Also: The internet is slowly turning into a handful of clouds, and it is only a matter of time before you cannot meaningfully host anything by yourself outside of these clouds because your cloud terminal will refuse to talk to it.
It seems counter-productive to tell people the computing device they think as a computer isn’t really a computer. It’s like saying my car isn’t really a car because I can’t adjust spark timing. Someone could make that semantic argument but it’s hard to imagine anyone would care.
What if it only drives along select predetermined monetised routes?
I don’t see the value in hypotheticals like that. If the claim is that a computer is not really a computer unless every user can do any low level operations they want, is it also true that a car is not really a car unless every user can do any low level operations they want?
There are plenty of useful apps that run locally on a phone. You can even run a whole LLM on your phone.
The shiniest and most popular apps are cloud terminals but the iPhone is actually a pretty darn powerful device.
They are powerful from a computational perspective, but the point was that it's a hassle to run a custom binary on them as compared to regular computers. You get a powerful device that is not flexible in this specific sense, so much of that power is not utilized
You are not allowed to run computations that have not been approved by Apple if you are using an iPhone. Yes, the hardware is powerful, but it is cryptographically locked down. It is physically local, but the control of the hardware is entirely non-local and 100% owned by Apple.
Case in point.
> Apple has locked my Apple ID, and I have no recourse. A plea for help* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46252114
> Apple bans entire dev account, no reason given https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44601548
I could have a stroke that leaves me unable to program. Does that mean I am not truly free to program today?
Those are risks, but they do not change the on-the-ground reality today, and the claim was that users, today, cannot use these device as general purpose computers.
That's well on its way. Try to log into your bank (or countless other sites) using a VPN. They flat out turn you away. If you don't use VPN but use a different computer or connection you get grilled with "prove you're a human". I get that they are doing anti spam and fraud steps, but the logical conclusion of where this ends up is "if we don't recognize you from our mountains of tracking info we've been compiling, we don't want to do business with you".
The question of ownership is interesting. If I buy a chair, it doesn't make a very good table, does that mean I don't own it? Most people don't know what general purpose computing is. To them a cloud terminal is a computer. So, to them, they do own their devices because that's all they are.
I feel like some of us think we got close, or anywhere near, what Stallman has been advocating for most of his life. But I'm afraid we didn't. We all chose convenience. We chose to believe that one man was enough to hold back the tide against enormously powerful corporations and governments. Some even turned their back on Stallman. And some even work for the enemy.
We haven't really lost anything here. It's just becoming more clear what we actually have.
A better comparison is buying a chair where the seller gets to aprove who sits and when.
The chair analogy is a bit weird, because I am actually free to buy a chair, disassemble it and somehow use it as a table if my needs for a table for some weird reason happens to coincide with the form factor of the chair. I don't think the analogy really works, but if a chair worked as a modern phone then it would be built with one-way screws and in general be built to lose structural integrity if you try to disassemble it.
A better analogy is roads. Anyone can put any car on the public roads (they may be breaking the law if the car is not legal). But we are moving towards a world where the roads will slash the tires of any car which isn't approved by Ford or Tesla. Ford and Tesla didn't build the roads, but they somehow took over the control of them.
Increasingly, so is the government, because freedom of computing is incompatible with surveillance, age verification etc.
Changes like this will help keep developers honest and accountable. Yeah yeah bad apples will still find ways to screw us.
If you want to publish an app to a global scale ecosystem, is it really too much to ask to give some ID?
Biometrics is the feature that confers all the power to Apple and Google. All sorts of shady things can be done in the name of security and privacy.
The internet would be a much better place if browsing and biometrics were done in different devices.
Why is this acceptable for phones but would not for the case above?
I know a lot of people don't care, and that's ok, but we should root for an open choice for the users.
I am not arguing you need to like where this has led, but you have people in sibling comment threads here arguing we need to push back on things assuming you will use a phone when the whole revolution has been getting most of the world online by making phones widely available.
PCs happened by accident.
Before the PC, people had TVs - devices not for creating, but for passively consuming content made by big corporations and the state. And we had games consoles - devices not for creating, but for playing games made by a medium-sized company, with strict approval by a huge company (who want a cut). Strictly censored to be age-appropriate, naturally. Pirate radio? Straight to jail.
Before that people had newspapers - media for passively consuming, intended for mass readership, written at the behest of rich newspaper barons with certain political opinions they're keen to push.
And after the PC, we have smartphones - devices not for creating, but for consuming content feeds, curated by big corporations, with rich owners with certain political opinions they're keen to push. A huge company eager to take a cut. A tiny screen, and a keyboard that puts curly braces three keypresses deep. Can't even debug a web page without connecting to a PC. And soon to be strictly censored to be age-appropriate.
The PC is really the outlier here.
Alongside newspapers we had 'zine culture and mail-order pamphlets.
There has always been the option to contribute - the Apple iPhone is quite possibly the first exception.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-access_television https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_television_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swindon_Viewpoint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_television_in_Austra...
Saying that I think the situation in the smartphones today is less about the business model and more about control and surveillance.
They also blur the line between "computer" and "console", since the NES is practically the same architecture as many contemporary "computers". Homebrew games existed, and weren't that far out of reach. Homebrew has existed on pretty much every console ever.
PCs weren't an accident in any way. They are a direct descendant of "home computers". That's why they were called "personal computers" in the first place.
All modern devices are appliances, not computers.
They perform the specific functions that they were programmed to perform, and do not allow arbitrary execution of calculations on the underlying hardware.
Many people, mostly folks who adopt the Apple ecosystem, see this as a positive thing that allows them to delegate undifferentiated decisions on security and ways of working to the vendor.
I am one of those people and hope that Android remains open so that people don't expect Apple open up their hardware, which will result in fragmentation.
That's the thing. You may have bought a device that was meant to perform a task but after some time the company decides that now it should do a different task. I think that's what stops making you the owner. You can't really choose what to do with it.
Why? And how does that bother you?
Extremely common at major universities and research centres. CTSS, ITS, TENEX, Multics, Unix and even VM/370 were all alternate operating at some point.
> Other than OS2, alternate OSs for other systems were rather rare,
You weren't there, were you? A lot of people replaced MS-DOS with DR-DOS before Microsoft deliberately broke it with Windows. A little later, a number of people were running Unix System V on their PCs, to the extent that there was a regular column about Unix in Byte.
So not common outside of ivory towers, no?
The yet-to-be-released Steam Machine is not subsidized and is unlocked. Steam is a OS agnostic digital marketplace, so it doesn't matter what OS you install on the machine.
Microsoft doesn't see a threat in allowing other OSes on their Surface hardware because the majority of their revenue comes from M365.
It's just market forces really. In the end, phones provide enough utility for the majority of users while being locked down. There's nothing stopping you from buying a fully-open phone, but there's just very little utility in it for the majority of users.
I see what you did there... and agree completely. If you don't have root, it's not yours. All my Androids (none from this decade) are rooted and I plan to keep them that way.
Few interested hardware vendors, discontinued after 4 years. "mixed reviews at launch, while critics and analysts deemed it to be commercially unsuccessful"
Windows 10 S was another attempt that "Similarly [restricts] software installation to applications obtained via Windows Store." Cancelled after one year.
Exactly the fate I wish upon closed ecosystems. The only question is why iOS is different. I am inclined to say it's the brand status that overpriced luxury goods have that draws rich people initially, making it lucrative and perhaps even a tad prestigious to be there, but surely it's more than that?
iOS was a new SDK from the start.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47935853#47943179
GrapheneOS is probably more secure also.
No, it's not. Try to run a completely free OS on you hardware (like Replicant) and watch the lack of camera, GPS and more.
Related discussion for other: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47942070
Unfortunately, not in my country.
> Sent from my Librem 5 running GNU/Linux.
Can I buy a Librem 5 here in Brazil? (Unless it has ANATEL certification, which I doubt it has, buying online from outside the country is not an option, since it will be rejected by customs.)
You've got a supercomputer and a library and a set of video production equipment in your pocket, among other things. The capabilities of such a device are fundamentally different from something that's tethered to a desk or that's conspicuous when out-and-about. The idea of it being open and untrackable is exciting for some and terrifying for others.
So yeah, the society has largely accepted this. PC is the exception.
>> Developers
Do not sign up. Don't join the program by signing up for the Android Developer Console and agreeing to their irrevocable Terms and Conditions. Don't verify your identity. Don't play ball.
Google's plan only works if developers comply. Don't.
Talk other developers and organizations out of signing up. Add the FreeDroidWarn library to your apps to warn users. Run a website? Add the countdown banner.
Developers either want to make money or work for someone who wants to make money.
In either case they will be forced to.
What we actually need are (open) alternatives, not to double down on Google's ecosystem and Google-controlled OS. We need to control the device we bought and be able to run whatever we wish on it. Just like we do on PCs.
I won't deny that a lot of application support still needs more work. But this is definitely moving in the right direction.
I keed I keed!
But unfortunately there really isn't a great alternative. I painfully attempted to use Ubuntu Touch and its always the same thing. The lack of available apps, the lack of app development in general for the platform was pretty eye opening. Add in having it only run on really old devices isn't much help either. Its promising, but a long ways off even from some of the non-standard roms I've used like Evolution X which is a Lineage fork.
If this really does cripple a lot of the known custom roms out there without any solid alternatives other than Graphene? It could really be a huge turning point.
There's no, like, gun to your head saying you HAVE to side load apps. You can just... not... do that. If you think side loading is insecure. You can download 100% of your apps from the play store. In fact, that's what 95% of people do.
I mean, what's the threat model here? That you somehow forget your own belief about side loading being insecure and then accidently side load an app? Does that even seem possible?
I can kind of understand this argument for granny who doesn't know where she is. Kind of. But for you, it makes no sense. I mean really, think about what you're saying here about you as a computer user or even as a person.
Like it or not, if one wants security some freedom will need to be moved elsewhere.
And since the market is heading that way, the only thing we can do is form an android sandbox SIG and maintain a fork for enthusiasts.
To be clear I’m totally on your side and I think that’s a ridiculous reason to not have an open system, but let’s not pretend it’s not a possibility because doing so harms our otherwise very solid argument
A big reason why a non-locked-down OS is absolutely vital to me is that sometimes I (reluctantly) have to travel to places where I need to install obscure VPN/proxy services to be able to access international internet. Most services present in app stores have been banned for years now, and the government sometimes even succeeds in making Apple/Google remove the more effective ones from the stores.
What even is going on? Why are banks doing this security theatre when all their apps are doing is calling some backend apis?
It is not necessarily a matter of choice. Besides what the other commenter notes about 2FA, in some countries banks have been removing functionality from their online-banking website, and you can only do certain things in the phone app.
The most infuriating I've seen, is a bank which removed the anual tax report (which you need to do the anual income tax) from the online-banking website, requiring you to use the phone app... to download a PDF file, which you then have to transfer to the computer anyway so you can print it!
The government services also go through these ID apps, although there is a poorly supported alternative that uses USB smart card readers. I have not seen a single person actually use it, probably for a reason, though I'm planning to get one just to have a backup...
Is it a privacy or financial risk to have banking on your phone?
How is banking on a phone app more dangerous than banking via mobile or desktop websites?
The issue is the platform. Obviously there are issues with desktop platforms too, but those are easier to mitigate.
I’m curious what secondary devices people are using. I have a second hand Surface Go running Fedora 43 with Gnome, it’s a bit big but it’s doing its job well.
This is why I've stuck with Android for the past 15 years.
The vast majority of users don't care about "openness" of the OS. They care about the utility of their phone in everyday life.
Can I access digital payment systems, social media apps, and entertainment apps? How's the camera on the phone? How big is the screen? Is it waterproof? How expensive is it?
These are the questions the majority of phone buyers care about. Not, can I download an app off of a random website and install it?
---
I would say that the majority of developers don't care about the "openness" either. They care about accessing a wide audience and getting revenue from their work. Free apps without ads or in-app purchases (zero-revenue apps) are the minority.
Google is also fine with losing the zero-revenue app developers because they provide no value for Google. Actually, they are probably a loss for Google, since Google provides Google Play Services.
