KickMeElmo@sopuli.xyz
on 03 Sep 2025 04:14
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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.
Sunsofold@lemmings.world
on 03 Sep 2025 06:43
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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.
Sunsofold@lemmings.world
on 03 Sep 2025 23:57
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I hope something good comes of it.
chottomatte@lemdro.id
on 03 Sep 2025 04:33
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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
MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca
on 03 Sep 2025 06:34
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Like shelving Android completely like so many of their successful products?
chottomatte@lemdro.id
on 03 Sep 2025 07:06
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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
mctoasterson@reddthat.com
on 03 Sep 2025 05:09
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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.
Salvo@aussie.zone
on 03 Sep 2025 06:01
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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.
L7HM77@sh.itjust.works
on 04 Sep 2025 19:19
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I think we’re watching a major shift happen, similar to when smartphones took over. At the moment, I can’t see the market ever opening back up the way it was, because apparently smartphones are produced at a loss. If there’s really no way to manufacture them at a reasonable cost, they’re never ever gonna let go of the hardware control ever again. The last couple decades were just a long con to grab market share, now we’re in the late stage where they lock down and grab as much data as possible, laws be damned.
I just spent too much time writing another comment on this post, but I have the same wants as you:
recent processor, a good camera, GPS, Tailscale, 18 hours of battery life a good enough browser to get to my bank and edit photos
I really think we’re watching the smartphone era fade away for tech-minded people, and it’s time for us to just ditch the expectations and let go of the all-in-one convenience. Phones for talk/text, dedicated devices for everything else. Most of these specs you mentioned can be exceeded in a compact touchscreen 2-in-1 netbook, for about the same cost as a flagship phone, and be fully compatible with Linux. Currently tablet sized, almost small enough to fit in a purse, but hopefully smaller variants come around in the future.
Only issue is GPS and camera. Phone GPS modules aren’t very precise as it is, hopefully we get a compact USB receiver someday. And cameras never really made sense in a phone to me. Loved the convenience, and I will miss them dearly in my future phones, but a cheap digital camera will beat all but the high end flagship phones, both in price and image quality.
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Sep 2025 06:31
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The best thing would be to stop using google services but many (most?) banking apps refuse to run on phones without Google’s blessing. It’s fucked up and should be illegal
That would be the best thing, but that’s a really tall order.
The only product capable of handling what they’re doing is Apple and they’re just as locked down, if not more.
The Linux phones aren’t really there yet, and the Halium-based models are unpleasantly locked down as well.
The mobile market is really stagnant. We need some fairly recent hardware with open software on it, but even if the market was ready to buy, the software is nowhere near ready to fill the need and the hardware is becoming less available by the day.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 03 Sep 2025 09:54
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Don’t use banking apps. Use banking websites. And if your bank does not allow you to do everything on the website, change banks. I did.
biofaust@lemmy.world
on 03 Sep 2025 11:34
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I am about to check/do this.
Problem is the national ID system, based on apps that work the same way.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 03 Sep 2025 11:58
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How do elderly people deal with it because they are less likely to have smart devices or less likely to understand how to use them properly?
Whatever way they deal with it, you can use as well.
biofaust@lemmy.world
on 03 Sep 2025 12:36
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I have never heard of anyone not “dealing with it”.
Most probably they are just asked to go in person to some physical office with a passport or something.
In that case, no thank you.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 04 Sep 2025 12:56
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Do you actually have to open the banking app? Or is it one of those TOTP codes? Because if it’s a TOTP code, you can use any password manager, including keypass xc on Linux.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 04 Sep 2025 13:57
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It’s likely that the smaller the bank is, the less likely it is to be doing this. So maybe a local bank over a national bank or maybe an older bank that’s been around for a lot longer instead of a neo bank.
When I switched banks, I went from a NeoBank to a bank that has been established for quite a while because it has older technology.
I recently read a Kevin Mitnick book from a few years back. At the time, he recommended buying a cheap Chromebook, locking it up at home, and use it for banking - and ONLY banking. Never anything else.
BlessedDog@lemmy.world
on 05 Sep 2025 08:24
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S-mobiili, the banking app of S-pankki here in Finland.
anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net
on 03 Sep 2025 07:55
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Didn’t even hear about this. Would this impact other OS’s, like Graphene or Lineage?
