Please consider donating to PostmarketOS to build up a pure mobile Linux alternative that is completely free of Google’s influence. It’s the best long-term option we have.
How does this compare to Graphene? You can also be Google free using it
GrapheneOS is great, and it’s what I currently use, but it is ultimately a hardened Android fork. One downside of that is it is completely reliant on manufacturer updates to continue to support a phone. Once a manufacturer drops support, the Graphene team must also drop support, as they are reliant on the closed source GPU/hardware drivers that are tied to specific android kernel versions.
PostmarketOS is not based on Android whatsoever, it’s a Mobile focused Linux distro using the mainline Linux kernel. It uses open-source drivers for the GPU and hardware which can be maintained and supported for decades, and is completely independent of Google’s influence. However, it’s still currently rough enough around the edges that it isn’t ready as a daily driver, which is why it’d be so helpful for us to donate to it so they can hire more developers to polish it up, as they recently did to improve the audio support of Qualcomm devices.
Awesome. That’s what we need and I donate soon.
Graphene is Pixel only and aims for privacy and security.
PMOS aims to bring Linux to the maximum amount of devices (phones, Chromebooks, tablets, QEMU) to give them a life beyond the manufacturer’s support.
I would compare PMOS to LineageOS over Graphene.
Motorola will have a GrapheneOS compatible handset. I use a Pixel 9 Pro with GrapheneOS though, and it works reasonably well.
Reasonably? What issues have you encountered?
Considering putting it on my phone
It’s a PITA to use. You set up different profiles for different uses to separate out app tracking. Turn off Google services when you can. Manage each app. Switch profiles around constantly.
It’s work But… ain’t nobody watching you.
Security. Privacy. Convenience.
Pick two.
You don’t need to use multiple profiles. You can just have one profile and use the phone like any other Android.
It is just Android with extras. You don’t have to create a lot of profiles. I use one profile for F-Droid and one for Google services (sandboxed). You could use it with just one profile for everything as well. I have shortcuts on the home screen for switching profiles, which improves ux a little.
Sure, you could. But that defeats the purpose.
They always watchin’ spooks errywhere.
GrapheneOS won’t protect your cellular data and metadata. It can’t stop location tracking by cell tower. But it does a lot for those who are privacy concerned.
It’s still ultimately downstream of Google code, though
Technically you cannot since they basically develop Android.
Sailfish is also a great option too
Unfortunately, Sailfish OS uses a proprietary (closed source) android compatibility layer, as well as a closed source UI.
For the parts they have open-sourced, they implemented a CLA that contributors must sign. It’s the HA-CLA-I-ANY license, which specifically allows them a perpetual Copyright and Patent license, and permission to re-license your code contributions to a more restrictive license which enables them sell or package it into a closed-source proprietary app.
Personally I’m be more comfortable supporting the development of PostmarketOS instead, since it is completely open-source with no CLA, meaning no chance of any rug-pulling in the future.
That’s an American thing, not just Google. They only believe in a free market when it’s their products and services. Theft is fine as long as it’s only them.
When a Capitalist says “free market” what they mean is “free to monopolize.” It’s about keeping the pathway to feudalism free and open. The US is its temple, but Capitalism is a global cancer.
this is just capitalism thing.
In a true Capitalist society a competitor would be fighting for same sales. What we see is lobbying of government to favour one monopolistic company.
No not really, this is how capitalism is supposed to work.
No, In a true free market competition drives prices down as each company aims to grab you as a customer and it forces efficiency in the manufacturing or development to cut costs. Since lobbying has taken over, there is no free market, it is manipulated to favour the bigger donor or other backend deals to eliminate competition.
For example in Canada we have a giant grocery chain that also has a property company, the property company will only lease to themselves, and they have agreements that no other stores can open a certain distance from them. It means that we overpay on all food
final goal of capitalism is to generate profits and thats what leads to lobbying and monopolies, thats why I said this is real capitalism.
Except where lobbying is illegal like South Korea and they don’t suffer like we do with monoplies
Something something… Capitalism
More like neofeudalism at this point.
And actual full on fascism to boot.
Same thing if it’s benefitting them
When it isn’t different story
Google and the Open Web
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Embrace
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Extend
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Extinguish <-- we’re here
Ah yes, the 4X buisness strategy. Building an empire through four core pillars:
eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate
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The irony of having this in the middle of the article
The capitalists will sell us the noose with which we will hang them? or however it goes…
LMAO
More anti-trusts lawsuits please. Just put a fine of no lesser than a 100 Billion $ on these parasites.
I’m not sure if “rival” is the right term. Seems like Google would be very happy to be a monopoly.
Graphene OS need to develop their own app store.
They do have their own App Store, it’s just only got like… 14 apps in it. Mostly just the stuff they’ve made them selves that they’re super confident in the security of, as well as a couple of other app stores like Accrescent
To start allowing submissions of any third party app to it would ether require them to do a ton of vetting to ensure it meets their standards, or for them to drop the standards for security and privacy for it. If you want more than that handful of defaults, Accrescent and the google play mirror are there ready to be installed
They need to start incentivizing developers to develop for their app store.
Why not just use F-Droid?
You need a lot of money for incentives. The bigger factor is large scale adoption among the corporate apps that others use (their privacy policies notwithstanding), which I realistically see never happening for Graphene, sadly. Sideloading is a decent alternative, I just don’t know how long it’ll be around for.
Sideloading only needs to be supported by the OS, and the developer. (am I wrong here?)
They already have one. Maybe they could partner with F-droid…
Most people don’t care.
Hell I’m even the “weird one” only because I tend to use FOSS options when I can.
Who the hell would use YouTube over NewPipe??