Just because you're HN dweller doesn't make it HN view. The openness, freedom, customizability and accessibility (money wise) were the tenets that differentiated Android from Apple devices.
i have never heard someone outside of tech circles (e.g. HN) mention openness, freedom, or customization, even as a passing comment.
they use a phone to access mainstream apps (youtube, instagram, reddit, maybe their bank) and text/call. mention "apk" or "fdroid" and their eyes start to glaze over.
cheaper devices, sure, i agree with that as being the differentiator to the average non-techie. the rest is, at least in my experience, absolutely a "HN view".
I think _your_ impression of people outside tech circles is as HN-centric as it gets :)
My no-tech middle-aged uncles and aunts know what apks are, and that you need to install apps from somewhere apart from the main Play store if you want them to have no ads.
And how do you qualify "(e.g. HN)" for this purpose? Places where people value openness?
These feels like a no-true-scotsman.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260420021444/https://www.openh...
Openness for end-users was never a tenet. It is a very HN view to think that open-source equals freedom for users, and to state that it was a promise when it never was.
This is a straw man. This change hurts third party app stores such as F-Droid the most. I vastly prefer it to Play Store for the same reasons I prefer GNU/Linux to macOS or Windows (discounting the fact that Linux no longer needs hacks to "just work").
Nowhere is their goal to allow users complete control of their device. Android was built as an open-OS for the mobile device industry, not end-users.
Android might have been considered more open than other mobile OSes by users, but it was never a promise or goal.
The fact that having root access is not the default supports that. Without root we're just "consumers" and that's how they see us. There's a lot of discussion about the security model of Android and how root is bad. But we've come to the point to argue that having root access is not only less secure but that we don't need root at all. A lot of replies, even on HN, are like:
> Why would you even need root access? What is it you're trying to accomplish?
That's a much bigger security smokescreen than the one in TFA. Sure, having root may be dangerous, especially if you don't know what you're doing, but it's still a choice. Having no phone or doing banking IRL or not downloading apps from the Play Store you haven't heard of before would also be more secure. But these 3 options don't align to the financial gain the consumers would bring to the providers. The consumers having no root, on the other hand, benefits the providers.
Openness for users/consumers was never a goal for the Open Handset Alliance.
> Using money as the only metric is stupid and myopic.
Publicly traded companies will be publicly traded companies.
If Android isn't open, we lose the last open mobile operating system, which will have immeasurable negative effects on computing as a whole. People will need permission from either Apple or Google to create any mobile program. If you don't fit into their neat little system, you don't get permission. If I hadn't been able to publish my app for another 2 years I probably would've shelved it, decided it was stupid, forgot about it, got busy with other things, and never published it.
Unfortunately, it just never gained the necessary momentum.
If anything, I'd like more openness in Android. For instance, apps should not have any control over what data I can back up; I should be able to back up every aspect of every app, restore it to a new phone, and apps should not be allowed to care.
That said; iPhone is my main phone, has been for a decade or more. But I deeply appreciate what you can do with an android.
Iphones makes my life easier but are too limited.
Best case scenario, carry both.
A few years ago, iOS lacked basic features like widgets, NFC, calculator on their tablets, etc. And iOS still has a completely inferior keyboard (I used to write code and essays on my Android while walking) and a completely inferior notification system. Androids are also the only phones still offering a fingerprint scanner, which is way better for me. These nice things all combine well with the oppenness.
What's worse is that we're clearly in a progression of restriction. Bootloader restrictions, app installation restrictions, "age verification" requirements, etc. Openness is being locked down from every angle with serious momentum, it's not anticipated to stop here.
Both. I don't like the idea of locked down computers and that includes phones, especially now that they're so prominent in our lives.
I dabbled in Android development for fun a decade ago and I loved how there was no barrier to entry. I've loaded apps that aren't available on the Play Store and have loaded apps that my friends have made just as fun side projects.
There was a handheld gaming system in the early 2000s called Cybiko. Cybiko and Sega Dreamcast homebrew opened my mind up to the power of computers and having control of your hardware. These things should not be locked down. I liked messing around with making little programs on the Cybiko and downloading homebrew games for it and the Dreamcast. The openness of Android really excited me when it was new because I thought of it the same way as a Cybiko or Dreamcast or PC and not a locked down device where I can only run software approved by the hardware manufacturer.
What should Google do when a change they are making to protect regular less-technical users breaks functionality needed by more advanced users?
If the user must click through a tons of disclaimers (including locked 60-second timeouts with huge WARNING: SCAM ALERT or something) in something buried in settings to get scammed, I think the few edge cases may be worth the tradeoff of being able to install apks.
Remember there is already malware-scanning by default (by Google play), apps need to ask for permissions, they generally can't read other app data or control say banking apps, modify system data (at all), etc..
The threat vectors seem already restricted. I haven't met anyone which has fallen to actual Android malware ever (that I can remember), but I can remember several close family members which were victims of simpler social engineering scams (mostly unsuccessfully) recently.
Have people read and type in a message saying "I'm not on the phone with a potential scammer who is trying to get me to install a package that may be dangerous", trust people to actually read what they're typing, and if they can't read and comprehend that, stop getting in the way of them shooting themselves in the foot.
Put it behind an USB ADB only toggle and be more transparent to avoid slippery slope?
I don't think OS vendors should be expected to keep people from doing dangerous things. A warning label saying "hey that's dangerous because..." is reasonable, but anything more and they're trying to be my sysadmin against my will.
These are sold as consumer devices and not general computers. It sounds like you want something different. They’re selling cars and you want a motorcycle.
More sysadmin-as-a-service type stuff is fine as long as the opt-out is easy. This isn't. I'm upset about the rug pull.
You never know though. Sometimes things go the other way. When the iPhone launched there was no way to create apps for it or install third party applications except as web apps.
Furthermore, we have to acknowledge that scam-fighting is not Google's job. They can assist with law enforcement (assuming they do not violate the rights of their customers while doing so) but they should not be making themselves judge, jury, and executioner in the process.
If you want a more concrete technical recommendation, locking down device management profiles would be a far more effective and less onerous countermeasure than putting a 24-hour waiting period on unknown app installs. Device management exists almost exclusively for the sake of businesses locking down property they're loaning out to employees, but a large subset of scams abuse this functionality. Part of the problem is that installing a device profile is designed to sound non-distressing, because it's "routine", even though you're literally installing spyware. Ideally, for a certain subset of strong management profile capabilities, the phone should wipe itself (and warn you that it's going to wipe itself) if you attempt to install that profile.
So far, I have been utterly incapable of getting my iPad to do anything remotely similar. It can run syncthing, technically, but not in the background. Apps don't have a shared filesystem structure, so it's difficult to get anything else set up to "save within my shared folder" in a way that would work, and that disregards that the syncing cannot occur when anything else is open. There's all sorts of cloud backup options, but those require the internet and even when they're working, there's this awkward import/export flow that adds friction to the whole dance.
In isolation this would just be a small papercut, I guess, but these sorts of limitations are all over iOS. It's just terribly hostile to anyone not fully committed to the Cloud-first, Apple-hardware ecosystem. Android doesn't care, and doesn't have to care, because it lets me run the software I want. It's a really small set of programs too, at the end of the day. (Firefox with real extensions is the other one.)
I use this to occasionally build and install Android apps from github.
These are often out of date and need some tweaks but I can do it on a whim (I certainly wouldn't bother if there was a paywall).
To be clear though android isn't stooping to Apple levels yet. You can still do anything, it just makes it obnoxious to do so.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/05/musi-strikes-bac...
Citation needed.
But even if millions did bought an Android phone for ill-defined defined, about 15 billion Android phones were sold over the years, which could very well make those millions a minority, with most having other reasons for their purchase.
In principle I could never reward Apple with my business for having originated and normalized this.
And pragmatically, I'd like to hold on for as long as I can to the next set of rights that Apple will take away five years before Google does.
I would say keep the faith as I'm in the same boat and have made my choice for privacy and control. Giving up everything when it could very well be a minor setback is worth holding the line.
Was it convenient? No, of course not, but it's been an option for quite awhile; to me the biggest advantage for Android was the fact that it was relatively easy to sideload apps.
To be clear, I don't like that Google is doing this, and I think arguing that it's for security is a half-truth at best. I could make my phone 100% "secure" by pounding a nail through the NAND chip; no one is getting into my phone after that.
With the advent of vibe coding, a part of me wonders how hard it would be to hack together my own phone OS with a Raspberry Pi or something and a USB SIM card reader. Realistically probably too much work for me, but a man can dream.
Millions? Are you sure?
Even so, Android has billions of users who want secure app management by default.
I understand political dissidents and those living under authoritarians may have much more concrete Fs and Ds but for me (us?) it's mostly U.
I do. It's my device. And I've been in the position of having to buy a replacement phone in a pinch; having to wait an extra day before having a usable replacement is not acceptable.
In terms of apps I might not be able to get from the Play store:
- Signal, depending on what country I'm in in the future and whether they've tried to restrict things they can't backdoor.
- Vanilla Music, which remains the best music player I've used. (I wish there were an Android version of Quod Libet.)
- A fully capable version of Termux. (the Play store currently has a less capable version that's maintained separately, which could go away if someone decides to stop putting up with it).
- Syncthing-Fork, which has at times been undermaintained in the Play store.
Update: out of the box it seems to be reading tags strangely. Maybe I could fix this studying the settings more, but I'd say you have an upgrade opportunity switching off Vanilla. Signal is hard to replace though.
Just see the Play Integrity API making the user experience more difficult on more secure devices like GOS with mo security benefit.
>Play Integrity permits a device with years of missing security patches. It isn't a legitimate security feature. It checks for a device in compliance with Google's Android business model, not security.
(https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2036610983888588818#m)
You're missing out then!
Source?
The android/iOS market shares vary a lot by country, with android dominating worldwide. North America is an exception with iOS in front (I think even more so in Canada). Maybe people _in the US_ choose android because it's different?
In Germany for example the android market share vs iOS is something like 60:40. India, something like 90:10.
Reasonable explanation: there's many more different price and feature ranges with android. I doubt the average Indian or German would say they bought an android "because it's more open", especially if they're in the great majority of people who don't work in tech.
This is false. Google will provide two other flows for app distribution that are different than this.
> Every app and every device, worldwide, with no opt-out.
Again, false. There is an opt-out called the "advanced flow".
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-de...
The entire point here is to prevent scam actors from using a false sense of urgency to defraud people. That is a serious vulnerability that needs to be addressed somehow, and I think this is a good compromise that doesn't impact people's ability to sideload.
I say this as someone who sideloads apps literally every day.
Does it, and if it does, does it need to be addressed by an OS vendor creating a mechanism to ban developers for most users? I'm not convinced of the former, and I'm certain the latter is bad. I predict within ten years, we will see this used against something that is not malware.
> we will see this used against something that is not malware.
See what exactly used against something that is not malware? The Play Store already has requirements other than "don't be malware". If you're talking about the sideloading requirements, all of these requirements apply to every app, not just malware.
Google has stated that it will only withhold such permission from developers who distribute malware. I imagine they'll stick to that promise at first, but long-term I think they won't. Once it's possible for them to impose partial bans on developers, governments have every incentive to pressure them to do it.
> Starting September 2026, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed over government ID. Every app and every device, worldwide, with no opt-out.
That is not false, it's completely accurate. You don't have to take my word for it, though, the Android developer docs have a helpful page detailing the plan [1].
As for the "advanced flow", the article discusses it in detail.
The plan does not outline what that quote does. You only have to do all of the things the quote claims you do in one of the three possible deployment flows. In "advanced flow" you don't have to do any of them.
Also, you can certainly opt to not install android updates, if that's your preferred reading here -- so that is also false.
One could argue this is false dichotomy
These people are actually choosing a particular form factor with particular specifications that, more or less, only runs corporate mobile OS^1 instead of form factors that run non-corporate OS
1. Or some derivative of one that relies on the corporate distributor and replicates the tethering to a third party, e.g., "phoning home" to the OS distributor, "automatic updates" (remote code execution), etc.
There are other form factors of computers that can run non-corporate OS, where "phone home" and RCE code does not exist or, if necessary, any undesired code can be easily removed by concerned users
In sum, one could argue that with respect to control, privacy, etc. (a) choosing to use one corporate mobile OS over another is not a meaningful "choice" when compared with (b) choosing to use a non-corporate, open source, "compilable by the user" OS instead of a "locked down" corporate mobile OS
This choice can be made on a case-by-case basis depending on what computing problem the user is trying solve. With respect to anyone who seeks to use their "phone" as a general purpose computer to solve every computing problem, one could argue the "choice" of one corporate mobile OS over another is not meaningful with respect to user control, privacy, etc.
