Google servers to ask your device to install the application, and a highly privileged service on your device does the actual download and installation.

Said service is highly privileged because it's signed with a key only Google has; several system services have special access (root-equivalent, or even actual root) to your device, and these are signed by the Google key. Some of these can be remotely updated, and this update is silent (I had long ago written a small app found at https://github.com/cesarb/packageaddedremovednotifier to notify me about these silent installs, but it depended on a notification which is no longer broadcast on more recent Android versions; it was instructive for me to notice how often Android Market and one other app were silently updated).

It's true that you don't have root on your hard disk (until you connect to its serial console pins and notice that it doesn't even ask for a password before giving you full access to all its low-level commands), but neither does anyone else.

>Google does have root on your device

Root access is meaningless on a user build of Android. Android is designed such that the root account is not needed and it is locked down using SELinux.

> to notify me about these silent installs, but it depended on a notification which is no longer broadcast on more recent Android versions

I built a test app on Android 14 and I was able to get the broadcast you are referring to. The changes which the app you linked has not adapted to is that since Android 8 you need to use Context.registerReceiver() to register an implicit broadcast receiver for those actions [1] and since Android 11 you need to use a <queries> tag (or query all permission) in order to get visibility of other apps on the system [2].

[1] https://developer.android.com/about/versions/oreo/background...

[2] https://developer.android.com/training/package-visibility

I’m not that pessimistic. The world ebbs and flows.

There was a time when if you wanted an app, it had to be for Windows. It needed to be digitally signed (for good reason) not long later. Good luck moving it to any other platform. Also, good luck getting past corporate IT departments.

Then, the internet got better. Anyone could make a program that ran on any device. Later, we need pseudo-signing for that too, but it was nowhere near as intensive to get.

Desktop computers have never been a free for all. It ebbs and flows. Less freedom on system apps, greater freedom for web apps is the new vogue.

Let’s also not forget the motivation for this - people learned to be terrified of installing software. Remember Windows 10 and 11 S mode? Microsoft claims 60% of users never leave that mode to install even one app outside the Microsoft Store. That’s how much the “Normie” has learned to fear programs, and I think that there’s some blame to be had there. We desired freedom at the expense of the normal user. The normal user has rebelled and rejected freedom voluntarily.

The “Normie” user is perfectly content with a walled garden and a big tech company “securing” their experience. They’ve had their taste of freedom with Windows in the 90s and 2000s and fear it immensely. Blue screens, viruses, clunky software, broken updates, unreliable - but free. Unlike iPhone: Automatic updates, no crashes, viruses almost nonexistent, reliable and simple. Not technically free, but it feels free enough. We don’t really have anyone but ourselves (tech enthusiasts in general) to blame.

I can’t overstate this enough: We want freedom? We need to break the well-earned cultural stereotype that freedom equals a terrible experience.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm old enough to remember the exact "free for all" on desktop computers that you claim never existed.

Take your "walled gardens" and stuff it. Not everyone wishes to be boxed in that way.

> Take your "walled gardens" and stuff it. Not everyone wishes to be boxed in that way.

Yes, everyone on Hacker News doesn’t want to be boxed in this way.

In the real world, literally nobody gives a darn about Apple having an iOS monopoly. They love their iPhones, they hate their laptops. Why is that?

> They love their iPhones, they hate their laptops.

Feels like unsubstantiated generalisation.

Source(s)?

They don't effing know and most people don't have the mental stack or attention span to make it through an explanation of the factors/consequences involved.

Believe me, I've tried hard to get things boiled down for the layman. We're at a point we're literally speaking languages that have no commonly relatable interpersonal equivalent.

I would say, most anyone involved in tech since pre 2008 feels this way, not only everyone to HN.

As a friend of mine says “oh no you’re confused, this is MY phone…” and then mutters to himself, whose phone is this anyway?

It's much more simple: Normal people (read: not us) buy computers to accomplish a given task, computers are merely tools; a computer and a can opener are exactly the same thing. If the computer serves its user's purpose, that's all that matters.

That is to say: Normal people couldn't care less about fleedumb and rible. Normal people care about getting shit done; presently, locked down smartphones get shit done better than any other computational device for normal people.

I also buy computers and phones to accomplish task. Those task are, however, way more diverse than task people you are referring to are willing to accomplish.

> There was a time when if you wanted an app, it had to be for Windows. [...] Desktop computers have never been a free for all.

You're not going back far enough (as shown by your statement mentioning only Windows). Back in the MS-DOS days, there was no technical block to doing whatever you wanted with your system. It's no coincidence that Linux originated in these days; the openness of PC clones running one of the DOS variants (MS-DOS wasn't the only one) allowed for the full replacement of the operating system with nearly zero effort. You didn't even have to change the boot sector; a DOS program (LOADLIN.EXE) could completely switch the currently running operating system.

Things are much more locked down in desktop computers nowadays, and the only reason they aren't completely locked down is that Linux had already become popular enough to convince Microsoft to allow for a backdoor (actually a pair of backdoors: signing by Microsoft for popular distributions, and manual disabling for less popular distributions and development).

> [...] people learned to be terrified of installing software. [...] Microsoft claims 60% of users never leave that mode to install even one app outside the Microsoft Store. That’s how much the “Normie” has learned to fear programs, [...]

Is it fear, or is it just convenience? If everything you want or need at that moment is on whatever software store you have (be it the Microsoft Store or Steam or something else), there's not much incentive to look beyond it. It's like what's been said about video streaming providers: once every show you wanted was on a single streaming provider, there was not much incentive anymore to look around on seedy corners of the web for movies, but once that convenience is no longer available (because said provider no longer has the media you want), people once again look for alternatives.

(As an aside, think about the reason "developer mode" in more recent Android versions is hidden behind a secret knock on a disused corner at the bottom of the settings application: if it weren't a hidden setting, "normal users" would enable it. The same with bypassing some security warning pages in the desktop Chrome browser. If "normal users" really feared freedom, they would stay away from these options without the need to hide them.)