I currently run GraphineOS. I will probably buy one more refurb phone that can run it until Android is dead. Then I am switching to a dumb phone for calls and SMS, and a mobile hotspot connected to a pocket sized cyberdeck. I can still run the apps I want and no longer need Android. With a 3d printer, 25 years of being an electrical and software engineer I can easily make a device that does what I actually want.
Is this practical for the average person? Of course not. But this whole problem is something the average person can fix. STOP BUYING SHIT FROM COMPANIES WHO SCREW YOU!!! Use your power as a consumer and stop giving them money. Make them feel the pain of doing anti-consumer actions. None of this stuff is a requirement for life. If they see a hit in sales, if everyone who makes apps pulls them from the app store, they will change. But it requires everyone to act, and we damn well know most of yall will do nothing but complain.
This problem is a foot gun where we are all buying the gun, loading it, handing it to someone while sticking our foot out and we want to blame them for the bloody hole. Stop it!
This was just inevitable for Google. Google is no longer an open source company. Hasn’t been for maybe a decade or more. They abused the good spirit of open source for their corporate benefit and are ending that relationship on their terms. Get used to it Android users.
Anyone got any ideas on how to force another OS onto my phone? I’m fed up with it.
I haven’t looked into it much yet but grapheneOS has apparently come a far way and has an easy installer nowadays.
Only reason I’ve paused is I have to use a private 2fa authenticator for work and not sure if it’d work on the OS, but it looks like they’ve gotten most major bank apps work on it so that’s one less obstacle
Unfortunately they don’t support any devices besides Google’s Pixel: https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-support
Supporting at least major Samsung models would help adoption.
Had not idea, that really sucks. Guess im in the same boat with samsung…
GrapheneOS puts 0 compromises on user-security in addition to privacy. They don’t really have anything to gain by supporting less secure hardware to drive adoption.
Motorola seems to be cashing in on providing the alternative, though, which is a win for everyone
It’s not an easy install if it literally can’t be fucking installed on most devices.
Had no idea, no reason to get hostile about it.
I have felt this way about my phone for a long time. This is probably good because it will probably create a viable alternative to the apple-android ecosystem. Maybe Graphene will support more phones and new privacy focused mobile-OS will pop up.
I got grapheneOS on my phone right now. Go fuck yourself, google.
I will also do my damn best to make sure my older Samsung S23 doesn’t fall into that version. I have uses for that phone.
Yea but you had to buy a google phone right or do they support more phones now
Sadly I had to. But Motorola did support… before I got a Samsung I had a grapheneOS compatible Motorola, but it broke down.
Motorola is starting to offer grapheneOS compatible phones or so they said, on the regular.
You are right to point out that this hardware dependency on Google is bad and obviously this wouldn’t work for everyone if everyone were to switch to GrapheneOS, but you can totally buy a used Pixel if you don’t want to give more money to Google.
What happens to existing side loaded apps on my phone?
I believe nothing, Google still allows side loading via ADB and apparently sideloading is not exactly going anywhere, but when you want to install one, you have to wait 24 hours and reboot your phone, as I said though terminal bypasses these, it’s just security stuff all again, I guess Google isn’t very happy about society’s widespread misinformation that Android is less secure than iOS
I’ve found it impossible to run apps from APKpure. Google Play gets in the way, stops the app from startup because “it might be malicious” and does not give you the option to run it anyway. I have sideloaded apps and run into the same problem. I’d read you can disable Google Play Services to get around it, but the apps themselves require it. These are just Japanese escape games, nothing sketchy.
Maybe. That is unclear. If your app isn’t verified, Google may or may not do something to “warn” you.
And whatever they do now is only the first step. They will soon lock it all down, because monetizing it gets them rich.
We must all keep pushing people to go against this and to build up Linux mobile alternatives: PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch, JollaOS, and semi by extension, GrapheneOS
I can only afford one phone and it has to be a successful daily driver.
That’s going to be the story of 90% of everyone affected right now too.
The problem is that the most important apps for users aren’t on those platforms. Bank apps and identification apps. They need to make apps for those platforms first otherwise a switch makes no sense.
