Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.
Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.
Tried to restart my fairly new Pixel phone a couple days ago by holding down the power button, but instead of showing the Power menu it prompted me to ask the Digital Assistant something. Excuse me? I don’t remember enabling that. Every other phone I’ve ever had, holding down the power button has always been the way to power down or restart. I had to search Settings to find how to configure the power button to control the power. Or course maybe I could have asked the Digital Assistant - but fuck that.
i’m currently using redmi note 13 pro, can i install any of these OS?
Graphene is the only one that gets rid of webview right?
What do you mean by webview? If you mean the entirety of webview then no ROMs do that AFAIK. android would be broken without it. If you mean replace Google’s webview with their own version, I’m pretty sure all the ROMs I listed there do it. I didnt fact check it though so feel free to prove me wrong
The second one, it appears you’re correct
Yep, this is how they trick people into inadvertently using their shitty ai Spyware. Welcome to the future, yay. Fuck Google and Samsung.
So, how do you power it down?
In Settings you select Power as the function of the Power Button instead of Digital Assistant. Then the power button works like it should.
Sure, but what did they expect you to do before making that change.
It’s designed as an always on device. They expected you to leave it always on. Wankers
On my P7Pro, pressing power and volume up simultaneously brings up the shutdown/restart/lock prompt
Well that is shit.
On android the off button is on the quick settings, and on iphone you hold the power button and one of the volume buttons
No idea. Presumably they expected me to figure out the settings and change it like I did. Or maybe I could have told the Digital Assistant to restart the phone, I dunno.
It’s almost like the organization itself is designed to make things worse if it means short term profits, useful and appreciated apps sacrificed at the altar of line must go up
My pixel 5 recently broke and the only reason I went with a pixel 9a was to install grapheneOS on it as soon as I got it. The process has become way easier than it used to be. After setting up/skipping all the first run screens I plugged it into another Android device and used the grapheneOS site to run the install, took like 15 min.
hows your experience with graphene? Better than stock? I heard they have a sandboxed Google Play store now, so getting apps is even easier.
So far it’s been good for about a week. Highlights have been the easy install, secure by default but lets me override when I want (block app network access on install is awesome), and getting access to the other app repos than Google’s I haven’t seen since I installed dirty unicorns years ago. I setup multiple users so I can keep my primary like a root which was also simple to do.
Only complaints I have are when I get messages on another user than primary I can see the messages in the app but not the message content in the notification, its just a generic alert message like new messages received. Nice to have but not going to make me switch back. And the keyboard doesn’t have swipe typing so I use gboard with network access turned off.
Also I did install the Google app store to get a couple paid apps and calendar/contacts I need to move out of Google. It does sandbox by default which is really cool and i think should be required for phone manufacturers. I just disabled services/store/calendar access to the network after I let it download everything.
Edit: also not a OS thing but I tried switching VPN to orbot/tor at the same time and it is still really unreliable for that use with the way so many sites try to sniff out your location
do you have the ability to remove whichever apps you dont like?
The user notitication makes sense, i guess its more secure. Btw, so everytime you switch user, you have to restart?
Yes, and it comes with very few by default as well
No restart needed, pull down twice and the switcher is on the bottom right. Usually takes just a couple seconds to switch.
thats nice to hear. I thought you need to restart to change profiles.
You’re on the 9a right? How is the battery under Graphene? I used to have the OG Pixel (codename sailfish) and try different roms on there, but the battery is just terrible.
I’m still feeling that part out since it’s only been about a week, a full charge can last me multiple days (5100mAh) and the battery in my pixel 5 (4080mAh) was pretty run down.
Fully charged 25.5hr ago & pretty heavy use yesterday and I’m at 63%, the 5 would have been twice dead by now.
Only complaints I have are when I get messages on another user than primary I can see the messages in the app but not the message content in the notification, its just a generic alert message like new messages received. Nice to have but not going to make me switch back.
I haven’t confirmed it, but enabling “Sensitive notifications” or a similar setting might fix this. Although it is more secure in theory not to have your message content visible on a locked screen.