Instead "tech journalists", "tech blogs" and online commenters prefer to argue over which is the "better" corporate mobile OS. The truth is, with respect to control, privacy, etc., they all suck
> but all of them use mobile apps for banking which effectively locks them in
Many banking apps work fine with GOS. But given banking and money is such an important part of our lives it is easy to see why people might be hesitant.
It doesn't guarantee future compatibility.... but linked below is a GOS [banking app] status list, crowdsourced info by country.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
Throw a pinch of salt over your left (wait, no ... right) shoulder. Spin around clockwise 3 times. Read the Rosary twice.
AHA! So, they are allowing users to keep doing what they want.
Another thing that happened yesterday when I was setting up the phone was the mandatory need of an internet connection, otherwise the phone would simply not allow me to move on with the setup.
I'm this fucking close to sell this thing and try my luck with a Chinese smartphone, which I'm pretty sure is not going to toss that shit on my face. (I had a Chinese one and a Galaxy S20 FE before, both on different Android versions, 10 and 11 iirc that wouldn't block me like that)
/rantOver
The issue still is boiling down to GrapheneOS having less $$ for marketing vs GOOG / Alphabet / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products
If you want decisions that corporations make to be aligned with the desires of their users, you should be advocating for software/hardware built by consumer cooperatives.
But beyond whether the OS is good or not, "fuck you, I've got mine" is not only sad as a position in general, it is also a bad tactical choice, because over long enough timeframes you can't assure that you can keep yours if others are deprived.
Graphene (or anything else) will only stay a useful option if a whole lot more people use it so that government agencies and banks can't ignore that many people. A whole lot more people need to feel they aren't completely alone if they thought about using it, that it's actually a real option and not a kooky crap option.
Right now agencies & companies can totally ignore them all, and everything that still works today is just luck.
I haven't used Graphene myself. At the moment I have a stock rom that's merely rooted using the official manufacturer supplied bootloader unlock, and my small local credit union bank apps work, and the LG app that controls my air conditioners and microwave does not. Even if the bank apps didn't work it wouldn't matter because they have working web sites, and I never wanted an an app for my appliances in the first place.
But any day that could change.
It's just luck the banks have web sites that work in firefox on linux, and just luck there are no functions I need on those appliances that require the app.
Borrowed time. I hope not, but that's the prevailing feeling.
I'm no slouch either, I've developed for android for almost a decade.
I'm not disagreeing with ya, just adding a comment so folks are aware that the "Graphene just works" crowd is sometimes a bit hyperbolic.
After that? I only had one application fail due to Graphene's memory allocator. No weird bugs, no need to restart like some siblings are commenting. As close to the "Graphene just works" as it could be.
However, I'm not heavy into Google's ecosystem. Google Pay will not work but I'm not a user, some Google features won't tell you why they don't work but I'm not using them either (Quick Share for instance), none of my apps require the highest Play Integrity level. Maybe the person who say this are a specific type of person where use-cases don't overlap with what breaks on Graphene.
Firefox + stock keyboard stopped properly working three days ago, it's back to normal now. No idea what that was about. Restarting was the only way I found to get things working again during that period.
While on the stock Android keyboard, it is clear that the Google one is much better at correcting my taps than the stock one. My typo count has gone up significantly.
Every several weeks the mobile connectivity stops working and nothing short of a restart will get it working again. This might be a bad interaction of the very weird way Google Fi works with a secondary user account.
I've encountered one case of the phone shutting itself off to install an update overnight and not turning on, making me miss my morning alarm.
In the US, there's no way to side step the lack of tap to pay.
Getting apps to work with Android Auto requires some finessing.
These are the things I've encountered in the last 2 months of using Graphene.
Aside from all of that, I really like everything else about the OS. As it stands, it does lacks polish when straying outside of the common path. Not using a secondary account, nor Google Fi on an eSIM, and using the stock browser would likely improve my experience significantly.
I haven't encountered an app that wouldn't work yet (but have installed play services as I do want to use Android Auto).
I would still recommend Grapheme for normal-ish users, as long as you don't go "paranoid mode" with secondary accounts and skipping play services or don't want to use the phone for tons of things beyond phone calls and web browsing. The base experience is that much calmer than stock Android on Pixel.
I don't use RCS and Android Auto.
I have HeliBoard to replace Stock/Google Keyboard. It is way ahead the stock keyboard experience but far behind Google Keyboard's, especially when writing in two languages.
Tap-to-pay works with my bank apps. But that means I can only use one card unlike with GPay.
I rarely use second account as the latency to switch from one account to the other is a pain. I only have a secondary sending notifications to the first one.
I don't let the phone auto-reboot for installs, I let it install automatically and click reboot when I want it to install.
I am on a physical SIM / different carrier and never encountered network issues so I can't comment on that one.
(idle interest; I use Graphene, but few apps, and everything worked so far)
It helps, but your modems are still closed chipsets you have no ability to control constantly in communication with and controlled by third parties who can execute code on your hardware at any time without your notice or consent.
I really hated my Pixel 7 Pro, but I think that was bad hardware and not Android's fault, and since buying my iPhone 13 I have bought my Thinkpad and have been unbelievably impressed with Lenovo hardware (especially since the last Android phone that I bought that I actually liked was my Moto X3).
It would be great if Graphene ends up getting support from at least one first party, because at that point I think there's at least a chance it won't screw with banking apps and the like.
It's quite problematic that someone can currently upload a package name belonging to another organization to the Play Store and that should have been stopped years ago since it was used in many cases for scamming and squatting on package names clearly belonging to others. Package names are meant to start with a reverse domain belonging to the owner such as app.grapheneos for our grapheneos.app domain. They could enforce this based on domains authorizing usage without enforcing ID verification and that's what we would have proposed.
This is one of the ways F-Droid has ignored standard best practices including security practices in a way that's already causing problems but is now a massive issue for them. If they had started doing things properly many years ago when it was first brought up, then they'd be in a much better situation today. They're going to need to deal with this by renaming all their package names to org.fdroid. to avoid issues with the proposed changes. This is problematic because existing users will stop getting updates. It's better to use a prefix than a suffix where a developer could end up changing their mind about whether it makes sense resulting in conflict over the name, which is fair since they still own it if it's their reverse domain.
Dating… well, the goal for most people is to exit the dating pool anyway.
Social media is bad.
Many countries have only three or four full banks (the kind that can give you a Visa or Mastercard bank card, let you send and receive transfers, etc.), and all of them are making the same moves.
Messaging apps will continue working.
Banking apps made by reasonable companies will also. In days of banking being competitive and rather open with many providers offering good value, it's so easy to switch providers. Granted I am relatively poor and keep my banking simple, but I doubt card providers want to increase friction either. After Revolut started requiring >basic integrity it took me appx 1 day to switch to n26 and nothing of value was lost.
Not being able to use socialmedia, e-commerce, and dating apps sounds great.
This whole website is a scare screen. There's a lot that is not being said on this page, such as the advantages of the new system, and the motivations of the authors of this site.
There's a reasonable discussion to be had about trade-offs here, but this is entirely one sided, in somewhat bad faith in my personal opinion.
The point of "keepandroidopen.org", in my understanding, is to be a quick PSA on why the author of the website thinks this is a problem with some call-to-action. It's not supposed to be a place for discussion, it's at best a discussion starter, one of the sides of the discussion to consider. Obviously they present their side, as Google has presented their side.
And anyway, how are users supposed to hold this "reasonable discussion" with a corporation? I know that Google had some sort a feedback form about this, and that they made some changes, but that is not a discussion. I didn't really actually see any "reasonable discussion" being held on this topic ever, anywhere, ever, nor do I really see how it would happen. I don't even really see a good reason for Google to hold such a discussion. It's a decision made by a corporation, about their product, after all.
Could you present your how you see this "reasonable discussion" being had? Where? How?
And I don't see how this change adresses the number one source of scams, the Play Store.
If I search for "DeepL" the first hit on the play store is "Preply" whatever that is, only the second one is actually DeepL.
As for the apk, of course not many people distribute legitimately this way ... because it's already too complicated! Even Fortnite couldn't make it work, so if they cannot, how can your average developer do it?
If you want more legitimate apks, the solution is to remove friction and make them easier to install.
Google has been acting in two steps here:
- first make apks too complicated for legitimate developers
- then claim that no legitimate developer use them...
Your phone is still yours, you can still install third party apps, and you can still develop apps without a verification. But now there's a one-off hurdle to install them.
Not ideal, but when we think of the people that it's trying to protect, this feels like a reasonable middle ground.
After about a month of using Graphene OS, I'm not looking back – it's great. I'm not recommending it as a 100% solution for everyone, but it's definitely a very solid practical step towards keeping the phone yours:
1. Your phone will be able to operate as a basic phone (calls, SMS, web, photos / videos, location, Bluetooth, eSIM) without a Google account.
2. You will always be able to install an APK. This helps you install apps that are banned from Google Play Store in your country.
3. There's a duress PIN that lets you wipe the phone completely from any 'Enter PIN' screen. (I tried it, it's a bit messy, but it does wipe the phone and in the end you return to a blank Graphene OS installation – no need to reinstall.)
4. There's a setting that lets you disable any USB port functionality other than charging.
5. The permission system is amazing. If you are forced to install a state-mandated spy app (like the Max messenger in Russia), you can put it into a "permission jail" where the app assumes that it has access to the requested data but actually receives what you explicitly give it. For example, you can select individual photos and contacts to make available to the app – while the app will think that it has access to all contacts and photos. Bonus: the new Internet permission, which lets apps think that they are connected to the Internet while they are actually blocked from it.
6. You can have a separate profile for data and apps you don't want to expose. (There's also a Private Space for that, it's very convenient but it exposes installed apps via app search from the main space.)
7. There's an End Session function for a logged-in profile that stops it from running, wipes it from memory, and puts the data at rest.
8. You can have a separate VPN in each profile. This should help against situations where your local equivalent of Roskomnadzor sniffs out your VPN connection settings via state-mandated changes in apps operating in your jurisdiction, and bans that particular VPN later. Just make sure you install all spy apps under a profile with a disposable VPN that you aren't afraid to lose.
9. Each profile (and the Private Space too, because technically it is a special kind of Profile) can have a separate Google account. For example, one profile can have a Russian Google account (for banking and state apps), while another profile can have an Armeninan Google account (for things that are banned in Russia, like Spotify and Kindle.) However, to arrange this, you have to physically be in the desired country – Google doesn't let you change the account country without being there.
To sum up – if you are concerned about this situation, buy Pixel 10 (excellent hardware btw.), install Graphene OS (very easy, their web installer is great), and try using it for a while.
You see, the only value that Android really offered me was the ability to run my own code on my own device. Since they are taking that away that just makes it a crappier shadow of the vastly superior apple experience. And, as it turns out, ios is less restrictive than it was 18 years ago when I left them for Android!
I'm in no way defending Google here, just pointing out you're going from bad to worse and think it's a good thing.
And on the other side, the benefits of using iOS over Android spyware outweighs the cons now.
Apple lost my confidence after they removed Advanced Device Encryption for British users (plus implemented age verification for them).
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/105120
You're thinking of Apple saying they haven't detected a case of a device with Lockdown Mode exploited in the wild themselves. Extremely few devices use Lockdown Mode and Apple has very little insight into successful exploits so there isn't much opportunity for them to detect it in the first place. Lockdown Mode bundles everything together and has very inconvenient changes many people won't accept. That greatly reduces usage even by people fully aware of it who want a lot of what it provides. For example, there's
Apple has said they haven't seen a case of a device with Lockdown Mode being exploited which is extremely misleading. Apple doesn't have that much visibility into devices being exploited and would mostly seen failed attempts. All of the Lockdown Mode functionality being bundled together contributes to it barely being used. There's no opt-out system for most of it beyond disabling it as a whole. Only a subset of the Safari restrictions can be partially disabled per-app and per-site which doesn't fully restore web compatibility. It's more that hardly anyone is using it and that Apple doesn't have much insight into apps and the OS being exploited successfully in the first place. Lockdown Mode is definitely useful but people should read about what it actually does and compare that to how devices get exploited. Apple's memory corruption exploit protections aren't tied to Lockdown Mode.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Xcode/enabling-enh...
You can use iPhone being blissfully unaware it has malware on it even in Lockdown mode (which is essentially cope mechanism and Apple way of saying "we care about security, trust us bro").
