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Your Google Android device is about to stop being yours (keepandroidopen.org)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by to c/opensource@programming.dev
24 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Is this still going to happen? What can we do?

Edit: Complain to your competent authorities here: https://keepandroidopen.org/cta/#consumers

all 24 comments

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[–] 27 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Follow that link and scroll down for what to do.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Thanks for clarifying that this only affects Google Androids.

    Androids without Google are unaffected

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago* (1 child)
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    • [–] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

    Never was. Best option is to buy a phone that's open from the start. Sadly not that many choices

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  • [–] [S] 12 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah, I was thinking might be better to get a phone developed in the EU. I'm considering Jolla phone (Finnish) and FairPhone (Dutch). Or else a Pixel with GrapheneOS (but then it's Google again :/).

    Are those sufficiently "open"?

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I have a FairPhone and the hardware is fine and very repairable (being able to replace the usb socket has saved me from buying a new phone). The android alternative e/os has a lot of criticism the launcher is awful, feels like a cheap Chinese knock off of iPhone-like interface but you can at least swap it out and it's not as secure as something like graphene os. You're making a tradeoff whatever choice you make.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    So, what would you recommend, FairPhone but a different OS? Or Pixel/Motorola with GrapheneOS? I'll check out some videos about it in the mean while.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago

    I'd probably recommend something with GrapheneOS as it's pretty easy to install and use. I personally use it as well and never had any issues with it. You might want to look if your Banking apps work, but other than that, you can pretty much install most major apps through Aurora (like WhatsApp, Signal etc.)

    If you want to go fully open, you could also try buying a Fairphone 4 and installing PostmarketOS on it, as I see PostmarketOS as the long-term ideal future OS for phones, because it frees us from the shackles of phone update cycles and gives the user full control over their OS (including changing the desktop environment).

    But if you want to use PostmarketOS you have to be willing to tinker and not everything will work perfectly. Especially the camera will not be perfectly supported, even on the well supported Fairphone 4, your pictures will look worse than the ones you could take on Android, because there aren't good drivers and post processing yet. But it can be really cool if you are an enthusiast.

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago

    That's not the only problem. Open source apps will just die because 99% of people won't download them. So they won't bother writing them unless then can be listed on the Google Play store.

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    • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Already switched to grapheneOS

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  • [–] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    grapheneos will be effected by this too because a lot of android developers targetting accrescient, obtainium, or f-droid are going to give up entirely, or capitulate onto the play store

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Exactly, that is the one thing I hardly ever see mentioned in such threads and legitimately the one I worry about the most. There will always be a way to install apps other than the playstore, but the harder it will be, the less people will bother and the more developers will be forced to go via the appstore anyway.

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    • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    We'd better keep Google in the know that we still don't accept this.

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    [+] -12 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    I honestly don't think this is that big of a deal.

    The people that want to still use unverified apps can do so after having to go through the flow once and never again. Those that don't even know what that means can't be easily coerced into installing a malicious app because of the security cooldown period.

    This was a bigger issue back when the rumor was that no unverified apps could be installed under any circumstances. Now it's completely overblown but the site seems to be doubling down instead.

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