Also I did install the Google app store to get a couple paid apps and calendar/contacts I need to move out of Google. It does sandbox by default which is really cool and i think should be required for phone manufacturers. I just disabled services/store/calendar access to the network after I let it download everything.
FYI you can use Aurora Store instead to download from Google Play, and even use it anonymously. It’s sometimes buggy, but IMO the tradeoff is maybe worth it.
The best thing about switching to an iPhone is that I use my phone way lesser
I can’t tell what this is a dig about. Less Apps available? Less required maintenance time? Less Notification spam? Or?
But I’m all for it.
I can offer an answer as a former lover of android (12 years)…
I used to do all of the phone modding/flashing roms etc. it was like I could never be just satisfied with my phone. After years of this, I got tired of the nagging in my head to improve it. So, I switched to Apple, and it just works and I don’t feel as though I’m missing out on anything.
So, yes I don’t have to be on my phone all of them time other than when I actually need it.
Maybe we should start resurrecting symbian
or just start pooring support into PostMarket or UBTouch
2 days ago I moved from GrapheneOS back to Stock Pixel in my 8 Pro, just to see what all the hype about the new android 16 in Pixel is about. Jesus, this is way worse than I remember. i tried it for 2 whole days, and that shit just won’t allow me to have ANY control over my phone. It’s fucking ridiculous. On Android 15 I was able to uninstall Google Drive, Meet, Youtube, and many other Google apps, this time around all it would allow was “disable”. What’s next, removing the ability to disable (which I don’t trust anyway)?
Fast forward to today, I’m back on GOS, and my anxiety levels are down again. This shit is insane, and I honestly can’t understand why anyone would put up with this crap.
I’ve been considering moving to GOS because of all the Google shenanigans, but I need to make sure everything works since my job means I have dozens of MS authenticator entries for various admin tasks. I really want to try it out, but can’t afford to have to rebuild all those entries on a new system (and the notifications not work)
I had to use MS Authenticator for work and it worked in GOS, notifications and all. Now, that was about a year ago, and I haven’t tried it since. At the speed GAFAM are enshitifying everything, there’s a chance it doesn’t work anymore. I keep a Pixel 8a stock for banking and some other apps that I need (such as EV charging networks) and won’t work or are unsustainably wonky on GOS. As I mentioned in another post, RethinkDNS is worth it, but it does take some trial and error to get it to work without breaking stuff I need, but once I got there, it was all good (that’s how I keep the 8a less intrusive).
this time around all it would allow was “disable”.
This has been par for other OEM-flavored Android phones for years, unfortunately.
Disableis alright, not that the phone itself isn’t a privacy nightmare in other ways.Thanks for the anecdote now i know i can just stay in gos
Please do stay on GOS. I already suffered for 2 days for the whole community.
I’m stuck with Google. No aftermarket OS supports my phone. :(
May I suggest you give RethinkDNS a shot? At first it’s kind of convoluted to configure, but once you have it set up the way you want, it’s smooth sailing from there.
Those apps are installed in the squashfs image. Such images are write once, read many and thus they can’t be mutated at runtime.
Well who made the decision to put non-system apps in the system partition?
I know, and that’s exactly my point. They used to be in the user space, now they are in the system partition. They CHOSE to do this.
I’m thinking about getting the new FairPhone 6 when it comes out and running /e/ OS, but I’m so reliant on Google Maps and Gmail (my email account, not necessarily the app … but I do rely on the app).
I’m afraid that I’ll either install Google apps and end up with a phone just as compromised as a stock Android install, or if I don’t it will be too much of a pain in the ass to use.
There are Maps alternatives. For instance, Organic maps or the fork CoMaps. Not nearly as good UX as Google Maps… and zero traffic data available… but the upside is they work entirely offline.
Organic Maps is great in many ways. It’s maps are so much better. But the lack of traffic data is a killer for route planning in the UK. All the open source maps suffer this. There needs to be open access traffic information for there to be competition.