But yeah, there is no doubt in my mind that they both collect as much as they can.
There are multiple objective reasons to believe that Apple is a more trustworthy actor here than other companies, including vulgar capitalistic reasons.
You can just say “pfft, wow, you really believe that?”, I guess, but if that’s your position there’s no reason to argue about this with you.
Also, for anybody from outside of US, its US 3-letter agencies that pose biggest actual security risk since US laws treat us as sub-humans. Apple is as translucent to those as Android. But I get it, its still much easier to make PR campaign based on security for Apple than Android.
The biggest loss for me was Termux. I had lots of scripts and such that I ran, plus just having a Linux environment in my pocket was nice. Luckily I found ish which gives me alpine Linux on top of a virtual x86 machine as provided by a JITC layer. I can host PWA apps out of that environment for local use. Of course I can also ssh to my unix like machines from there too.
I am starting to tinker with swift a bit more too. As with google, I could buy a dev key to deploy my own apps only this way I have all the window dressing and end to end encryption on cloud storage.
Maybe this will be a catalyst towards further evolution of the web app as Android devs want to carve out some freedom from the world domination corporate shadow government walled gardens.
That’s what forced me to finally bite the bullet and pay Apple yearly so I could develop an app for my friends and I to use. Would have much rather kept it as a PWA.
At some point you have the thing working to your satisfaction and just want to continue using it.
Or maybe everything is normal, but, oops, you forgot the last renewal and it stops working exactly the moment you needed it most.
Or maybe it's a normal day, and, oops, you forgot the last manual renewal, and now it's busted at exactly the moment you needed it most.
You forgot to factor in the cost of a Mac.
So I feel like, Something like this was/is possible but its immensely hard for something like this being used especially when a desktop os on a phone is so bad ergonomically speaking unless you have a keyboard mouse connected
A better option iirc is to use something like kivy[0] directly with termux, not sure if java might have direct options too or not.
What's the next step when ADB requires some hoops to enable? Will we say that but the eMMC has an unencrypted EXT4 partition, we can just desolder and write into it?
Still unacceptable, a better option would be to use something like lineage or some other aosp distro without the google services (hoping that nothing makes you dependent on them).
This still doesn't address the vast majority of people though (and that's what I'm concerned about the most).
What we need now is:
- short term, work on pushing apps not to depend on the google services so phones preinstalled with something like /e/ become a viable option for most people. Push our public services to stop mandating Google and Apple OSes for random stuff.
- longer term, work on making alternatives to Android and iOS viable options for most people (stability, usability and availability of services people use). The best candidate for that today is Linux mobile.
Breaking network effect around proprietary services is one of the strategies towards this.
Another one is reducing our reliance on computers (of any shape) altogether, maybe.
Jolla has a prelaunch campaign, decent phones for 200€. I might just as well grab one. Sick of having a phone which is more expensive than my laptop but I can barely use.
This is much worse than nagging about "untrusted sources".
each adb host has to be individually white-listed by an unlocked device. also the current behavior is that it auto forgets any white listed host that hasn't connected within 7 days.
So even when adb is on an attacker can't just plug into your phone and use it. Besides, I just switch it off when I don't use it
•1. Where most users can install software from:
↠↠ iOS: official store (App Store) + (in EU) other stores
↠↠ Android (now): official store (Play Store), other stores (e.g. F-Droid), arbitrary APKs
↠↠ Android (after changes): official store (Play Store), other stores (e.g. F-Droid), arbitrary APKs
•2. Who the developers of software can be:
↠↠ iOS: registered developers ($99/year)
↠↠ Android (now): any developer
↠↠ Android (after changes): registered developers ($25 one-time) + hobbyists (small distribution) + any developers (for advanced users)
•3. Installing your own apps on your own phone, without becoming a registered developer:
↠↠ iOS: using XCode: need to reinstall every 7 days.
↠↠ Android (now): using ADB
↠↠ Android (after changes): using ADB
The second row (•2) is what is changing in Android. I think "the ability to run my own code on my own device", narrowly speaking, is closest to the third row, which is not changing.
The key difference being that when I needed help I called Apple Support who transfered me once to their EU Developer support who, while I talked to him, setup and approved my Dev account. While my Google account still is in pending limbo with their new verification system with no support to contact... I have since giving up getting access after multiple tries.
So Google changes do hit alot harder than the summery makes it seem.
Alternatively if the difficulty of moving from 0->X is not negligible but moving from X->X+Y is then I may still be installing but I'm not considering the Y in the comparison then either. i.e. If I have to show my id to google once and apple twice it's the initial showing that is the turn off, or if it's the action of getting my credit card out in the 1st place rather than the cost difference that concerns me.
As if most android maker phones don't already fully own your device - preventing you from unlocking of bootloader and installing an OS that actually doesnt enforce the restriction google is introducing in their flavour of android.
To pretend that with this change android becomes exactly like iOS is... ridiculous? I can pick any 10yo old android phone from my drawer and develop for it, no problem and without asking for permissions. And if I'm already this motivated I'm certainly motivated enough to wait 24hs on future (more locked down) devices.
Do you think people who download NewPipe and alike - to circumvent ads and enable premium features - would think twice because they need to wait 24hs? Will NewPipe devs stop developing (anonymously) because of a small fraction of users who refuse to (or won't) go through unlocking steps?
Show me all these "rebel" apps on iOS ecosystem that can be easily distributed on any channel: fdroid, github, telegram groups, etc.
But sure, if you thinking moving to iOS is the same, sounds like you never really made use of any of the freedoms android used to and will continue to provide
But I don't think that's the point. It's a continual erosion of people's ability to use hardware _they own_ in ways _they want_ under the guise of 'security' - which to be fair google does fuck all to actually prevent malicious, scammy and misleading apps from appearing on their play store.
Like, why make it harder _at all_? I develop Android apps for a company that is used only internally. I don't want to have to release apps to the play store so that they have to go through a bs review period before I can get them out the door users. Currently I have a <10m turn around from starting the build to having an app in user's hands, ready to go... Every other time we've had to use the play store it's 2+ days, and they don't test or verify anything meaningful.
I recognize my experience isn't universal, but I'm pretty opposed to changes like this. I'm not American so I don't really have underlying rhetoric around freedom etc, but this is an impingement and part of continuing anti-consumer trend. Google's not the only one, but certainly the one under the spotlight here.
A lot of people don't seem to understand this and point out that Android is still more open and free than iOS, but iOS has never been about openness and freedom. People believed in Android, and in Google. Now they either see Google betraying them (once again) or only see the Android vs iOS comparison, forgetting about the implications about autonomy, agency and about the future of Android. Many people don't care which actors control their digital lives and what motivations they have. People should be made aware that Google is on their side and that they have shown many times that they have no honor.
I wonder why. The last time I considered believing in Android was in 2008 when I was choosing between getting an Android phone or Openmoko phone. Went with the latter and never regretted, as Android quickly turned out to be a disappointment. This is just the continuation of the slow crawl they've been on since 20 years ago and it's been really obvious that it's going to happen. The answer is to reject Android just like iOS, not to keep hoping that inevitable isn't going to happen.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."Replace the lock screen with a custom app
Replace the home screen with a custom app
Set default apps for SMS, phone service, assistant, camera, photo gallery. all things you can not change on iOS
Always on widgets and dynamic wallpapers
It has a much more customizable inter app communication system so that you can get more apps to be the default viewers
At allows true background tasks like say a BitTorrent client
It supports shared storage like SMB and a user accessible file system
Custom NFC apps
USB host mode
Multiple users/profiles
And about 70 other things
I hope we will remember this lesson and learn from it. Calling something "open" doesn't make it so, and anything owned by a large corporation will eventually succumb to the direction taken by the corporation. And large corporations have goals where you, the user, are not a consideration, you are just a part of their money-making machinery.
I do not feel iOS is particularly better... some things are, some things are not. Yes android was more customizable, and yes the universal back and home buttons are still better than the multi tap and hidden gestures on iOS. But overall some pleasantries such as shared clipboard, seamless headphone switch over, and overall simplification so far, is working very well for me.
I simply need a phone on a major platform, as my job (and life) requires to have certain apps which only run on (non-rooted) Android or iOS phones. And I am tired of fighting and adapting.. so I now just use most of the default apps everywhere, and whatever does or does not work, I take it mostly as-is. For now it seems to allow me to just worry less about it and focus on the things I actually want or need to do .. send email, read message, visit a website, listen to a podcast and not fret about the tiniest of UX details.
I would love to live in a world where I could run around with a customized linux laptop and some sort of privacy respecting phone (e.g. Graphene) but the hurdles are not really worth it to me anymore. Sad in a way, as without counter pressure.. things will not necessarily get better, I know. The 22C3 talk by Rop and Frank I think was depressing, and true.
We lost the war.
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/events/920.en.h...
Then they locked it, so I went to live in a luxury hotel, it's more expensive, I can't decide how I want it and I don't own anything, but it's such a superior experience!
It's not their fault (plus since 2027 we expect the first Motorola handset secure enough tu be supported by GOS)
And at least they don't cheat on patches :)
Also, once you have it, it just works.
Some people like that.
Does that not apply to GOS?
Anyone making this statement is not a serious person.
I have been around Mac, Windows, and Linux for both desktop, personal, containers/server (yes, even OS X Server) at a large scale, etc. use and there's no way this is a serious take from anyone with any breadth of real world experience, especially not in the desktop world.
The Apple/macOS experience is even now still above the rest by a serious margin that cannot be ignored.
The Linux experience on server/container, etc. is King.
The Windows experience is...well, yeah, still somewhat stable and they're doing their best to alienate anyone they can. But still a more stable experience by a slim margin than Linux.
I've used Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Gentoo, Arch, Mandrake before Mandriva, macOS since before it was macOS, Windows since 95, and beyond. I'm writing this on a Nobara install right now, because my entire goal is to eradicate Windows from my life, which within the first minutes of setup already showed more quirks than even Windows 10.
Is the Linux Desktop experience better now? Yep, it's miles ahead of what it was, and yet it's still buggy as hell. I have intentionally gone between iOS and Android over the past decade-ish and a half and Android is a Playskool mobile OS compared to iOS. And yes, I even have used GrapheneOS.
I'm really tired of the Linux fanbase, and I include myself in that group, constantly lying in every thread about what it is and what it isn't. If you lie to people and tell them that it's better than Windows and macOS, they're going to immediately have a bad time and end up in a world of hurt because they're listening to nerds who barely go outside talk about how Arch is the greatest thing in the world and will solve all your computing problems.
Don't set people up to be disappointed if you actually care about Linux becoming a thing.
Also, and perhaps most importantly, I apologize if this comes off a bit harsh.
It's been a few years since I had to use OSX for work, but last I used it, you couldn't maximize windows without a 1+ second animation playing when you cmd+tabbed, which made maximizing completely useless. Docker was also super slow. There's no package manager and the usual recommendation (brew) for a third party one is trash that will update programs you didn't ask it to when you're installing something else. IIRC external monitors are completely unusable from blurry text.
I used a windows laptop recently for a year or so for work. Absolute jank. Sleep was just broken. Like wouldn't sleep/spin down the fan with the lid closed unless I unplugged it. Often completely frozen requiring hard reboots when opening the lid. Leaving it "sleeping" for an extended period would still heavily drain the battery. WSL barely works. For some reason I have to care whether things are in my Windows or Linux home directory. Wrong one and git commands take seconds. I'd get environment mismatches where the terminal in VSCode would fail to run commands that run in a normal CLI, etc. DNS would break inside WSL because it wouldn't propagate config from DHCP. UI is just slow to respond to anything. If you start typing in the start menu search (e.g. "shut down" or "power off"), the menu replaces itself with a different one, and you can't find the power options until you close and reopen the menu.
That's a throwaway line, everyone is used to their own flavors of jank, even on Linux.
>Your goal is to get off windows, but I've had only Linux on my home computers for ~10 years and it's been working great the whole time, Literally nothing I can think of to complain about.
I think you're trying to read too much into a comment and trying to poke holes...I don't have any Windows, if that wasn't clear. Since we're flexing about experience...I've been doing this since RH 7.2 came in the back of a book 20+ years ago and deploying production Linux services for about the same at a large scale but whatever.
