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The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software (hackaday.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 37 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I came here specifically to ask about alternatives to Android now that google is becoming too abusive in the relationship.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    GrapheneOS works well. But only on pixel devices.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    That's unfortunately a dealbreaker for me. I have a free phone from some company I've never heard of and I don't plan on buying a new one. Hopefully we will see more progress on mobile operating systems in the coming years.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Unfortunately, things are heading in the opposite direction. The number of phones you can install other os's on is dwindling by the day. Even the phones designed solely for this purpose are failing to capture enough market to remain sustainable.

    The OS's are getting there by leaps and bounds, but you being able to install it on anything is the hard part.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)

    Custom Android ROMs based on AOSP, which is the open source parts of Android. I used to use LineageOS back in the day.

    Before buying a phone, make sure that it has an unlockable bootloader and a custom ROM of a recent Android version. Note that some phones have multiple versions for different regions and some might not be unlockable, while others are. For example many Samsung international phones are unlockable, but none of the USA models are.

    Note that many commercial apps like Netflix, Pokémon Go, bank apps, etc. will refuse to run if your bootloader is unlocked. It also permanently trips Samsung's Knox.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I was looking into it a few ago. I found something made in Europe which advertise as more consumer friendly (Fairphone). If I got it right they want to stand out of the crowd by:

    • Selling phones that can be repaired easily;
    • Offer a de-googled OS based on Android.

    The second point could be interesting, considering this Google abusive behavior towards users. Moreover, there is another thing that caught my attention: their devices (the last one is missing, but maybe it's just too new?) are supported by Ubuntu Touch, which should be just a Linux OS running on phones. That would be my dream, so that I can consider my phone just a computer with all the freedom I can get, such as write down my bash/python/C applications to do what I want to do without having to mess up with all that Android development suite.

    However, if I am not mistaken, in the past I heard some bad reviews about Fairphone, so you should perform your due diligence.

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