As far as I know, traffic data is gathered via spying on users—Google Maps and similar apps sending device location to a central cloud service. Maybe somebody could provably anonymize the data somehow to make an alternative service for the open competitors to use.
That’s what we need.
Mobile GNU/Linux is getting better, but I think it is 5-10 years out from what’s needed. I suppose people need to adopt Desktop first. The nice thing is you can install Android apps including Google Play on it natively, and they appear in your app drawer like a regular app
My big problem is banks and satnav.
SatNav need traffic info and there is none, so their routes are bad.
Banks require apps to even use their website for “secure codes”. Those apps try to detect ROMs and refuse to run, not even really being Android is going to make passing that harder.
Let alone random things like parking apps where the app is the only way to pay.
This is a political problem as much as technical. Competition is basically dead. We need government to step in and make competition possible. But they are in big tech’s pocket and the status quo suits them too. Voters either don’t care or believe what big tech says. It’s a mess.
Satnav there is Pure Maps (OSM client), which can connect to sources like HERE to get traffic data to provide voiced guided turn-by-turn instructions. Of course there is also all the Android apps like Google Maps available, and their mobile site works fine.
On the topic of mobile sites, you can also install them as dedicated app drawer icons via Gnome Web & Firefox PWA for any site.
This means if your bank app doesn’t like vanilla Android, GApps, you can use a comparable dedicated web app.
For parking, I’ve found a surprising amount have mobile sites, so I don’t need to install their bloaty Android app onto my GNU/Linux phone.
Good to know. I’d really like to try a proper Linux phone as a daily driver.
Unless they get NFC payments working on it and banking apps. It literally will never matter.
The single most common thing phones are used for at this point outside of entertainment is payments and banking.
There are Google Play Android bank apps (mine works fine), and you can use mobile sites as dedicated app drawer icons. Their mobile site is top notch.
NFC payments won’t come anytime soon to native GNU/Linux, but I don’t use them. Maybe Google Wallet works, I haven’t tried and don’t know if NFC can be passed through to Waydroid. OnePlus 6 is the best supported originally Android phone for GNU/Linux, someone with that would need to test.
I just have my card in a silicon sleeve on the back of the phone and I get the same effect. I’d rather Google not have my purchase history anyways.
What’s wrong with tapless payment with cards?
When you use apple or android pay, it generates a temporary card number etc and uses that, which means if that payment terminal gets compromised, your card number etc isn’t exposed. Your bank could probably do something similar without Google or Apple as the middleman, but until they do, mobile pay will remain a killer app.
Nothing, but many users have already migrated to using stored payment information on their phones.
It’s a bit of a catch honestly.
OSS/community Linux graphical environments have kind of always been ~5 years out from what’s needed. 15 years ago they were behind ~5 years, 5 years ago they where behind ~5 years.
The only difference is today. I think they’re only behind by ~3-4 years thanks to the backwards movement of things like Windows and OSx staleness.
Mobile operating systems are in a worse place.
you can install Android apps including Google Play on it natively
What whaaaat? I didn’t know this! Thanks for the tip
Yeah how the hell do you do this?
Waydroid, Anbox, etc
Which do you recommend? How well does it work? :)
I just saw KDE Bigscreen got reboot. While it’s not exactly the same (its for TVs, like Android TV and Steam Big Picture mode), it’s nice to see major desktop environments(DE) adopt new UI features for small and large devices. This compliments work done by groups like PinePhone, who laid the groundwork for Linux phones.
Unfortunately the Android experience is getting more and more bloated and users’ freedom to tinker with their phones or sideload apps is getting more and more difficult. The Play Store is riddled with more ads than useful content. Just try searching for something, and oftentimes more than half of your screen is ads.
I’ve been with Android since the start and I hate what Google is reducing it to. It pains me that the only viable alternative is Apple and I feel trapped.
Play Store is truly vile to use. It just feels gross and scammy and like a mine field of low quality slop and scam apps.
iOS isn’t great either but it at least feels a whole lot better. The iOS store needs the ability to report fraid which it doesn’t sort until you install an app.