Everything has its flavor of jank, and for most people, Linux is a flavor of jank just barely too far over the horizon still. But, once again, far better than what it ever was 20 years ago, and has the potential to pass Windows at least here soon. But, one of the biggest hurdles especially for adoption is, well, the community, 90% of which think they're one step away from being Linus simply because they installed Arch following a tutorial, and they treat new users the same way for no good reason as they tell the same new users "it's Easy!"
You must be one of the luckier Linux users I guess. I have heard of them, but I've had plenty of convos where once you actually dig into things it's usually not as truthful and playing to the crowd on an internet forum _about Linux_ for confirmation.
>It's been a few years since I had to use OSX for work, but last I used it, you couldn't maximize windows without a 1+ second animation playing when you cmd+tabbed
I use it every day for work, for heavy eng work. Let's be honest, yes there's an animation delay to some degree, but this is trafficking a bit in hyperbole here. GNOME has basically the same behavior for many aspects including switching workspaces by default...which can be turned off in both. The Cinnamon or KDE default experience is better in this regard.
>Docker was also super slow
Only issue I've had with Docker on a Mac with speed is when I'm trying to use some hefty x64 images on ARM macOS (I still have a last model i7 MBA for fun too), which is expected, same with VMs. I've run some pretty gnarly full stack apps, some that included Java backends that needed up to 8gb because reasons, without issue as long as I built an ARM image.
>There's no package manager and the usual recommendation (brew) for a third party one is trash that will update programs you didn't ask it to when you're installing something else.
It behaves roughly the same on macOS as it does on Linux, IME. If I'm not explicit on dnf/apt, I get more updates than just what I wanted too. But maybe I'm missing something. It's how I manage all my tooling on the work env and gives me very few issues save usually for only the occasional connection issue which is always attributed to work VPN nonsense.
>IIRC external monitors are completely unusable from blurry text.
Even on a Mac? The ecosystem is designed for professional graphics use, never had an issue there even back to CRT days heavily using all the Adobe suite versions, and even with non-Apple displays. Every Linux setup I've ever used, including this one is janky with external monitors, let alone dual. Even the "Easiest distro in the world" (Mint) according to most Linux nerds is problematic to say the least in trying to use the screen res/layout settings.
>I used a windows laptop recently for a year or so for work. Absolute jank. Sleep was just broken. Like wouldn't sleep/spin down the fan with the lid closed unless I unplugged it. Often completely frozen requiring hard reboots when opening the lid.
A - agreed, I don't work anywhere which requires Windows, because for all my devtooling, it's all tied into a macOS ecosystem, yes, with homebrew for now. Been that way for almost a decade now. Ideally, one should also do a lot in a build container for 1:1 matching so your CI jobs run the same env/toolset/versions. It's better for real dev work and way more stable in a way that won't require you to become a support headache for the company either.
B - what you are describing is a hardware issue and attributing it to Windows. I had the same issue on a B550 series desktop mobo, went to Linux, same exact behavior. This is not an OS issue.
>Leaving it "sleeping" for an extended period would still heavily drain the battery.
To my mind, non-mac laptops are garbage for battery life, everyone knows this, and yeah if it wasn't sleeping for real it's gonna eat up resources. This is more a hardware issue than anything, not the OS layer. Put Linux on it and I could almost guarantee you would have had similar issues, I've dealt with this like I said w/ the mobo above.
>WSL barely works. For some reason I have to care whether things are in my Windows or Linux home directory. Wrong one and git commands take seconds. I'd get environment mismatches where the terminal in VSCode would fail to run commands that run in a normal CLI, etc. DNS would break inside WSL because it wouldn't propagate config from DHCP. UI is just slow to respond to anything. If you start typing in the start menu search (e.g. "shut down" or "power off"), the menu replaces itself with a different one, and you can't find the power options until you close and reopen the menu.
Man, I have to wonder....was this not using latest/WSL2 and instead using WSL1? Because there _is_ a massive leap between the two. It's not ideal compared to native on Linux or even mac but still works quite well for many use cases. When the WSL2 upgrade came back when I was forced in a past env to use a Windows laptop, myself and 4 other Devs could run our full stack including Kafka locally without much issue on WSL2 other than producing heat on the laptop b/c of how many services we were running. (About 35 .NET Core microservices at the time, along with redis, Kafka, etc.). Yes, the home pathing was a tad annoying.
>If you start typing in the start menu search (e.g. "shut down" or "power off"), the menu replaces itself with a different one, and you can't find the power options until you close and reopen the menu.
Yeah every OS seems to have issues with their search/launcher tooling, but the Start Menu has been shit for a while now. I've had more issues on Windows than anything else re: manu defaults (once tweaked on like W10 it's fine), but then Linux, and then even macOS...before paring down Spotlight to only search certain things, which made it way better.
shrugs
I think this is one of the challenges of building good software, it's why Apple does what they do. Some experiences on one hardware set are somehow perfect, but they're rare, some are the exact opposite. But a lot comes down to what a user is willing to tolerate, too, and while someone might say it was "Easier on Linux" it's usually just that they're willing to tolerate more terminal madness and odd behaviors than others in their daily driver.
For non-power users OSX is still a no-brainer, but for a programmer I feel like Apple's left us no alternative.
edit: and I'd like to add, GrapheneOS brought me back the joy of using my phone. Since 2018 or so I started to dread my phone (and the internet) more and more. Installing GrapheneOS brought back the joy on using these marvelous computers (and self-hosting brought back the joy of using the internet)
I love my phone and when I replace it, I will be flashing GrapheneOS again. This is my second phone with it so far, and roughly year 4 or 5.
With that said, it isn't for everyone. I definitely remember some issues upon first install, a learning curve if you want to call it that. I also introduce intentional obstacles in certain "workflows" in my life that dissuade certain usage, like excessive social media use. With that said, I no longer remember what I introduced myself and what was an OS characteristic. I do remember having frustrations with most banking apps IF I didn't log into the play store mirror. Since I'm "hardcore" and am not willing to sign into a Google product on my phone, they just don't work. However I don't think they would be an issue for most people.
If you are on the fence, you can make a backup of your phone, try it out, and if you don't like it, you can reinstall the default Android and restore your backup. I've done it before when I used my previous GrapheneOS phone for store credit for my next phone, and figured they'd want a factory reset default OS on there.
The first is the anti-trust angle. Some subset of bank apps don't work because of attestation and that's a significant barrier to adoption for switching to competitors, so it ought to be an anti-trust violation for the platform to do that.
The second is, you try it and discover that your bank doesn't work. If you want it bad enough you can switch banks, and the fact that it doesn't work is a signal that your bank has a weak security team who is just cargo culting deleterious vendor nonsense without evaluating whether it has any real security value.
(The use case for attestation is completely orthogonal to bank apps because it can't prevent credential stealing from compromised phones running a fake app since the fake app won't require attestation, and it can't prevent attackers from using stolen credentials to transfer funds because once they have the credentials they can just use a normal phone, and that's the case even if the attestation was completely airtight, which it isn't. Meanwhile the devices that can pass attestation are generally more vulnerable because it implies they're running the more-likely-to-be-outdated OS that came with the device rather than a third party upgrade with more recent patches, so they're essentially encouraging their customers to not upgrade their OS. Banks that do this are wearing clown makeup and you have to ask if you trust them with your money.)
But look at all the information I can get from the Live Tiles! Oh and isn't Cortana neat! A little more self-flagellation for the penitent ones who've traded corporate app stores for daily inconvenience.
With that out of the way, and the device now seemingly authorized, it still doesn't work, because when I log in, the app restarts. That could be a real compatibility problem.
I'm not going back to paying without my phone. So yeah, I'm not going to a free platform either.
the choice really is mostly down to Google's Android or iOS - unless you're ready to make sacrifices. If you are... More power to you! I'm not (at this point in my life) right now.
Alternate take: good. I'd rather the GrapheneOS team pick standardized (if limited) hardware configurations to support and then spend their (many multiples less than Google) resources on the platform rather than device compatibility.
The Android OEM diversity mean the time/economics of supporting every phone with a non-Google OS were never going to work, and I'd rather have it working well on a limited number of platforms than poorly on more.
Firmware engineering and patching sucks and delivers little value to the user, because best case (you solved the issue or patched the hardware errata) something basic that a user expects is now working.
Nobody is going to switch to a platform because a phone can now make calls. Even if there are 1000+ human hours in patching some cheap clone LTE chip it uses.
Go freely walk out your local supermarket without paying.
But your Android phone is unlocked #winning
that's your definition of freedom?
Don't pay taxes. Steal cars, punch Trump, call a black person the N-word ... see how it goes
Paper and pencil offer a far more blank canvas compared to the very specific hardware constraints of a phone, and ecosystem of software limited to the common languages
Software dev and use is, comparatively, heavily constrained and on rails compared to sitting by a tree and imagining
To buy the phone ones agency is coupled to the subset of legitimate options to make money
Same for electricity to charge it, battery replacement, screen repair if it breaks.
Really just quickly becomes a ball and chain
So free!
It's natural that this huge Android regression might be enough for someone to dip their toes into the other side.
No, it markets lockin dressed up as privacy. Convincing you that they are the same thing is the real magic here.
(Apple's Terms of Service is also much better, for not having an arbitration clause anywhere except the Apple credit card, with a very easy opt-out flow.)
I love my 13 mini as a phone, but I don't understand how anyone could compare the two app stores and think iOS comes out on top. At least android has f-droid.
From my perspective, the walled garden value I get is predominantly in the integrations between my phone, macbook, and watch. And to a lesser extent (because it's a bit buggy at times) the family integrations.
As a result it's mainly rich people and tourists that own them. Most people use budget android phones, the kind that still come with 3,5mm jacks. You still see wired earphones a lot.
[1] https://source.android.com/
[2] https://www.apkmirror.com/
[3] https://www.kyoceramobile.com/rugged-devices/duraxv-extreme-...
After switching away from GrapheneOS to iOS after RCS stopped working for me, I can safely say my experience has been the opposite. The camera is the only thing better for me on iOS - everything else is buggier and worse. A few of my favorites:
1. Safari is buggy as hell, and requires installing apps to run things like ad blockers.
2. The settings are ALL over the place and very hard to navigate
3. The gestures are clunky - often have to try a couple times to get one of the settings quick menus to drop down
4. Why is the date not displayed at the top of the screen with the time outside of the lock screen?
5. The pin unlock is horribly broken - I have to slow way down to use it compared to Android.
6. Apple maps is hot garbage. I had to install Google Maps anyway to get decent performance.
7. The handling of audio devices seems intentionally malicious - like if I call someone from my car through car play, it shouldn't send the audio out through the phone earpiece. If a call begins with phone earpiece audio and is underway, it shouldn't switch several seconds in to bluetooth headset half a house.
I'm going back for my next phone.
I highly recommend switching to GOS, it is wayyy better than iOS UX-wise and obviously better privsec and freedom.
One thing that I had to do when I first got GOS, to get a better experience, was find all the Open Source apps that I needed. Otherwise, it looks rather bland and the apps are mid. Once you find the right apps and launcher, everything works much better.
On the bright side, Messages works without linking to a Google account
When I first tried last fall I had it working for a few weeks then it stopped entirely delivering messages and I fell back to SMS only. After the recent system updates and enabling the ICC option it has been working well for me.
The official page explains briefly, https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs
There is a very long discussion threat going back several years that is now considered resolved, which seems to be the case for me. https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/1353-using-rcs-with-google-...
In the last week or so, multiple people have told me they cannot text me. I found that I was getting a "verification limit exceeded" error (perhaps because of my unusual behavior of usually being at work or at home, both which have known wifi networks, and sending maybe half a dozen texts any day?). I got the error to go away for half a day and they were still unable to message during that time, and now that I have it disabled I still appear as online on RCS (yet still unreachable?) so they still cannot message me lol.
I've been on the other end many times across multiple Android devices across multiple years, being able to send messages to some RCS users, being unable to send messages to other RCS users, not being able to receive messages in group chats entirely comprised of Android users, etc.
SMS/MMS: Handled by carriers, you can send messages to people who are offline and they'll get the messages when they turn their phone back on.
Telegram/FbMessenger/Whatsapp/etc: Handled by individual corporations, you can send messages to people who are offline and they'll get the messages when they turn their their device on.
RCS: Handled by both Google and carriers at the same time for some reason, maybe 80% chance of being able to send a message to somebody who's online, let alone offline.
