Pay the $25 ransom little devs or else!
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Linux phone time
I really want Linux phones to catch on, but even watching demos, while they are making progress, it seems like they are still very far behind.
A phone for me (and many others) is more a lifestyle utility than a tech gadget, so reliability and compatibility is paramount. Things need to just work the first time every time for me to trust relying on it for important things.
I still follow the development of some projects and contribute when I can, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be a realistic option (for my use case at least) any time soon.
Friend had a fairphone (no google version) worked well, with like a quirk or so. Sounds quite close to a really good phone.
Fairphone uses stock Android, or /e/os, which is degoogled Android.
Fairphone 5 and 4 have support for SailfishOS, which is Linux. Some closed parts, but nothing from Google.
I have FP6, will try Sailfish when available.
I got a new phone recently and I was so close to getting a Linux phone, but I chickened out. It seems damn close to being there, but just not reliable enough for me yet. I need a phone that works essentially all the time without question for everything I need. I can accept worse UX, as long as it works.
For those who have the means, please consider donating to PostmarketOS, which has been slowly but surely pushing forward pure linux support for phones, and is the best longterm solution we have to completely circumvent Google and reclaim our hardware permenantly.
F-Droid is way more trustworthy than google pay.
Google claims the google playstore is safe and the only way to avoid malware. Ironically it was like 65-70% of all malware on android came from the playstore.
The dumb part is that this won’t even solve the problem. It will be trivially easy to get dev certificates through a shell company. Anyone who is making money off scamware will have no trouble standing up LLCs faster than Google can ban them.
What does Google care? They’re making money off of it now.
Sounds like a boon for other projects like Graphene, Postmarket, Lineage, Ubuntu Touch, etc
Make sure to donate and I hope the devs switch gears and leave Google behind.
It’s why there’s already talk that recaptcha only works with approved phones to lock out alternatives.
I just want to know what is going to my fdroid apps when this comes in. Will they all get binned? Disabled? Just fail to load until I jump through the new “untrusted” sources hoops?
What gets me is that upstream linux has had this solved by trusting repo keys for years, why not let the end user be the trust arbiter
Because you’re not the end user, you’re the product.
yes that is the cynical take, and I mostly agree, but installed apks list their install source, so if that information is there, then its simple to give the user the ability to mark said source as trusted. But to do this under the guise of security, when there is more malware on play than fdroid is such a head scratcher
Yoy described the current solution I believe.
The more hoops they put in place to jump through, the less people would consider going outside Google Play. And the more control Google has on the ecosystem.
30/9/2026
there aren’t 30 months in a year…
American entitlement shows up again
should’ve put a /s at the end
I had a guy earlier saying the same thing in a serious matter.
Euros mad about this one
month/day/year is such a horrible date format.
Because they’re sane. There’s two logical orders to use: most significant value to least, or vise versa. America just LOVES to throw logic out the window.
I don’t think it really matters, and I also think it’s a waste of time to care. I’m into wasting time since I’m at work, though, so here’s why I think there’s some logic to it.
At first glance, the order seems to come from how we say the date, “July 14th, 2026” rather than “14th of July, 2026”. It seems that there’s not really any record of which came first, the written format or the vocal one. Either way, I think that part is heavily ingrained in culture around here so writing it the way we say it makes sense.
Also, I personally think they’re listed in order of default contextual importance. The “14th” is something that can occur 12 times a year, so it makes some sense to add a qualifier describing which fourteenth you’re referring to. The year is only important if you don’t know the date in reference happened within the current year, so it’s importance is the lowest of the three.
Ultimately, we’ve long solved the issue of changing how a date is displayed for different places, so it really doesn’t matter. I won’t defend any other silly things we inherited from colonial era Europe though… The imperial system is wack.
Here’s the plan:
- Normal Cellphone
- Kobo
- MP3 player
- Thinkpad
- A Faraday bag
1 will make calls, texts, pay parking fees, let me into concerts and call 911, and nothing else
2 will allow me to continue to read anticapitalist books without being tracked
3 will allow me to continue listening to anticapitalist music without being tracked
4 will allow me to continue discussions about how shit capitalism is with my fellow scorned and continue saying Trump is a pedo and 8647 when I feel like tossing more darts at his mental image, use XMPP, IRC, TOR, Ygg, you know, the gang.
5 will allow me to ditch the fascists when I’m done playing the part of a normal citizen on a daily basis.
first results on a quick search for phones that allow bootloader unlocking.
Hopefully, all of the devs, (or at the very least, most of the them) move over to help speed up and improve the alternative OS’s
It would be a beautiful kick in the face to Google if there a relatively quick mass migration from Android to any or all of those.
https://www.howtogeek.com/buy-these-brands-if-you-truly-want-to-own-your-phone/
How hard would it be for people to make a Linux distro for for a popular phone?
At the least support lineageos.
Google has been reducing the amount of AOSP updates released each year.
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I just installed Mint on an old and slow laptop, literally win7 era piece, works way smoother and faster than it ever used to.
Is this a one time 25 or is it monthly like a subscription?
should be one time
I got into making apps for android less than a year ago… I have no idea where else can I post my apps or even how to make them for other platforms… If any good person would give me pointers in either direction I would be grateful.
You can publish your apps on f-droid.
You can still develop apps for lineage, calyx and graphene without registering your personal details to Google however that would greatly reduce your userbase pool.
If your not publishing on the app store your already severely limiting your pool. The vast vast majority of users well not install anything outside of the app store.
Last I checked revanced wasn’t in the app store
That is true and most of users most likely wouldn’t care about Google overreach
Google has already stated there will be a single 24hr waiting period required, and then you can do as you please. Hyping this as the end of the world is misleading, and shooting the anti-Google message in the foot because when Google decides to TRULY not allow non-Play Store apps then nobody complaining about it will be taken seriously.
This “I don’t have anything hide so, why should I care if they read my emails, check my messages, location, pictures and videos” type of thinking is what’s wrong with the people. Why are you okay to let anyone have such power and control over you? You went out and bought a phone which didn’t have restrictions and they decided, without asking you, to put restrictions on it. How are you okay with this is beyond me.
This is not crying wolf.
Sure. Because you say so. Care to back that assertion up?
Seeing the trends that are occurring is not making things up.