My experience with the iOS app store years ago was worse than Android. Searching for apps that were not chock full of spam was useless. I had to research the apps outside of the store then find direct links to them due to clones with the same names.
I have no idea why Apple and Google allow so much hot garbage in their app stores.
The iOS store needs the ability to report fraid which it doesn’t sort until you install an app.
That’s probably to reduce brigading? Android and iOS are infested with all sorts of fraduelnt marketing techniques like fake reviews, and mass fraud reporting for competition sounds like another.
Is there no Linux for mobile options currently available?
Your options are mostly UBTouch and PostmarketOS. Due to how PMOS is designed, it doesnt fully function on the phones it supports. UBTouch does work well due to the ability to use a driver compatibility layer with android IIRC, but you still have the issue of needing a phone that can support it. (I think the latest pixel UBTouch runs on is the 3?)
also, the security model of mobile linux is nowhere near what android is. Things that keep android secure like verified boot are not yet implemented on linux phone OSes AFAIK
F-Droid is a decent replacement for the play store. Lots of FOSS and less-enshittified apps available.
Unfortunately many of the apps needed just to exist as a member of society are only available in the Play Store.
Aurora store front end works fine no Google account needed.
Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. And even when it does, it still requires Google’s spyware to be installed on your device.
Only certain apps require play services, aurora store itself requires no play services. Just the potential for the apps you are trying to use. I’ve used F-Droid and aurora for years.
I’ve used them both for years also (along with Accrescent and Obtainium). You’re not wrong, Aurora Store itself does not require Play Services, but most of the apps do. Like I said, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. The biggest problem is that you can’t receive notifications without Play Services. Even supposed “private” apps from the likes of Proton and Signal do not support UnifiedPush. Despite the Android system itself being mostly open, the vast majority of developers do not make their apps available outside of the Play Store without Google services. And many of them are now being encouraged to use proprietary attestation from Google as well. Since the vast majority of people simply do not care, the developers don’t either. The best solution I’ve found is to create a work profile and keep all the apps that require Play Services in there.
The point is, it’s not nearly as simple or easy as it’s made out to be in the above comments, and FDroid is most certainly not a “replacement” for Google Play Store.
I do the same thing. Keep multiple profiles and just run sandboxed play services. It works fairly well. The only exception to not having play services is if you allow the app to run unrestricted in the background to always stay connected and fetch notifs. But it does drain battery 10 to 15 percent for just signal throughout the day depending so I can imagine it grows as you were to do that with more and more apps.
Support devices like the Liberux Nexx or the pinephone, especially if you are a developer!
Long term you should look out for Waydroid compatible devices. Basically linux devices (smartphones, tablets, pcs) that run android containers very close to hardware so you can run your important android apps while not having to rely on the mess that android is for everything. There is a GApps version too if you need google shitware for some reason. Ubuntu Touch (smartphone os) is one of the most prominent to implement it. Personally i hope to eventually just get rid of my phone and only have a laptop with a sim-card and waydroid.
Funny enough, having Microsoft making the Windows Phone again would make a 3rd player, and maybe some competition in the market.
I don’t know many companies that have the resources to fight in this arena right now…
The obfuscated nature of compiled code does an incredible amount of heavy lifting on behalf of shareholders. Imagine a world where x-ray specs suddenly revealed source code. The flight to open solutions would be irresistible. Windows is hot garbage but it clings to its market share like a limpet, through the magic of closed source, occupying space like a flabby tumour. It doesn’t care if it kills the host because the top priority is growth and an unassailable market share. That’s the magic of capitalism.
Honestly I don’t think many people would care? Until the security holes became intractable, I guess.
Its proven Android phones are doing awful stuff, even client side, and has that slowed them down?
MS keeps making Windows worse but that is not a problem because Linux is great on PCs. The reason is that PC is made out of standardized plug&play components that you can make generic OS image for.
There is no such thing in smartphone world. Each chipset is it’s own Linux fork that gets only most crucial bug fixes while in warranty. Same is true for ARM SBCs where I believe the only board that supports generic image are new RPis.