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 03 Sep 2025 09:53
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As long as you don’t install Google Play services on them, no it would not.
lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml
on 03 Sep 2025 10:59
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In the short term, perhaps. If someday Google decides to stop publishing open source updates to Android, though…
Eventually all the ROM teams would have to either massively ramp up their development responsibilities to cover every aspect of an aging Android codebase, or shut down as users leave because their project is dangerously outdated. Or probably both, because even if they tried to take over development, what ROM team is going to have the resources for that on a long term basis?
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 03 Sep 2025 12:01
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Something makes me think if that happens that LineageOS will become a system in its own right and the community will step up and do the work required to keep it properly up to date.
So then we will have three mobile operating systems, iOS, Android, and LineageOS. iOS will be made by Apple, Android will be made by Google, and LineageOS will be made by the open source community. Don’t get me wrong, I assume development will become slower, but I don’t think it will stop entirely.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 03 Sep 2025 15:53
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This would be the best outcome. I don’t even care if the OS gets “outdated”. If it’s good enough and runs F-Droid I’ve got everything I need.
shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
on 04 Sep 2025 12:59
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That would be awesome to see. OEM bootloaders (and their fuses) and dealing with the proprietary drivers/blobs are the things that really need to be tackled with resources to be on as many devices as possible. I doubt those companies will want to play nice depending on whatever Google demands to be allowed Google Play Services. It is so hard to actually break into the OS market for mobile at all, but it is dedication that LineageOS has had that has kept it alive and updating. I hope that all the custom ROMs and the Linux Mobile OSes help each other out to the benefit of everyone on all levels of phone/tablet tiers.
magguzu@midwest.social
on 03 Sep 2025 16:21
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Their next likely move will be to require all apps to pass integrity check, which means, unless developers are specifically crafting non-integ apps for f-droid, there will be less apps available for non-google play services devices.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
on 03 Sep 2025 09:22
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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.
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.
You also mentioned that the rub would be that abandoned projects will be uninstallable. That’s true, but that’s vastly understating the problem. The real problem is not that abandoned projects will be rejected, because they would phase out due to version upgrades within a few years anyway. The real problem is that programs that would take power or money away from Google are guaranteed to be rejected or delayed for bullshit reasons. And even if they are initially accepted, Google can always pull a Darth Vader and reject them later, as soon as they feel threatened. And all of that shouldn’t be happening at all on an open source operating system on a cell phone that we purchased when we’re controlling it ourselves.
This is also an imperialistic move. What happens if someone from Iran or Palestine tries to create an account on Google’s server? Will they be blocked as a terrorist? I think maybe they will. So then the only software that’s allowed to run on Android phones is going to be software that’s approved by Google, which is subject to pressure from the United States government. But we don’t even have to go that far to find the badness. If a marginalized group has a software developer who wishes to remain anonymous that creates a perfectly good program that will help out that marginalized group, by Google’s new rules they won’t be able to distribute it.
That’s the real rub. All of that. Google’s strong desire to gain as much control over its own applications as Apple has on the iPhone. This is a massive grab for money and power, and we should never think of it as some minor thing that might mildly inconvenience abandoned projects.
FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
on 03 Sep 2025 11:37
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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.
ZonenRanslite@feddit.org
on 03 Sep 2025 11:17
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underisk@hexbear.net
on 03 Sep 2025 12:32
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Remember after widespread public outcry, petitions, and developer pushback google still went ahead with Chrome’s Manifest v3 because it made adblockers worse? This won’t accomplish anything.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk
on 03 Sep 2025 13:29
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Wouldn’t it be better to petition a political power… Such as the EU or the UK parliament?
lemmyknow@lemmy.today
on 04 Sep 2025 13:18
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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)
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip
on 04 Sep 2025 11:06
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The petition us useless. Way too many people just don’t care or even understand what it’s really about.
To me, personally, this is the final nail in the coffin that is android. Welcome Linux phone, and if I can’t find any, fuck the phone altogether.
I don’t need another crapple.
biotin7@sopuli.xyz
on 04 Sep 2025 11:48
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Why? Just to fight the next war that is unwinnable?
It’s like 5000 ants against one Bagger 293. Could also be one million ants.