Also I have tried Ubuntu touch and it’s a nightmare and dysfunctional. e_OS however works great.
Exactly, consumer choice only works as a force in a functional market. Phone OSs are very much not a functional market. This requires regulators to wake up.
agree, see also official government apps, like medical apps, post office, public transport, etc. i live in europe and those are usually necessary.
People thinking this isn’t a monopoly enforcement action in disguise are the same people who think banning Huawei was justified.
Google’s one mistake was that they sold Motorolla to Lenovo, who ran it as low cost shovelware to make the mobile phone market in the US not look like a complete oligopoly. They kept their cost low by using complete stock Google ROMs while every other OEM exited the market.
Until recently when Lenovo properly built up their hardware lineup and started jumping ship to GrapheneOS the moment Google started clamping down.
That and thinking that they won’t be sued to oblivion for this. People are looking for ways to do lawsuits and this is a big one
Of course the US won’t do jack shit. Google always wins in reality even when they lose in US antitrust courts. But other countries can maybe win. Please do!
– sincerely Apple users.We need go start talking about the year of the GNU/Linux phone
Or the year of free (as in freedom) pocket computers, since the global telephony system goes against the freedoms.
PostmarketOS isn’t GNU
Anyways it’d be interesting to see more niche OSes on phones (there’s a mobile port of Genode/Sculpt OS for example)
At the end of the day, all you can really do is to start treating your phone more like a phone and stop carrying it everywhere and using it for everything.
The convenience of it has made it way too easy for people to spy on you.
No. You can do a lot more. You can develop alternatives and enforce anti monopoly legislation.
This. Degoogling and using FOSS alternatives can only take you so far. We should drastically reduce smartphone usage. I got a dumbphone so I can be reachable. Outside of work, my smartphone is mostly powered off. I can’t realistically get rid of it, as I need a bunch of banking apps, authenticators, Google Maps at times (and no, there’s no real alternative to this, everything else sucks). But I only use it when I absolutely need it. It’s gathering a lot less data than it used to. I’m striving to be as low value to big tech as possible. Reducing smartphone use has also done wonders for my wellbeing. I read more, I’ve regained my attention span, I have more time to do stuff I like. Stop scrolling, there’s nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you’re not missing out on anything. Stop trying to replace one app or site with another. Just let it go, it was never worth it.
Stop scrolling, there’s nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you’re not missing out on anything
Not sure about you, but I actually lookup something useful from time to time, while being “in the field.”
That’s not what scrolling means in this context. If you are intentionally seeking out specific information, you may need to scroll, but you aren’t “scrolling”.
My wife would hate it, if I were no longer reachable.
No. I haven’t used Google apps on my phone for years already. That includes Google Play Services and the Play Store. Most apps are open source and I’m self hosting my media.
We gotta claw this shit back.
In case you are looking for Google alternatives to other services, I highly recommend Organic Street Maps or Magic Earth or Kagi Maps instead of Google Maps. Also FreeTube or Yewtu.be instead of YouTube. And mail providers like Proton or Tuta Mail that are end-to-end encrypted. And VPNs like Proton or Mullvlad. And most of all search engines like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia or Kagi or Tor to onionize your search experience. There are many alternatives to Google. I try to recommend for people to move away from Google where they can. I realize Google has worked their way into many websites and can be hard to get around in that sense, but ad blockers and DNS resolvers like uBlock Origin and NextDNS help to prevent tracking from Google.
Do you have a good alternative to drive? Specifically we use it to share files in our household.
Do you have custom ROM + no gapps? Gets harder and harder if you want a new phone once in a while.
Bought the Fairphone with e/OS.
Problem is many see Android equivalent with Samsung and Samsung is the worst when it comes to customize your HW because they really lock down their shit.
For my phone I just bought a new battery after many years of use and it’s back to working as if it’s new. Before that I had a Shift phone (with Google, I think) which allowed me to replace the camera module once the autofocus in the camera broke.
Not sure if I’m old fashioned, but I like to own my devices and modify them if I please.