I'm sure there are multiple reasons it was challenging, but Google and friends have not risen to the occasion at all. Truly a garbage protocol.
RCS I didn't even bother to set up. I don't want to use yet another system. If people want to reach me they have WhatsApp, Signal or Telegram to choose from.
I hear this and wonder how much must be regional. I'm experiencing the opposite. Apple Maps has gotten quite good, while Google Maps seems to just be rotting away. Both do work reasonably well in my home area of the PNW, but Apple Maps is a bit more polished. But in some places, like recently when I was on a business trip in Austin, Google Maps was comically terrible at routing. I get that partly this is probably because Texas has interesting ideas about designing a road network, but still, Apple got it working just fine.
How many people can afford one?
Calculator checks yearly cost based on device support: (https://ibb.co/xq82YQCw)
Sources for device lifetime from calculator: (https://grapheneos.org/faq#device-lifetime)
I used a New+Unlocked+Pixel+X on eBay to find a rough price of the phone.
Most people get scammed by their carrier and pay $25-45 per month just for their wireless subscription, and many more get caught up in the device bundles which gets you the "latest and greatest", at a huge price. So people are paying, per month, what you can pay, per year for a Pixel.
You can use Silent Link to pay by the gigabyte with no expiration date. Most people don't need unlimited—I use a maximum of 5 GB per month, and my average is around 3. At $1.60 per month, that is $60 per YEAR for me.
Swap in https://jmp.chat for another 60 dollars per year for calls/texts and you get a $120/year phone bill which is just $10/month.
I will be moving from US Mobile to Jmp.chat once my plan expires.
You could also use US Mobile for $17/month which is unlimited and is user friendly. They also often have Pixels for a significant discount with no lock-in.
Not going to be cheaper than Pixels. The chips they need for the hardware security are the flagship Snapdragon chips iirc.
I love my Pixel now, I would have to see where Motorola is better than the Pixels other than the more computing power.
The only phone I've ever had trouble installing more than a few apps was one with 512MB of storage. If I go check the second result on amazon for android phone it's a solid motorola option, unlocked for $127 and with 128GB. That's more than enough; even some flagships have 128GB.
The "just over $100" range has multiple options with good storage. Below that is a sea of locked/refurbished phones that are also good options in many cases.
Digging deeper I eventually hit a "BLU" brand phone for $50 with only 16GB, and that leaves you with not very much after the OS takes its space. But then you can add $10 to get another 16GB and have more than enough room for apps.
So you have to go really low to have the problem you're describing.
Hardware may be cheap enough now that budget phones are more useable--32 GB for <$100 is a major improvement.
Regardless, since they have a 16GB model I strongly doubt the 32GB model would ever have less than 16GB of usable space.
Last year though the Pixel 8a was selling for 350€ and I got one. Luckily, given the recent developments. Will be installing GrapheneOS.
If you consider getting iPhone you DEFINITELY can afford something much newer than that.
Android will still have the ability to install non-google-distributed programs. The problem is the ominous momentum, but it is still more open than the apple alternative
From my perspective iOS is better than Android in a number of ways but Android always won out overall for me, in large part because of the freedom regarding software. Remove that freedom from the equation, I think the balance tips towards iOS.
These posts always have a few comments like that, but they never actually say what they find to be better on iOS.
For me, Google services are not an option, so my Android experience is sans-Google.
Until September 2025, I'd say iOS had actually gotten better than Android.
CalDAV, CardDAV, and SMB are baked into iOS, whereas these are onerous to set up on Android. These are very very nice protocols, and I use them all daily. (Contacts, Calendars, Notes, Reminders, and Files.)
Apple's developer ecosystem lacks the FOSS devs that make F-Droid so good, but they do have a number of devs who release paid apps with zero tracking, which is very nice. It's often the case an app exists on iOS as a $5 one-time fee with a two-paragraph privacy policy for which one does not exist on Fdroid.
Shortcuts work well enough, homescreen customization is good enough, etc. that a number of the original Android draws are gone. There are a number of points where iOS and Android are equals now.
iCloud's E2EE photo backup is something I reluctantly started using and found to be very nice, after having had de-Googled in 2018. I miss having my photos auto-upload and be available on other devices, and Apple has had iCloud Web for awhile. This is nicer than the options I have on Android.
And while Android's notification-panel tiles have gotten worse over the years (down from six to two controls on the first swipe, this was what alienated me and got me to try iOS), iOS now has a much denser "control center".
The big caveat is the gigantic regression that is iOS 26. The phone is slower, it kills battery, the native apps are constantly crashing, the lockscreen and homescreen often have broken navigation flows, etc. It's a travesty that never should have been released and iOS is easily worse than Android right now. If someone needed a phone today, I couldn't recommend an iPhone, but that might change with iOS 27.
I can only speak to SMB but it is not hard on Android. I use a longtime third party app so not sure what the state of native support is but it works just fine for me, including over VPN
The long term fear/plan for google is that they know they days of SAAS and Apps are obsolete. People will just write their own platforms, apps, websites all from scratch using AI, which means the app stores becomes obsolete, which means no more ad revenue from shitty ads and no more control and unfettered tracking of your behaviour. AI will make these guys obsolete, they know it, this is them fighting back.
As someone who hates disturbances this is the killer feature that has kept me with samsung - well that and fdroid which is currently endangered.
For example, Ive had a Mac(book? The one that you connect periphery to use) as a work computer at a previous software job, the iPhone because of a girl I dated who wouldn't be with a green bubble man, and iPad also in a previous job, so never together or actually adopted in personal life, so I didn't get sold.
iOS charges you and limits your custom app until a few days and you have to "renew" Even before this change, I have my custom apps running forever.
Google asked (the appeals judge) why Apple was not a monopoly with the App store. The judge told Google it was because they cannot be anti-competitive if they have no competitors.
Well, here we are.
The only thing that gives me pause is this:
> Worse: this flow runs entirely through Google Play Services, not the Android OS. Google can change it, tighten it, or kill it at any time, with no OS update required and no consent needed. And as of today, it hasn't shipped in any beta, preview, or canary build. It exists only as a blog post and some mockups.
What would we think if Microsoft decided all of a sudden to do something similar with Windows? How there is no outrage about this in that community?
Like the boiled crab in the chef's cuisine, we slowly accept the rising temperature around us as totally fine and normal.
Somewhat relevant article about the demise of a culture: https://aeon.co/essays/how-yuppies-hacked-the-original-hacke...
https://developer.android.com/developer-verification/guides/...
iOS restricts you to install only up to 3 personally signed apps which need to be resigned every 7 days only if you're in the same network of the computer that signs them. Or you live in europe and you can jump through much worse hoops to install AltStores which also break as soon as you travel outside of europe.
- spending tracking app
- notepad
- RSS reader just for my YouTube subscriptions
- dumbed down browser that can only show YouTube video and nothing else (no suggestions, no comments)
- space sim game
- RC boat remote control
- micro photo led ring Bluetooth control app
- magnetometer control app
- RSS reader for news
- browser
The steps are rather insulting and arbitrary, but at least there's some way out.
I can't see where one can opt-out of this new behavior and into the existing behavior, only a description of the new behavior's bypass (which is not the same thing at all)
> easy to bypass the cooling-off period with ADB
I don't think this is a reasonable use of the term "easy". I should be able to give my non-technical friend an apk and they can use it right then, with the one "are you very sure" screen.
Unfortunately that is the same vector that scammers use to drain people's bank accounts
But also, I don't think that "computing freedom" means you get to use other people's computers without consent. Let's be clear here: Google's requirement for ID only applies to apps distributed from their computer. Presuming that you do actually respect computing freedom, I'd guess you'd support them in this.
I think a good compromise is that they could permit you to sideload. Which they are doing.
But also, if you are very concerned about computing freedom you can also vote with your wallet when you purchase a device.
Who said anything like that? This is about being able to install software on your own device.
Consent from whom? Consent is already required, why are you discussing this as though consent is not required? Why are you stating it as if people are using other's computers without consent? Right now when I sideload an APK on _my device_, I have to explicitly consent to allowing it to install. And I do not require the author of that APK to have made any deals/interactions with Google. What you mean is Google's consent or a debugger's consent or my consent tomorrow.
So I, as the user, will no longer be able to provide consent alone. I wish that you were right and it was just "no running without consent", but that is today's behavior, and that is being altered.
> I think a good compromise is that they could permit you to sideload. Which they are doing.
They always have, and that was a good compromise. They've now decided you can't sideload until tomorrow unless you break out debugging tools or require the author make special deals with a specific vendor. What exists today is a good compromise, the change is not.
I expect the same from my desktop and mobile devices here.
If you sideload... what "surveillance" are you talking about?
> They've now decided you can't sideload until tomorrow
A single 24 hour waiting period, only the first time. Or just use ADB. The point is to prevent false-urgency scams. Honestly even this seems to me to be pretty weak.
Can you think of a single better option that has any efficacy at all?
Is the solution really that no one can use a computer without special permission and inspection of government issued identification? If we wouldn't tolerate this with our desktop/laptop OS, why is it suddenly okay for our mobile computing platforms?
If Microsoft required this to run software in Windows, there would be riots.
No, that is neither the only solution nor is it the one proposed here by Google.
That's where it inevitably leads to. If people can't be allowed to be responsible for X, next they can't be allowed to be responsible for Y, then Z -- all for their own sake. Google taking some mythical "responsibility" on behalf of their users means the users are left powerless and that is that something Google wants more than just being a "good guy" who protects people from conmen.
It's not like people simply couldn't just limit themselves to installing apps from Google Play already, without these "guardrails". Android currently does make it clear that installing unknown apks from an external source is risky and shouldn't be done unless you really, really know what you're doing. No further technical solutions are required for the problem. You can't fix stupidity with technical means.
I now know zero people I don't think should use linux, and people I know seems to run quite a gamut of technical know-how compared to most other technical folks I know
Thinking tokens: "The files I'm trying to read are missing, I need to figure out why. I see the problem, I accidentally ran rm -rf /home/user. Let me run git restore. No that didn't work. Let me try git reset --hard origin/HEAD. That still didn't work. I should inform the user."
Output: "I was unable to complete the task you requested. Restore /home/user and I will try again"
I am only slightly comforted by the fact that desktop computing had set (some) self-ownership precedence before the current restrictive computing hegemony took control, though even that is eroding.
I don't understand this, the ability to bypass new behavior in settings menus is basically the defenition of a new feature having an opt-out. Can you elaborate?
The article states that you can't opt-out of the update, which AFAIK is correct.
1. Used as a proof of identity (for banks, govt services, etc.)
2. Is distributed to laypeople who have more pressing concerns in their lives than security.
3. Is an open platform where you can download apps arbitrarily from the Internet that can read your data and exfiltrate them to a malicious actor.
The mainstream today chooses 1&2. Novelty, underpowered devices choose 2&3. Hobbyists have option 3 (and those who like to live dangerously 1&3) with some inconvenience. You can still run GrapheneOS... and the mainstream apps that expect your device to be a proof of your identity won't work... and I find that quite reasonable.
Application signatures and developer identification bring a different kind of application security. It provides the security of societal legal systems and legal ramifications for malicious actors.
In the end, you still have the choice to trust the "system" or your own judgment.
Do you also support the nanny states that decide how you should be parenting your children? (The age verification etc.)
Please don't do that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It runs a modified Debian and can run Android apps in containers. To my knowledge this is the closest we come to "open-source phone that actually works as a phone" today.
Ideally buy a phone with it pre-installed
In all seriousness, Apple doesn’t even make you submit an ID to publish on the App Store.
If you use ad-blockers, I recommend exploring that use-case with Apple / Safari. It's doable though for me is a bit frustrating.
In fact, I urge creating a list of use-cases before heading out to the store, and cranking through those while at the store. Computers/phones are such a deeply entwined component of modern life it could be a long list.
Passwords, backups, bluetooth compatibility, connecting mass-storage devices to iPad / iPhone, etc.
That this is now rolled out ecosystem-wide by the central controlling party is a significant change from some vendors being assholes
We lost control of our hardware a long long time ago.
I still have fond memories of my 2013 Jolla, and I'm hoping that the 2026 Jolla will be just as lovingly crafted. Most importantly, Jolla is a company that seems to care about me, the user, whereas Apple and Google constantly treat me like a peasant that needs to be governed.
I can’t give it to someone else to use without contacting the company and registering it.