And even IF, which chance is already infinitesimal, they’d just start another slightly different war succedingly, which, by then, already faces lesser resistance.
I did fight since they ditched their “don’t be evil”-slogan. and here we are. I’m tired boss.
biotin7@sopuli.xyz
on 04 Sep 2025 19:55
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Do it for posterity. We need to corner them as much as possible. Use it as motivation & justification
So, you’re a dreamer? I was that too, once. One should know what battles are worth fighting for. I would never go bare-handed and blindfolded into cqc with a grizzly.
Not saying you shouldn’t. Great for you if you can uphold that fire.
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.
I actually don’t know. And besides all your worries, mine would be the camera. It most likely will suck, even for the >2000 moneyz one. But i will try them, what else could I do? I wouldn’t touch crapple with a 20m-pole and android goes down the same drain.
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.
Great. That sounds way worse than I expected. Why the fuck is it so hard in 2025 to manufacture a tiny computer that runs Linux? If battery is such a problem make it swappable.
Crap. So what now? Buy a dumb phone and take a DLR with me? Like back in the day?
Dumb enough I’d need a new car without android auto.
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.
I wouldn’t even care if the battery would only last 5 hours or so. I’m never away from a charger for long :)
As for apps I’d be glad if telegram works, a browser and maybe some lemmy-app. But most of all: a good camera. I was already willing to step down to a pixel, but below that? Nah :(
But yeah, I hear you. Yet, if the current ones are that shitty, why are they even sold? who would throw >2000 moneyz at such a phone? Just because?
That $2,200 phone is the Trump phone. Puresim. It’s made “in the usa” with 10-year-old technology. And I guarantee you they paid to be on the top of that list…
Yeah just after posting I actually checked that one out and was like “ah yeah nope”.
Also the main components are still Chinese. And, no insult meant, I prefer Chinese over murican any time. I couldn’t even name one american product that is awesome (“besides the war-machinery”, he said sighingly), that others don’t do better anyway.
But before buying this phone-thingy I’d carry around a laptop for chat.
L7HM77@sh.itjust.works
on 04 Sep 2025 17:22
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I see my next phone being a flipphone. I don’t like how locked down mobile platforms are already, and smartphones are so big now.
Netbook 2-in-1’s look promising, picked one up off eBay to update my mobile rollout when all this started. ~550ish USD for a better CPU, more RAM, easily replaceable storage and battery, and actually compatible with Linux, all for the price of Google’s 9a at launch. It will be slightly more inconvenient to travel with, but I’ll try to fully replace the smartphone with a flip when that’s ready for an update.
Google seems to be gambling that their monopoly is big enough to start strongarming everyone, but with a slight reimagining, their mobile division can be completely cut out of my life, and the replacement devices are cheaper per specs and more open to modification, so really I should’ve done this long ago.
Things are changing, but the people who care enough about this will change too. Still sad about it, was hoping the smartphone platform would go the other way and become more open. Mobile processors have more throughput and better energy efficiency now than briefcase laptops from the 2005 - 2010 era. Always dreamed of everything evolving into a single device where my phone could plug into a docker and replace my office desktop for web browsing, but I just don’t see it happening in a closed environment like this.
blindsight@beehaw.org
on 05 Sep 2025 01:04
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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.
Doorknob@lemmy.world
on 05 Sep 2025 04:32
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I’ll just vote with my feet
thagoat@lemmy.sdf.org
on 05 Sep 2025 05:40
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Stop using all Google products. That’s your petition.
You play in Google’s ecosystem, you get your control taken away; just like with any other big tech ecosystem. Don’t want to play that game? Then don’t use any products made by them. It’s that simple.
threaded - newest
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.
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
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.
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.
I think we’re watching a major shift happen, similar to when smartphones took over. At the moment, I can’t see the market ever opening back up the way it was, because apparently smartphones are produced at a loss. If there’s really no way to manufacture them at a reasonable cost, they’re never ever gonna let go of the hardware control ever again. The last couple decades were just a long con to grab market share, now we’re in the late stage where they lock down and grab as much data as possible, laws be damned.