Yep. My disdain for the combination of fascist government where everything is surveillance, and sociopathic corporations and billionaires where everything is a cynical cash grab, overcame me excitement for tech “products” a long time ago. I’m in the US so it’s especially bad.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old, and I do of course use it every day, but I consciously avoid using it every hour. I love when I misplace it in my own house, to then not look for it for hours. The only person who is going to message me anything urgent is my wife and she knows where to find me.
Constant phone addiction is one of those situations where when you remove yourself from it you can more easily see it in others. It’s like there’s a new form of body language where when you see that slight forward tilt of the head you know they are in the Phone Zone without even seeing the rest of their body.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old,
Mine is an older model too, thankfully. I never needed the bells and whistles other people are into, which probably helps me stay more secure.
But I also just love that I’m not reaching for my pocket every 30 seconds for another dopamine hit too.
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I have thought about trying to get away from shit but it’s hard. If I want to stop using my phone regularly I need to purchase a GPS unit, wire up a charger for it on both my bikes (go deep in woods some times so I use gaia on my phone to figure out where I am), I’d need to get an mp3 player for music, and no more scheduling everything on my phone calendar. It’s an effort, but the more this convenience starts to cost (both in $ and privacy) the more willing I am to make the effort. Another major gripe I have with phones is their all so goddamn big now too, last comfortable to hold phone I had was a damned s3 now everything is a mini tablet and I have big hands. My SO hates phone shopping cuz her hands are tiny! Can’t hold the damn things with one hand anymore lol
I understand.
It’s a bummer what we have to consider to avoid people snooping, but it’s (at least in my humble opinion), necessary.
A good way to start breaking the habit and only using it when you need it is to just keep it in another area of your home. I keep mine in a bathroom drawer.
A big one is just using a real computer for things that are actually better on a real computer. Don’t browse the web or deal with emails on the phone, for example. Make a habit of grabbing a laptop, or even sitting down to a desktop to do those things.
If you are going through this much effort you could consider getting an /e/OS or GrapheneOS Phone?
My buddy has a pixel with graphene and loves it. I am not familiar with /e/os how does it compare? I have a not terribly old Moto G (2025) right now as it was the cheapest phone I could get locally after loosing my last one deep in the green mountians so I hate to have to get a new phone again already as this one seems to be unsupprted by either G or E os’s
Graphene os gives more options. If your minimalist you can use the phone as-is without a Google account, it has all the basic apps you need. If you need more you can install f-droid and use Foss apps. And finally I’d you still want Google based apps, you can set up sandboxed Google Play and use it as a fully featured android phone, all while keeping granular permissions on the Google Play services, depending on what you need it for.
I don’t know your budget but I got a pixel 9 that I put graphene on, and a year of 10gb monthly cell service for 550 total. The pixel was from eBay, and the cell service is from usmobile. You could go cheaper with a pixel 8 and a different provider
Yea. Also have an old moto g and am sad to find that E and G os are not compatible.
But what about D?
I like to run poverty spec phones because I have a poor track record of breaking them. Shit I shattered a phone screen picking up a tire once, and I run case and screen protector at all times. I can’t be having a 600$ device in my pocket lmfao too big a loss when the inevitable happens.
Same here. Neuropathy fucked my hands so I drop shit all the time and phones have become unwieldy as fuck since touchscreens became the norm.
I literally shattered my phone screen dropping it on a skittle once.
Your phone will be the same phone after September as it was beforehand.
On the long-term, I’d make some plans, get a small laptop, or even a linux phone, even as a second device to tether.
Yeah, this isn’t going to get “better”, this is going to get walked into a walled garden.
Get out or stay put, your call.
About to…?
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 option we have.
Just signed up to donate 5 euros a month. Took me about 45 seconds.
Legend! :D
What about fairphone? Don’t they run a Ubuntu option?
The issue with Ubuntu Touch is that unfortunately it uses an outdated Android kernel (which is also usually not receiving security updates) and a Halium abstraction layer to access the closed source binary blob Android drivers for the phone’s hardware. It also requires that it be installed on top of an existing Android install, so in all it’s more of Linuxified layer on top of Android, which means it’s not truly escaping the control of the Android/Google ecosystem.