I can’t donate it to goodwill and have someone else use it.
Google Play removed a perfectly functional NFC utility app we released after a year of no updates (despite the fact that it didn't require any to work on the latest Android version at the time). By contrast, the App Store doesn't care as long as we continue to pay the annual developer fee.
We opted to open source the app and let users sideload the app as an alternative; now that will be far more difficult as we are no longer "verified" Google Play developers.
Really unfortunate, glad I'm not an Android user myself.
How is this not the same walled garden approach apple was forced to change?
Google are obeying the letter of the law, while openly violating its spirit. Perhaps it'll be possible to attack them in court, but it will take years, and by that time they'll have found another trick.
It's not optional anymore to own a Google/Apple smartphone in a lot of places. You can play this "just vote with your wallet" game but it's not a winning move
Android ecosystem is equivalent to windows one: its open enough to sustain a large number of vendors and tinkerers.
I doubt this scare-campaign (OP link) will drive people constructively towards (effectively) innexistent linux alternatives. It's more likely to do nothing or push people towards iOS
Unless people are paid to do it vs. volunteer
https://github.com/linuxboot/heads/blob/c859c28b88b7bc197c16...
100% FLOSS is in the OS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25504641. It is not the end of the road, but this is the only phone that can run such OS.
https://github.com/linuxboot/heads/blob/c859c28b88b7bc197c16...
The only non-free piece of code executed by the ARM Cortex-A53 cluster on the Librem 5 is the SoC's mask ROM bootloader. Once the control is passed to u-boot/ATF there is not a single non-free blob that runs there. Some peripherals may need blobs to be uploaded onto them to work, such as DP, DDRC and one of the used Wi-Fi cards (handled by ROM/u-boot/Linux respectively), while others boot from their own internal memories. Not all of those firmwares are non-free, but most are.
In the end, as I said earlier, the assessment depends on where you draw the line. I happen to draw it at the main CPU and the blobs that need to run within the user-controlled OS, which are unacceptable for me and which aren't present on the Librem 5.
I don't see how it's different from running a free open-source ASOP OS. On the mainstream Android devices, the wireless hardware is also isolated and communication is done via IOMMU.
There's some debate as to whether using the USB stack for communication to the modem in the Librem 5 is less secure than IOMMU as well.
> at that point you still are trusting external communication to those devices with their proprietary blobs
Just as you do with any kind of peripheral, whether it implements what it's doing purely in hardware or with an embedded microcontroller.
> There's some debate as to whether the USB stack for communication to the modem is less secure than IOMMU as well.
You can have "some debate" on absolutely anything, but that doesn't yet mean it makes any sense. You have communication protocols on top of IOMMUs as well which are subject to exactly the same security considerations as potential exploits in the USB stack, so whatever debate you're referring to is unlikely to be held in good faith. I wonder why you mention it unprompted, as it's fairly off-topic here.
That's mainly because of device trees. The firmware also isn't distributed via separate flash storage on the device, but I don't consider that making a difference. It's still proprietary firmware running on proprietary hardware. On Qualcomm-based Pixel devices, cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, and GNSS are all isolated and sandboxed.
> It's also interesting that you mention it unprompted, as it's fairly off-topic here
A primary reason people complain about proprietary blobs is security. People claim that the Librem 5 is more open and secure, but it still uses the same proprietary modules as a Pixel running GrapheneOS. Does Librem 5 have signature checks for the firmware and a tamper-proof bootloader to load the firmware and OS, or can someone sell you a compromised Librem 5?
Is it more free, open, and secure than a Pixel running Android? Because, the only difference I'm seeing is how the firmware is stored and Google Play Services. And with GrapheneOS, only how the firmware is stored. Everything else points to a more insecure system with Librem 5.
Huh? The device tree is the one thing trivially recoverable from the blob. I'm talking about drivers, the same kind as when you install, let's say, the non-free Nvidia driver on a PC. They run as part of the OS and handle various stuff, most commonly comms like VoLTE/VoWiFi, but often also camera ISPs, GPUs, fingerprint readers etc.
> are all isolated and sandboxed
So isolated that you can break them by repartitioning your eMMC/UFS.
> A primary reason people complain about proprietary blobs is security.
The primary reason I care about blobs is freedom and practical aspects that come out of it. Dealing with blobs is always a PITA and severely limits what you can do with the hardware. The peripherals would be nice to have freed, but it's the main CPU and storage that is supposed to be my (the user's) domain and only mine. My Librem 5 came with a GNU/Linux distro on it, but if I wanted to port, say, FreeBSD to it there's all I need to be able to it. I can't do that with an AOSP device fed with blobs from the "vendor" image, at least not without spending years on reverse engineering.
The Librem 5 is one of the handful phones out there that make it this easy. It is also the only one I'm aware about that's still being sold where you have the hardware ECAD and MCAD designs available - and not just to look at, but published on a free license. I think it has earned its bragging rights when it comes to freedom and openness.
> can someone sell you a compromised Librem 5?
Of course, just like any other PC. You want to reflash it before use, obviously.
The SoC supports High Assurance Boot, you can burn your key into its efuses and have it only ever accept software that's cryptographically signed by you.
But it still brings the point that you can't make a phone without proprietary chips and firmware from the mobile industry giants.
> You want to reflash it before use, obviously.
I think that is non-obvious to the majority of users buying a phone.
> The SoC supports High Assurance Boot, you can burn your key into its efuses and have it only ever accept software that's cryptographically signed by you.
An important consideration for consumers is that their data is secure if they lose their phone. Without a secure boot process by default, that's a hard sell for the common masses.
> that is non-obvious to the majority of users
Yes, and the consequences of that can be seen in TFA - locking things down due to ill-defined security concerns. Why not go a bit further - the most secure device is the one you can't use to do anything at all.
On a side note, app attestation is already unironically getting us there - you have to either accept that you have no control over "your" device or not be able to use it to interface with the world. For me, any platform that allows applications to attest the environment they run in is insecure by design, as it can be exploited against me.
> An important consideration for consumers is that their data is secure if they lose their phone
Well, it's a good thing that PureOS is LUKS-encrypted by default then. It even has a smartcard reader, so key storage can be decoupled from the phone's hardware.
That's not far off a reasonable criticism of Purism's security model, that a device so wholly compromised it requires one to activate all physical kill switches to disable the hardware in order to so much as safely enter one's device PIN (per Purism's own site content), that it's no longer useful.
Everyone has to make their own trade-offs, but for me that's a model so questionable that its utility value rapidly approaches zero.
Purism's solution, apparently, is hardware switches. As I understand it, the accelerometer isn't disabled via hardware switches unless all hardware switches are disabled, as there is no discrete accelerometer switch: "To trigger Lockdown Mode, just switch all three kill switches off. When in Lockdown Mode, in addition to powering off the cameras, microphone, WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular baseband we also cut power to GNSS, IMU, and ambient light and proximity sensors."[1]
[0] https://phys.org/news/2013-10-accelerometer-tracking-potenti...
[1] https://puri.sm/posts/lockdown-mode-on-the-librem-5-beyond-h...
I don't care much about hardware kill switches myself - but many people clearly do. I've seen it when I was involved in the Neo900 project, I've seen it in discussions about the Librem 5 and PinePhone, I've seen it in reactions when Purism has released a tablet that lacked them. I guess it's because, unlike software, they're easy to understand and easy to trust. Most people don't understand or particularly trust software, for various reasons. Even with Android's security model, I don't think a regular user trusts that Google Play Services that run on their phone always do what they told them to, so they often long for something tangible that would give them a peace of mind. Hardware switches do that.
There's a matter of the modem being a whole separate device that's not really under the user control too. The only way to be sure that it's actually off is to not give it access to power. You can trust your OS, but the modem could still do its own thing regardless of what you asked it to, so I can get that too.
> The Purism model increasingly looks fatally flawed for anyone who doesn't have a very particular and narrowly defined threat model: one who trusts all software they run from the kernel to their applications completely, trusts their hardware completely, yet for [reasons] somehow fully mistrusts the sum total of the device at very specific, limited, and irregular intervals.
The Librem 5 is a general purpose computer that you can run whatever you want to on. I have no reason to distrust the GNU/Linux distribution that runs on it, but I could very well run Android, perhaps even with Play Services, on it if I had to for some reason, just like I used to boot into Windows on my PC many years ago. If I wanted to make sure that it won't access the radios or sensors while I do so, the switches would indeed not just be helpful, but effectively effortless.
The "lockdown mode" in particular is an answer to a UX issue. People want to have switches for various things, but if you just gave them all they ask for you'd end up with nothing but tons of switches around the screen. I believe the main motivation for the lockdown mode was squeezing the control over GNSS in when it was decided to use at most three switches, and the sensors then followed as adding them there could be done almost for free. You could do the thing PinePhone did, with plenty of tiny inaccessible switches behind its back cover; Purism opted for a limited amount of easily accessible switches, and I'm actually glad they did (it happened long before I got involved), because...
> Per Purism, it's perfectly usable in the same way any Linux slab with no radios or sensors of any kind is perfectly usable, yes, but that's stretching things in practical terms for a phone, and it's all very divorced from the reality of what most people expect from their phones.
I said that I personally don't care about the switches, but I also have to say that I surprised myself and ended up using them quite a lot. Not the mic/cam one, this one stays basically unused, but I'm using the cellular and Wi-Fi ones regularly - they're just super convenient. Whenever I want to save power or not be bothered by anything, I toggle the switches. If I had to unlock the phone and swipe through some menus, I probably wouldn't bother most of the time, but I don't have to, so I do. I used to be completely indifferent to these switches, but they ended up being really nice to have when I actually started using the phone. Let's not pretend that having an airplane mode option on a phone makes it a "slab with no radios", there are contexts where you do want to disable some things and continue to use the others.
> Still, it's entertaining. The marketing, the switches, the sweeping technical proclamations and bold self-assessments of high corporate ethics.
I don't see anything wrong in Purism providing what people have often requested. This is not exactly a kind of device that will just market itself, the more niches it can serve and differentiators it can tuck in without diminishing other aspects of the device the easier it will be to sell. I don't think the Librem 5 project would be economically viable if it only ever targeted people interested in Linux. Kill switches, modularity, smart card reader, replaceable battery, separate GNSS module, audio jack etc. are all attempts to extend its appeal and serve a yet another niche, as a device like this would never be able to compete on thinness or specs with what's offered mainstream. It makes perfect sense to me. Some of these things I enjoy, some I don't care about, but none bothers me.
> Beyond all that, installing packages from Debian stable on a mobile phone is a very enjoyable thing. I'm a former N900 and PinePhone user who's not opposed to making reasonable compromises for significant upsides, and would love a truly viable and fully open Linux phone that can run a variety of distros, but I remain unconvinced that the Librem 5 is that device.
I'm a former Neo Freerunner and N900 user, and a current Librem 5 user (with a PinePhone around too, but I already had a Librem 5 when I got it so I barely ever used it). Installing Debian packages is the only way I know how to use a smartphone. Well, okay, I used opkg in the past too :) I got involved in the project because it was clear to me that this was the device worthy of being the successor of my N900 and I'm happy with it and proud of what we, both Purism and the wider community, managed to achieve with it. In fact, I'm starting to get worried about it aging with no viable successor in sight. It's still fine today, but the arrow of time only points one way.
> Well, it's a good thing that PureOS is LUKS-encrypted by default then.
My bad, I meant leave their phone unattended. Wherein someone can compromise the device from boot, so that when unlocked, the device is fully compromised.
(that said, this is a completely different threat vector that I doubt the common masses actually care about; and if I really had to choose between openness and evil-maid resistance, I'd choose the former)
I would also guess that the common masses would choose the opposite as shown by them choosing convenience over openness. It's convenient to not have a separate key to prevent evil-maid attacks.
"The masses" used to use completely unencrypted devices for decades. That doesn't mean they don't deserve security, but it's up to us, the technologically savvy ones, to determine how to implement it and which trade-offs are worth making to provide it. The term "security" only ever has any meaning when paired with a threat model, and some threats are more plausible than others. Some people will absolutely require proper evil-maid resistance, some wouldn't care the slightest. The common masses would be equally surprised if you told them that they can't change the boot animation on their phone without preventing access to their bank app, so go figure.
I do, however, regularly have to check my phone in at [places] and am highly concerned about that.
I'm not interested in bringing about a tech dystopia to combat it, either, but I don't think those are our only two choices.
