Google will not acknowledge any Petition.
The only real solution is to install an Alternate Android or Linux Phone OS
The number of available unlocked phones is shrinking and even the new ones are running old hardware.
I want something with a recent processor, a good camera, GPS, Tailscale, 18 hours of battery life a good enough browser to get to my bank and edit photos and a watch that gets a few days of run on a charge and i’d like to have enough admin access to code turning on and off radios and services based on location and relatively good security.
Linux is not up for this yet, postmarket is moving quickly, but it’s still way behind
Hallium+ubuntu touch is fragile if you change the image.
Graphine and Lineage have security third and a questionable future if android upstream goes to shit.
Wouldn’t it be better to petition a political power… Such as the EU or the UK parliament?
This is already sorted out by law in the EU. Now they just have to wait for Google to follow up on their intent.
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Honestly? even if we succeed in this , Google will simply fuck things up in something else, the only real solution is that it completely looses people acceptnace , and that’s the hardest part because the majority don’t think about changing things if it’s comfortable enough
Like shelving Android completely like so many of their successful products?
Kinda, or any action that pulls the rug enough so that Google makes concessions because it can’t use its privileges as a corporation , but it’s hard to see this happening now
On the one hand I support this wholeheartedly. On the other, this may be the fuel finally needed to push a Linux phone or two more mainstream. I’m conflicted.
Use of non-play store apps is not mainstream enough for Linux phones to get more than a little bump from this.
At this stage, it helps when more devs are motivated to switch over and build/improve stuff to cover the things they want to do with a phone. And there’s relatively many devs among those who use F-Droid.
I’m not technically affected by Google doing l this just yet, because I don’t use the Play Services, but with that move coming after they encroached on Custom ROMs twice, I can tell that I need an exit plan. And there’s nothing quite for motivation than slowly being backed into a corner.
I hope something good comes of it.
why are you upvoting this inane, useless, poser, impotent bullshit? we is petitioning evil corp to be a smidge less evil what the fuck?
exactly. Petitioning those who have already demonstrated that they don’t care unless you have leverage is meaningless.
use leverage, in what ways you can. make a habit of it.
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Do it anyways
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Do it for posterity. We need to corner them as much as possible. Use it as motivation & justification
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So you’re a defeatist
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Who said anything about fighting bare-handed
Ants killed my parents.
You’ll need something at least a couple generations old with an unlockable bootloader. You can run Halium and UB Touch.
It’s an Android kernel with a linux VM, but most things work, and it is absolutely private.
Daily Driver real Linux is a couple of years off, probably. They’re just getting drivers starting to work now and battery life is a long long way off.
I’m currently trying to figure out some kind of handheld Linux that operates reasonably well and carry a stand alone hotspot. I’ve even been pondering, throwing a Raspberry Pi compute module onto a 7in screen, but perf is still kinda dicey and power is still a serious issue.
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Give me battery life on any of those.
Tell me which one of those can run signal.
Tell me which one of those run a processor that’s from the last five years.
Tell me which one of those are still going to be available in a few years?
Tell me which one of those aren’t running an Android kernel with the Linux VM inside?
The list starts looking pretty bleak after a few questions. We’re not in good shape.
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The Halium ones are okayish on camera because the divers are Android. They’ll perform at least as well as android 5 or so but with a high rez output. They also have decent-ish battery.
The ones with straight Linux kernels have various problems. You can go and look up a given operating system and its support level and they’ll generally enumerate what the problems are. Even the ones with bigger batteries get less than 6 hours.
Signal won’t run natively on any of the Linux phones. You have the option of running waydroid in a lot of cases. But when you’re running it in waydroid, the phone can’t go to low power. So it burns your battery to hell and back.
I think your only current option for a daily driver would be to get one of the fairphones and use UBtouch.
Pine is only dedicating another couple of years worth of phones. Fairphones is on the struggle bus but they’re still in the game. Most of the newer pixels aren’t supported in any of the distros.
Most of the districts won’t run on any of the newer phones.
