I'll only buy devices with GrapheneOS
jonashietala.se
jonashietala.se
I've been using GrapheneOS for about a year and it has worked well. Only have two minor issues:
1) I'd like the ability to have timestamp data added to the EXIF image info. There is an option to have the GPS data added, so timestamp really ought to be an option too, though I certainly understand why some users would choose neither. I'll probably end up writing a Perl driver for exiftool to add the timestamp based on the image filename which is YYYYMMDD_HH_MMSS_MSEC.
2) There aren't many fonts and Roboto supplies 1037 glyphs. The card suit symbols are missing which matters to a bridge player. E-books that display correctly almost everywhere don't on GrapheneOS unless the e-book explicitly includes a font with glyphs for the suits.
I don't know how good /e/OS is, but at least there is a place to get it factory loaded on cell phones and install it on phone brands other than Google.
And then there is Lineage OS, which I've had good luck using the extend the life of phones in the past. I haven't tried it since Play Integrity started being such an important feature, but I suppose that just pushes one to be even more open source on their Lineage device. I've been wanting to try Lineage again, but I misplaced the phone I want to try it on.
Buying a phone from Google is hardly ideal, but the effect is limited by the earnings being nothing but a blip in the grand scheme of things. Having an alternative OS is important enough to offset it IMO.
We all knew this was inevitable, but nobody made any better options.
> "I guess the best way to degoogle right now is to buy from Google"
Google has a monopoly on sort-of-open-but-not-really smartphones. And interoperability on ARM desktop isn't looking pretty either.
(and I say this as a user of GNOME)
Funny enough, that's also why Windows is in the state it's in. Funny how that works.
Currently it's only Pixels from 8 up.
Other alternative firmware projects don't seem to be too concerned about security (eg they don't support relocking bootloader, don't support secure boot, don't release patches for months), so they're not really in the same ballpark ALTHOUGH I agree that they still might be better option than stock OS on the device abandoned by the vendor.
No other vendor makes secure android hardware.
For the time being, AOSP and Chromium are still open source, so why not piggy-back off of all that labor and development to provide what GrapheneOS users want at minimal cost and effort?
If Google cuts development of AOSP in favor of some closed-source alternative, the GrapheneOS team could simply continue development of AOSP on their own.
There exists a possible world where a group of underpaid FOSS devs forked Chromium and AOSP and effectively developed it further.
But it is not our world.
> the GrapheneOS team could simply continue development of AOSP on their own.
They won't be able to do so.
I'd say the biggest pain point is that Google Maps doesn't work because of the lack of Google Play Services. The missing Maps/Play Services also breaks apps that rely on the maps API. Most of them just fall back to not showing a map at all while the rest of the app functions normally, but it's still an inconvenience. For turn by turn navigation I switched to HERE Maps which works without problems.
sailfish itself was great though. admittedly the android compatibility layer really helped though
No need to "build a complete from-scratch alternative OS" when that was already done 30 years ago.
We're already at a point where smartphones have reached hardware stagnation, and white-labeled devices are coming. There will be no 6G. Smartphones and laptops are converging. The idea that a computer that happens to be smaller than most gives a random company the right or ability to build a wall around it and collect a tax is going to look, in retrospect, really silly.
Some enjoy more attention than others, savy people buying them online, and eventually fade away for the next attempt, while general public continues unaware of their existence.
They wrapped Google services into sandbox for users relying on done software (with great success, even Android Auto works), and raise Play Integrity lie/false security with developers and regulators (Google claims a handset without security updates for years is safe).
There's better (standard aosp) attestation mechanism GoS fully supports and which is supported by slowly growing number of developers (including banks).
They're also introducing a new requirement that sideloaded apps must be validated by them.
If Google implements the same play services sideloading limitation in AOSP which is unlikely, it can be removed like anything else because it's open source.
Even the McDonald's app is doing it now (I know, you're not missing much there but still...). It refuses to launch if it was installed by any method other than the official play store.
They previously ported Android 16 within 2 weeks on all the supported devices despite obstacles.
It's not so bad.
You can rank how smelly two turds are compared to each other, but if you must live with one, which are you going to choose?
I think that the ethics and ill-effects of Meta, Google and the like are significantly worse than locked software ecosystems. Once you've decided that, then you don't want a smartphone at all.
If I had to get a smartphone, I would get an Apple.
Given how many people go to all this hassle for "openness" in their mobile software ecosystem and then install Whatsapp/Gmail/Instagram etc - what is the point?
There's nothing special about liking Android as an OS. I'm sure it applies to practically everyone who has an Android phone :-).