The reason is that PC is made out of standardized plug&play components that you can make generic OS image for.
Yep, given the history of consumer technology as a whole it is really more amazing that the standard PC became a thing more than it is that people put up with what phones are today.
We all really owe a lot of gratitude to Phoenix for reverse engineering the IBM BIOS back in the day, and going to court to fight the IBM copyright lawsuit that resulted, as well as Compaq and all of the other IBM compatible clones.
Both ARM itself and Linux for ARM has been standardizing a fair bit recently. But not to the extent to be fully generic, mostly just enough for portable bootable kernels - and after that you still need all the same custom drivers and configurations to make proper use of a SoC, but it’s not nothing.
https://linuxgizmos.com/ebbr-spec-to-bring-standardization-to-embedded-linux-boot-process/
The article is 7 years old. Has anything come to fruition since then?
Last update in December
Google keeps making everything worse.
It’s telling how incompetent they’ve become when their LLM AI is the absolute worst one, including mechahitler before that update.
I like Gemini a lot and use it often, but I did disable it for web search.
Google should be broken up and its leadership fined into oblivion for anti competitive behavior
I find myself using desktop Linux more than my mobile device, even on the couch with the family. Monitors on arms that can swing out of the way ftw. No cute advice for keyboards though. We have wireless ones around but I still use my wired Deck Legend on my lap. It’s an old mechanical keyboard that’s built like a tank, with the PCB literally mounted to a sheet of metal that is mounted inside the housing, lol.
It’s almost a shame, because smart phones are still absolutely amazing to me as far as the amount of scientific and technical advancement that can fit in the palm of your hand. But I look forward to the open options various parties are working on.
android peaked with the pixel 2. then everyone went overboard on bezel-less displays and fast refresh rates and smart assistant services and brought the whole damn thing crashing down.
Fast refresh rates are amazing. I cherished my old Razer Phone 2.
I think it varies from person to person. My gf can’t tell the difference at all, even when she really tries, neither can a friend of mine (who also use the most insane jerky screen settings on his TV). For me, I can’t imagine going back to 60hz ever again. It feels like something is physically wrong with my phone if I turn 120hz off.
… and I want my headphone jack, back.
Yep, didn’t use it much but I have studio headphones that I lliked to plug from time to time.
TBH getting a nice dongle like a Fiio KA5 is not so bad. It’s small enough to just hang off the cord, and sounds better anyway, and you don’t have to throw it away every phone switch.
Not so bad?
That thing costs 230€ vs a free headphone jack. 🙄
Sorry, I meant the KA1 or KA3, got them mixed up. My KA3 was like $50 used.
I use it on my PC, too.
Considering the cost in reference to the hardware, and that I can use it basically forever, and that it’s a lower distortion DAC than any phone? It’s not bad. And it’s a barely-noticable addon for my headphones that just lives on the cord.
I don’t think the issue with phones is the smaller bezels or better displays.
That’s not what’s ruining them.
Up until about two weeks ago I could use wallet on my rooted pixel with lineage and play integrity fix.
Some recent change on their end and it doesn’t work at all anymore. I guess they don’t want to know what I’m buying.
i
hardheard people use a smart watch to get nfc payments workingStroke posting
I think what they were trying to say is “I heard people use an Apple watch to get NFC payments working”. I’m not confident that answer=Apple (also I have no idea if that would actually help), but it’s the best I can come up with.
Android watch maybe.
I’m trying to make my own smart watch as a hobby experiment at the moment, and one of my most important features is NFC payments. It’s a nightmare, although I understand why. Currently my plan is to buy another smart watch or smart ring and take the NFC chip from it, which is maddening, but more or less my only option due to contactless payment security.
To do contactless payments, your bank must effectively permit the specific device, otherwise go through GPay or Apple Pay, who in turn just do the permitting themselves. Anything outside of the standard ecosystem just gets overlooked.
The best workaround while avoiding these companies is to find a smart watch or ring that has compatibility with a proxy card, such as Curve. But beyond halving the price of the accessory, this is pretty much an arbitrary decision.