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Tiny computers aren’t hard, we have PI’s and a dozen alterantives. Efficiency and Power are the real issues.
Android and IOS have been doing power R&D for almost 20 years. When you stop using an android app, even for a short period, it saves a snapshot in memory and stops using it. The radio drivers are on their 20th revision and do everything in their power to save power. We’re just starting off where they did prior to 2010. But we know how they solved the issues, we’ll catch up. It’s going to take time, we need to get everything working and stable first.
The signal problem is a lack of packages for arm-linux it is possible to build it i’m reading, but cross-compiling and keeping it up to date seems like a hassle.
My first thought was to try to find a smallish x86 tablet and carry a portable hotspot. But there’s not a lot of those and power seems like it’ll still be a problem.
I don’t know that there are good solutions just yet, but we’re not alone in wants. Hoping I can eventually craft something usefull or help contribute to someone who is.
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Chromecast is kil?
Also, Google Music? I thought they had YouTube Music. I do remember Google Play Music (RIP collections of songs and albums by rather big artists I purchased for 0 Monies about 10 years ago and could download as files but have since lost)
A chrome cast killed my parents.
The only way to apply any pressure is to make them lose marketshare.
You’re literally going to need a large consortium of “public interest technologists” (Something like Futo plus Graphene on steroids) to get together and bankroll the manufacture of new hardware that supports something similar to the Google Titan M2, plus unlockable and relockable bootloader. As I understand that will be no small feat because of the engineering required, and because all device vendors are competing for fab and production line space with all the other established device manufacturers.
Then you need robust degoogled OS options, likely based on AOSP, that can pair with that hardware.
Not defending Google but I have a but (no typo - although I’m the proud owner of a double t version as well. But I digress.)
Google is not getting rid of sideloading. They are implementing a registration process for devs and then do a check if they have the info on record before allowing an app to be installed. It is possible for you to download an APK from wantsomalware dot com and install it as long as the developer registered with Google - as all the malware dipshits will manage to do on burner accounts, which will not curb the spread of malware, which is their stated aim. Technically, your bank could distribute its app on its website as long as they registered with the Goog. But it will render abandoned projects uninstallable and that’s the rub.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like this either. Twisting their words though isn’t helping either.
Corey Doctorow pointed out that it is mad that we call it sideloading. Installing an APK is the same, whether it’s coming from Play, F-droid, or the dark web. There should not be this distinction. Lobby your politicians on this matter. G will not GAF about this petition - it’s PR for the cause at best. Only the tag team of legislature and judiciary can set this right.
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I think your definitions don’t quite match common use. When people think about sideloading, they think about installing apps from a third-party source that are not approved by the primary vendor. That’s precisely what Google is going to block.
See the end of my pervious comment. The fact that we call that “sideloading” in common parlance is a magic trick Google has already played on us and we ate it up. Resist.
The way I understand sideloading is installing an app through a way that isn’t Play. So F-droid - as one example - is sideloading because you need to go through the overly dramatic warning messages to enable the install from unknown sources. If all the devs in F-droid’s repository theoretically registered with Google, nothing will change. The only difference is that Google wants to know who made it. They make it harder and shittier and thus limit our choices, yes. But they don’t block everything outright.
The problem arises for apps, whose developer doesn’t want Google and by legal extension the American judiciary to have access to their information. That’s a privacy concern that I find very concerning too. I’m not defending Google’s choices here. I hate it. I also don’t like the inevitable hyperbole going the other way.
If it was about security, you could add an alternative signing authority from another org you trust to verify software. This is about giving them the ability to “turn off” revanced and other apps they don’t like regardless of where they are downloaded.
One of my bigger concerns from all this is that reduced access to users to install apps might have chilling effects on app development. It’s great being able to get apps from Itch.io, GitHub, and FDroid, but will developers continue releasing there if the user base dries up? I guess apk-mirror will likely still continue, since they’re ripping from the Play store anyway.
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„Sideloading“? By using this word, you already letting google know, that they have won. Since when installing an app is called like that?