UBPorts also appears to inherit the use of CLA’s from Canonical:
I’m very much not a fan of CLA’s., which SailfishOS also employs.
The advantage of PostmarketOS (even though it is not ready as a daily driver for the average person), is that it uses the upstream Linux kernel with open-source GPU/hardware drivers, not an Android kernel to access the outdated proprietary GPU/Hardware blobs.
The other problem is that Ubuntu is the “How do you do, fellow kids?” of FOSS operating systems.
It suffers from that less now since Canonical abandoned the project. UBPorts is AFAIK just a community project to keep it alive. I would’ve assumed they would drop the CLA stuff, but I guess they didn’t want to or couldn’t for whatever reason?
Hijacking as I’ve done on other posts. In my country all 3 major tellcos needed to verify phones can call emergency on VoLTE.
FP5 does this. For whatever reason the telcos cant “conform” that (its not sold here but important and DOES work) so the device is blocked at a network level.
Not blocked just for calls but even data.
Phone is now a brick. Double brick once the Android changes roll through.
Damn, that sucks. What country does that? (If it’s large enough to not dox yourself, of course)
Sounds like Australia to me.
Damn. The guy just dozed himself.
no they don’t. they do have a partnership with Murena, which sells them preinstalled with /e/, which is a degoogled Android ROM. there is a Ubuntu Touch port available for some Fairphone models though.
So that would be a yes. Yes they do.
And Why are we being confrontational about this?
I thought graphene was the best daily driver for the moment ?
Graphene is currently the best daily driver for the average person, but as they are a hardened Android fork, they are still somewhat reliant on Google playing ball.
PostmarketOS is not ready for the average person, but it is our best long-term option since it is not based on Android at all.
It’s the best option we have.
Wow, that guy is an absolute putz. Like, postmarketOS literally tells you that their shit is not ready for prime time and to be ready for it to be a little bit wonky right now. And this guy is acting like they’re advertising it as it is ready for Freddy and it’s just garbage or something. Not to mention the way he installed it was just stupid. My 8-year-old niece could do this better than he did.
I think I’ll find a video made by somebody more competent.
He’s a comedian. His videos aren’t meant to be taken seriously.
Comedians really need to stop using that line to justify being putzes, as it ignores the fact that they have a very real influence on people’s perceptions, and therefore the decisions they make and the overall trajectory of society.
Every media personality needs to recognize this responsibility, regardless of whether or not their content is intended to be “serious.”
“It’s just a joke, bro.” Yeah, well your “joke” is actively harming the development and adoption of one of our only potential ways out of this duopoly of walled gardens.
The channel description says
SAMTIME is probably the only channel on the internet not smelling the farts of the big tech companies! From Apple to Samsung, Huawei to OnePlus, we make fun of everyone and tell it like it is (aaand maybe exaggerate just a little if it’s funny).
and that seems about right from the handful of videos I’ve watched. He spends a lot more time mocking big tech firms than poking fun at Linux.
If his intention is to mock big tech, then mocking linux and the only viable alternatives to big tech is kinda misplaced.
The intention is to mock everything in tech. He mostly mocks big tech, but nothing is immune.
Long-term, yes. It isn’t ready as a daily driver for the average person (hence why I used the term ‘build up’), but there is realistically no other option that can truly be called community owned like PostmarketOS can. It’s our best shot at a permanent non-enshittified platform, it just needs our support so it can become polished and support more phones :)
Love that some megacorp can just make decisions like this that affects billions of people.
Really just feeling the fucking freedom. I hate everything.
The megacorps can do anything they want with their product. The chef can change the menu anytime and he can refuse you service - it’s his restaurant. Our problem is that it’s a duopoly and there’s nowhere else to go.
The only way out is open standards and platforms, enabling true competition.
Trouble with this analogy is the pasta they serve you eat for about 2 years and they can change what’s on your plate at any time.
It’s more like:
There are 2 grocery store chains in your city and zero restaurants or other ways to get food not owned by those chains. One already has a supply of only expensive, big-brand products, with nothing organic and very few healthy items The other chain has more independent items that are healthier and more reasonably-priced, as they allowed smaller companies to sell there. Now they are closing the door to these smaller companies, making them appear as a clone to the first chain.