Brothers in arms mate. I use FOSS whenever absolutely possible. I hear about a new type of service, and my first criteria before evaluating it is, can I run it as FOSS? If the answer to that question is no, then I immediately reject that new service until I can use it in a FOSS manner. Do not pass go. Do not collect one Monero.
I did not know about new pipe. Thank you
Pipepipe is working better for me
Ymusic is better in my opinion, it’s not taking eternity to update subscriptions…
Is there an advantage to using newpipe if I pay for premium?
You can stop giving Evil Inc your hard earned money
It’s like 5usd for a family plan in my country. I doubt that’s making a dfference. Also, I sincerely doubt you’re not using any Google services/products in your life. Not to mention that there are plenty of "evil inc"s out there.
Re: 5 USD. Google makes most of it’s money from advertising - which works by tracking everything you do and building detailed profiles of you.
Re: I sincerely doubt you’re not using any Google services/products in your life. Not to mention that there are plenty of "evil inc"s out there. This might not be intentional, but it sounds to me like whataboutism combined with “there is no perfect option, so we shouldn’t do anything”. 90% reduction in use of google services, is better than not doing anything. Heck, 10% reduction is better. Whatever gets you started on the journey. And as a lot of people have correctly identified, it’s not easy. It takes time.
Google makes most of it’s money from advertising - which works by tracking everything you do and building detailed profiles of you.
So the answer’s “no”? Gotcha. I do try to avoid using google products and I do use extensions to try to prevent tracking. So maybe they’re making less money off of me than others? Who knows.
This might not be intentional, but it sounds to me like whataboutism combined with “there is no perfect option, so we shouldn’t do anything”.
Not even close my friend. However, you can’t fight every single battle. I try to pollute as little as possible, selfhost everything I can, don’t buy things I don’t really need, etc. Regarding youtube though? I just wanted to watch videos without ads on my tv and it cost me next to nothing to be able to do that.
Pro tip :P you can use "> " to quote text. It’s easier to read.
“My small contribution to evil is meaningless “. Gotcha.
You’re so far off the mark that I’m not even going to keep spending my time to explain why.
More privacy
I feel the days of free YouTube front ends is coming to an end. I’m honestly surprised they’re still alive. Didn’t they try to kill yt-dlp recently? Together with their playstore developer verifications, YouTube VPN restrictions, making life harder for Android derivatives, YouTube ad blockers, and on and on, I don’t see a bright future for anything that piggybacks off of Google’s back.
I’m still waiting for a mobile phone manufacturer to support a free OS. Until then I’ll stick to degoogled android.
i had to install Newpipe in my gf’s phone, she’d show me something in YT and need to wade through endless shit before getting to the content. I forget occasionally how shitty an experience YT can be if you don’t make some effort until i use someone elses device.
Ironically, the “weirder” option is more convenient in most cases. NewPipe sometimes breaks when there are API changes or some bs, and vids with age restrictions don’t work at all so I would need to look for another vid with the same content (or use a browser sadly)
I think spreading awareness about privacy would be the first step to move people into decentralized platforms
Getting more open hardware though requires more efforts unfortunately
I’m loving grajay tbh
Im just waiting for somebody to make a plan for resistance. So far the best I have seen is going to the doorsteps of google to cry and beg them to stop.
thats not my cup of tea
But I think the real reason nobody is doing this is the paradigm of reasonability.
Nobody want to step their foot down, because that’s not reasonable. We are supposed to make it work like the wife exposed to domestic violence.
But we need to stop being reasonable and start being assertive.
But for real, I think GrapheneOS could take this stand if they’ve got the balls.
GrapheneOS uses Google hardware and depends on Google publishing the Device Tree Blob to create their software over.
By branching with Motorola, it gives them more viability for when Google decide they won’t publish the DTB anymore (it will happen).
But GrapheneOS is still dependant on Motorola not being dicks.
I don’t understand why Google would do this. I mean, you sell a phone that has an alternative operating system that runs well on it, and you sell more phones, right? Or do they actually sell hardware at a loss? Is that what’s happening?
Google is an advertising company. Everything they do is about collecting data to feed their advertising arms.
They don’t care about HW. HW is just a “distribution line” for their software. They care more about people using their software and giving them data. Most Android phones sold are not Google’s Pixels but third party vendors. If a particular device doesn’t sell well they won’t care as ling as the Google ecosystem gets strengthend.
It’s been incredibly clear for a long time that the combination of greed, stupidity, and selfishness does not care about making money based on consumer happiness.
Product is a higher quality so people will buy more? That could mean that someone else can make a better thing, and implies choice. Bettee to just assure that the competition doesn’t exist and then we can make shittier, cheaper things that cost even more.
Four day work-weeks are more productive and make people happier? It also means they’ll expect respect and we can’t have that.
Basing the entire world power supply on gasoline is clearly a terrible idea and we should be looking to have a diverse set of sources, many of which are renewable? How about we just make up a bunch of lies and propaganda so that we never need to change?
Sony had to come up with lithium-ion batteries for their products because battery manufacturers were plenty happy making lead-acid and telling everyone who wanted more to go fuck themselves.
The reason you don’t understand is because you assume that there’s a level of morality to capitalism and to corporate decision making. There is less than zero, it’s awful on purpose.
Hardware they sell is probably a loss or super low margin.
Time to branch out, get more manufacturer support like Motorola and champion the consumer. C’mon graphene throw us a bone.
Slowly bringing his palm to his forehead a raspy voice whispers “***No Shit ***MORONS”
I was really close to buying one too. Waiting for the next pixel
Well DUH…
Am I the only one worried that the source says Android Authority? Is this the fucking Google site?
the two biggest android news sites are like android police and android authority. what’s next, android totalitarian? android aristocrat?