Threat modeling is important, and selectively false equivalences aren't helping matters, but only add to the theatrics.
And yes, I don't think those are the only two available choices either. I already mentioned not just one, but two other ones above. They have some tradeoffs, but so does anything. Personally I'd choose a slightly less convenient option over a tech dystopia without second thoughts, but not everyone is tech savvy enough to even recognize the tradeoffs being made, and ultimately in the vast majority of cases it's not the users who make that choice, but Google and Apple.
Sure, but from the fact that anything can be debated it does not follow that any given debate is nonsensical, which is kind of what you did there.
> ...whatever debate you're referring to is unlikely to be held in good faith.
I don't know which is odder, that assertion, or the notion that two completely different security models can't be debated in good faith because they're effectively identical, because of hand-wavy reasons like, "You have communication protocols on top of IOMMUs as well which are subject to exactly the same security considerations as potential exploits in the USB stack..."
Certainly there's some kind of argument to be made that the Librem 5 is relevant to this post as its adherents see it as a viable alternative to iOS and/or Android-based devices. I disagree, but everyone's willing to make different compromises and that's fair.
I only mention that because a contingent of voices as high in volume as they are few in number endlessly shoehorning the Librem 5 into numerous threads no matter how much of a non-sequitur it takes, has me suddenly paying more attention these days to what's coming from the Purism camp. The more I do the more disingenuous the rhetoric seems.
It may just be a coincidence, but for a project with such a fraught history and tarnished reputation, it doesn't do anything to increase my trust in it.
With so few users, many fewer developers will release apps that don't comply with Google's requirements. Then the value of opting out will decline significantly, which will reduce the number of people doing it, which will reduce the number of apps released ...
How do corporate users distribute custom apps on iPhones? Must they distribute them via Apple's store or is there some corporate mode, maybe involving X.509 certs and device management, that enables large-scale professional users to sideload?
In the GP I'm talking about people releasing FOSS and similar projects.
Google's identity requirements serve basic security needs and are fine.
We need a DMA 2.0 which address the oligopoly of dominant Operating Systems, including the freedom to install alternative OSes (no more signed bootloaders, proper hardware documentation, etc...).
It's not enough to provide some crappier way for competition. Just using your dominance to influence the market at all is already monopoly abuse.
And of course, businesses are affected. App developers are frequently businesses.
Can you install unlimited unsigned apps on iPhone?
If answer is "No", than No, android is still very far from as locked down as iOS
Then they came for F-Droid, and I didn't say anything because I don't know how to contact them.
Then ...
2 weeks ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47778274
Stock GMS Android was never yours, you only had access to basic permissions, privileged/signature permissions were only accessible to Google/vendors anyway.
What’s more frustrating is the "your android phone will stop being yours" narrative. Where is that supposed to lead the reader? Moving to iOS to escape restrictions is a total contradiction, as the situation there isn't even comparable. The people who actually care - the F-Droid users and independent developers - are already used to jumping through hurdles and bypassing "install anyway" warnings. They won't be deterred, and new users will learn.
Honestly, you have to wonder if the goal of these dramatic campaigns is just to scare ignorant users into the Apple ecosystem or maybe to prop up emerging Linux phones.
But has anyone actually tried a mainstream Linux phone that isn't a nightmare to use? Compare that experience to the dozens of Android models that work perfectly with LineageOS or other variants. Those are 100% daily drivers with the power, cameras, and battery life fully working. Instead of helpful criticism, these headlines feel like they’re just herding people away from the only practical "open" hardware we actually have.
There's never been a better time to switch to a linux phone...
GrapheneOS will sadly stay unaffordable for many.
The most well-known: https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
You can’t use stuff like banking apps on a modified device and losing access to normal android devices would be a big blow to the momentum of the F-Droid community. GrapheneOS might not be a big enough community to sustain work on the projects delivered by F-Droid.
IME such apps are few and far between. The most trouble I ran into is play store refusing to show apps because they claim the app isn't compatible with the device, but that can be worked around with aurora store.
And Google has an answer to the "just install the APK from somewhere else" workaround, too. Many apps now integrate a check that prevents them from running if they're not properly linked to the Play Store.
I had an app that I needed to use, and the only available log-in method was via firebase's SMS. Firebase flat out refused to allow me to login because of Google Play Integrity, and there was no web only option.
I ended up having to use my spouse's iPhone...
>Firebase flat out refused to allow me to login because of Google Play Integrity
Sounds like the issue is that you don't have play services installed, rather than play integrity specifically.
Cumbersome, but any other deterring reasons why "not a good workaround"?
For me it seems the opposite - if these "normal" (GMS spyware) Android devices lose the access to F-Droid and it will only be possible to install malware/adware from Google Play, then maybe that will push more people to value unlocking the bootloader..
which is basically android with their own app store layer
FireToolBox has gotten really powerful with workarounds
especially with the new Shizuku pseudo-root via adb
This is the question this website should be answering. Signing petitions is all well and good, but I want to vote with my wallet.
WHERE DO I SEND MY MONEY???
One thing I will do in the future is buy a nifty Motorola / GrapheneOS collab phone, but I can't do that yet. So for now: WHERE DO I SEND MY MONEY?
It is literally amazing to me that people aren't giving this as an option on such social coordination sites. Who is willing and able to sue Google over this? Who is actually doing it?
*WHERE DO I SEND MY MONEY*
Good question. Here you go: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
The central control is the point.
On the other hand, malware which coaxes normies into installing unverified apks, is an undeniable fact of life. It's nice to be pontificating as a power user who has never been phished or whose devices never became botnet zombies in their life.
On yet another hand, higher-end malware (made by those who can afford the store fees) is there on the freaking play store and app store, so, I guess, shrug
> every Android app developer must register centrally with Google before their software can be installed on any device. Not just Play Store apps: all apps.
> Registration requires:
> Paying a fee to Google
> Agreeing to Google's Terms and Conditions
> Surrendering your government-issued identification
> Providing evidence of your private signing key
> Listing all current and all future application identifiers
Google is not an entity you can can trust with this.
Delve into System Settings, find Developer Options
Tap the build number seven times to enable Developer Mode
Dismiss scare screens about coercion
Enter your PIN
Restart the device
Wait 24 hours
Come back, dismiss more scare screens
Pick "allow temporarily" (7 days) or "allow indefinitely"
Confirm, again, that you understand "the risks"
Nine steps. A mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period. For installing
software on a device you own. Worse: this flow runs entirely through Google Play Services, not the Android OS. Google can change it, tighten it, or kill it at any time, with no OS update required and no consent needed.
And as of today, it hasn't shipped in any beta, preview, or canary build.
It exists only as a blog post and some mockups.(Or at least, that's their take on this. You can choose to read between the lines, or not, as to whether they have other motivations also.)
That's why there's a requirement for restarting the phone and waiting 24 hours.
The restart ends the connection for any remote-access software or phone call that might be driving the operation -- and the 24 hour wait period breaks the "urgency" part of the scam that prevents other people who know better from stopping the vicim from continuing.
But for 1 person wanting to run their own software there are hundreds of people with the potential to install malware/crapware/etc
(Also note that "crapware" describes basically every app you find in google's store. I try on occasion, when nobody made an open source this-or-that, and it's such a minefield. If that's the thing you're trying to avoid, I don't know how you could possibly feel positive about a requirement to only use the Play Store for the tech-illiterate)
Yes, because this whole procedure is new
> Also note that "crapware" describes basically every app you find in google's store
Go back to emacs then I guess
The malware issue that the flow is designed to mitigate is a very real problem. Perhaps there is a better way, but it's not immediately clear what that is.
That is, fine by me. I can wait for 24 hours once in a few years when I acquire a new mobile phone.
Users who use F-Droid are already not as lay. If you distribute stuff that Play Store would ban, your users are likely not as lay, too.
Yes, it's inconvenient, but I see it as a good-faith attempt to limit exposure of lay users to scams, not some power grab.
Automated bans can be an issue, but that's an edge case. Google already had the functionality to 'revoke' an app if ordered to do so by a legal authority.
It is much more important to make a real world attack - something that is draining wallets of ordinary people across Thailand/Brazil/SEA in general - harder to achieve. One thing is a political goal of some people in the west, the other is an ordinary person not having the money to feed themselves because a scammer stole it all.
Google doesn't have the ability to change the way banking apps work with regards to transferring money from one account to another in Malaysia/Brazil/Thailand. That would be a matter for the national Governments. This is the best approach available.
* people who know what they're doing
* people who are being victimized
Look, I can't locally install a web extension I wrote on an open-source Firefox browser, because security. I have to install a Developer Edition, or get the extension reviewed and signed by Mozilla, for the very same reasons of thwarting scammers. Is this stifling, or is it making my browser not mine? Is anybody making a big deal out of that?
The world we inhabit is not always friendly. It has a ton of determined and sophisticated bad actors, and a lot of people with less technical savvy than you and me. We have to deal with that, instead of being cantankerous.
But it's limited to a one-time action, not encumbered by additional papers or payment. I don't foresee any trouble using F-Droid (which I use a lot) after I have dismissed the scary screens and confirmed that I know what I'm doing.
Because as a reader to this forum, you're probably more tech savvy that the average person. Moreover this type of scam seems to be more common in Asia than the West, see:
https://cdn.economistdatateam.com/videos/cyber-scams/fake-vi...
https://www.economist.com/interactive/asia/2026/04/10/scam-i...
They convince users to download a "government app", grant it accessibility permissions, then use that to take over their phone and drain their bank accounts.
>Especially when it affects safer app repositories like F-droid more than the cesspit that is the official Play store.
Where do you draw the line? If you whitelist f-droid, do you have to whitelist third party f-droid repos too? What about other app "stores" like obtanium? Moreover f-droid being less of a "cesspool" is likely because its reach is smaller, not because it has better moderation.
Oh yeah, I forgot they're bound to some code of rules they follow. Scammers, of all people.
I can think of plenty of scams that take days in the making. Even the classic "redeem" ones have people hooked in the thing for like a week ...
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/f-droid-security-issues/
And most Android banking malware is distributed through unsafe sideload installs (as opposed to much safer Gatekeeper-style installs, which is what is coming) and are fed to victims through complex attacks involving obtaining a victim's personal information and calling them while credibly pretending to be a local authority or a bank representative. You can read about this wherever you get news about cyber crime.
This is a scourge in South East Asia and Google can do some good here. The only cost is whining from non-technical people. Everyone else will go pay $25 or whatever and sign their app.
Somehow bank vaults and heroin storage boxes don’t take this long.
It is another requirement of Google's, where all developers must be registered to them and apps must be signed by them and anything that isn't will be blocked.
I wouldn't consider this "a few buttons", it's enough to turn off the less savvy users
Do you think people wont click 9 buttons and wait 24hs for this?
Its like people forgot how pirated windows/sw used to run on millions (billions) on devices in the past until ads (and some convenience from non-so-cheap-anymore subscriptions) became the norm
The fixed phones belonged to the phone company and were only rented under contract.
Most prepaid and contract mobile phones were locked to the operator and we even had to pay extra to unblock them.
App stores were gated through operators, and required devkits for some of them.
Ah, and none of them got updates, if they did, usually required additional software to install them.
And very very very few devices still allow getting around this. Often at a cost of significantly degraded experience, as Magisk plays the cat and mouse game of trying to hide your illegal access privileges to your own devices from your bank or some random app that decide to throw a Play Integrity check in.
Tip of the anti-personal computing spear, a complete denial of the user agency. Absolutely wretchedly forsaken.
This measure is about making it harder to pull off a specific type of scam that is plaguing South East Asia. No conspiracy.
For actual information on the purpose of this change rather than conspiracies, I refer you to https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-de...
Since the victims of these scams do not typically own a traditional computer/cannot be pressured to get to one quickly, ADB will remain a thing.
The current malware situation at android store situation does not help to carry that point:
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/daveywinder/2025/03/18/60-milli...
> https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/apps_android_malware/
> https://www.androidheadlines.com/2026/04/novoice-android-mal...
If you're dumb enough to own a Pixel then arguably they're doing something just as bad.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1097qm0/manual...
Megacorporations like Google do not care a single bit about ordinary people. They only care about making more money. How do they make more money? By preventing people from installing NewPipe and Blokada.
Complex, multi-day pig butchering stuff is not what Google is going after here or would have any hope to defeat. But they can deal with banking malware.