Real quick.
Just imagine you order a plate of pasta. You’re only two bites in, and it’s DELICIOUS.
Then here comes chef. While making full eye contact, he tips your plate and dumps all of that pasta in the trash.
Chef proceeds to take a giant wet shit onto the plate. He brings a new set of silverware and a fresh napkin right before your server comes back with the check.
You insist that you didn’t order a giant wet shit, but they won’t take it off the bill.
Let’s stop pretending this is an inevitable oopsie. This shit is egregious.
Daddy Googs won’t be happy until it’s a walled garden just like iOS
“Fascist oligarchy of capitalist dictators continue to implement totalitarian surveillance apparatus. Majority of talking chimps sleepwalking into dystopia.”
Don’t overstretch my analogy like that. How about this:
Google has standardized The Restaurant. The kitchens all have the same tools and ingredients and are open to anyone. Seating and billing is standardized, and you can easily order and pay at your table, and the food is delivered straight to you via pneumatic tubes and nicely packaged. The food might be expensive or cheap, tasty or revolting, but the experience is always the same.
There are a lot of hobby cooks that like to cook in the Google restaurants. If you want to eat their food, you might have to pick it up straight at the kitchen, or nicely ask the hobby waiters. The cooks have been there for years and whipping up nice creations - mostly for free, beacause the ingredients and tools were free, and they really like to cook. Because the food is so good, some people tip the cooks or waiters directly.
Now Google introduced a new rule: everyone has to use their billing and pneumatic delivery system, citing improved food safety. The hobby cooks and waiters are infuriated, and even some of their customers, and they demand that everyone can still come to the kitchen or the waiters. But Google just says: look, my restaurant, my rules. If you don’t like it go make your own.
Except that google’s "standardized, “packaged” food is just as unsafe or even less safe than the hobby cooks’, and they’re only using “food safety” as a pretense to capture the market and hold clientele hostage.
And this change has also been preceded by buying out every other restaurant chain in town, except for the “Apple Restaurants,” which are already a walled garden, which Google is now trying to emulate even though most of its user base came to it specifically to avoid Apple’s business model.
And there are a few other smaller chains based on Google’s standards, but they’re considered niche and don’t all support every feature (“sorry, no ATMS”). Also, since most of their equipment comes from Google, Google likely has a killswitch and can cut off their stoves and refrigerators at any time.
It’s clearly an anti-trust issue, but since Apple has already set the precedent and the US is pro-corporation and anti-consumer, everyone is kinda just screwed.
The point is that Google’s head chef can come out and shit on your plate, and if you don’t like it then it sucks to suck because there aren’t really any viable alternatives.
as much as i despise microsoft, at least windows phone was competition.
Ironically, apparently it got shut down for ostensibly being too monopolistic…
Android was an open standard and platform, a LONG time ago. Then Google did a rug pull with all new features of android requiring 100% of their services to function.
No, it wasn’t ever. It always belonged to Google who benevolently open sourced parts of it and retains control.
Safetynet and PlayIntegrity are under Google’s control. The PlayStore is Google’s. All of the APIs are Google’s! Hardware blobs are closed and belong to the manufacturer.
Just because some of the stuff shows up on GitHub doesn’t make it an open platform.
Android was out for at least five years before Safetynet was a thing. I’m surprised people weren’t louder in their objections to that then.
Ah yes the invisible hand will fix it
After all it’s the invisible hand’s job
It doesn’t feel so invisible if we’re the ones who have to build and test it.
And just manage to push it unilaterally too. This shit must be opposed.
this is a reply from further down that is actually correct:
This is being presented as more doom laden than is warranted. Ostensibly it is an effort to stop less technically able users from installing malware, certainly there will be unspoken ulterior motivations but such is the world we have allowed to grow around us. As far as overarching evil plans go this is quite a benign example.
Which is bullshit. You already had to enable external installs this is just them even farther encroaching on our ownership of our devices.
Get that boot out your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been.