I just spent too much time writing another comment on this post, but I have the same wants as you:
I really think we’re watching the smartphone era fade away for tech-minded people, and it’s time for us to just ditch the expectations and let go of the all-in-one convenience. Phones for talk/text, dedicated devices for everything else. Most of these specs you mentioned can be exceeded in a compact touchscreen 2-in-1 netbook, for about the same cost as a flagship phone, and be fully compatible with Linux. Currently tablet sized, almost small enough to fit in a purse, but hopefully smaller variants come around in the future.
Only issue is GPS and camera. Phone GPS modules aren’t very precise as it is, hopefully we get a compact USB receiver someday. And cameras never really made sense in a phone to me. Loved the convenience, and I will miss them dearly in my future phones, but a cheap digital camera will beat all but the high end flagship phones, both in price and image quality.
The best thing would be to stop using google services but many (most?) banking apps refuse to run on phones without Google’s blessing. It’s fucked up and should be illegal
That would be the best thing, but that’s a really tall order.
The only product capable of handling what they’re doing is Apple and they’re just as locked down, if not more.
The Linux phones aren’t really there yet, and the Halium-based models are unpleasantly locked down as well.
The mobile market is really stagnant. We need some fairly recent hardware with open software on it, but even if the market was ready to buy, the software is nowhere near ready to fill the need and the hardware is becoming less available by the day.
Don’t use banking apps. Use banking websites. And if your bank does not allow you to do everything on the website, change banks. I did.
I am about to check/do this. Problem is the national ID system, based on apps that work the same way.
How do elderly people deal with it because they are less likely to have smart devices or less likely to understand how to use them properly?
Whatever way they deal with it, you can use as well.
I have never heard of anyone not “dealing with it”. Most probably they are just asked to go in person to some physical office with a passport or something. In that case, no thank you.
.
Do you actually have to open the banking app? Or is it one of those TOTP codes? Because if it’s a TOTP code, you can use any password manager, including keypass xc on Linux.
If they force you to use the app, switch banks.
.
It’s likely that the smaller the bank is, the less likely it is to be doing this. So maybe a local bank over a national bank or maybe an older bank that’s been around for a lot longer instead of a neo bank.
When I switched banks, I went from a NeoBank to a bank that has been established for quite a while because it has older technology.
.
I recently read a Kevin Mitnick book from a few years back. At the time, he recommended buying a cheap Chromebook, locking it up at home, and use it for banking - and ONLY banking. Never anything else.
Nowadays, a person could do that with a phone.
.
My banking app works without google :)
Which ones ?
S-mobiili, the banking app of S-pankki here in Finland.
Didn’t even hear about this. Would this impact other OS’s, like Graphene or Lineage?
As long as you don’t install Google Play services on them, no it would not.
In the short term, perhaps. If someday Google decides to stop publishing open source updates to Android, though…
Eventually all the ROM teams would have to either massively ramp up their development responsibilities to cover every aspect of an aging Android codebase, or shut down as users leave because their project is dangerously outdated. Or probably both, because even if they tried to take over development, what ROM team is going to have the resources for that on a long term basis?
Something makes me think if that happens that LineageOS will become a system in its own right and the community will step up and do the work required to keep it properly up to date.
So then we will have three mobile operating systems, iOS, Android, and LineageOS. iOS will be made by Apple, Android will be made by Google, and LineageOS will be made by the open source community. Don’t get me wrong, I assume development will become slower, but I don’t think it will stop entirely.
This would be the best outcome. I don’t even care if the OS gets “outdated”. If it’s good enough and runs F-Droid I’ve got everything I need.
Same.
That would be awesome to see. OEM bootloaders (and their fuses) and dealing with the proprietary drivers/blobs are the things that really need to be tackled with resources to be on as many devices as possible. I doubt those companies will want to play nice depending on whatever Google demands to be allowed Google Play Services. It is so hard to actually break into the OS market for mobile at all, but it is dedication that LineageOS has had that has kept it alive and updating. I hope that all the custom ROMs and the Linux Mobile OSes help each other out to the benefit of everyone on all levels of phone/tablet tiers.
Fine, at least for now:
mastodon.social/…/115135404985369728
Their next likely move will be to require all apps to pass integrity check, which means, unless developers are specifically crafting non-integ apps for f-droid, there will be less apps available for non-google play services devices.
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.
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.
You also mentioned that the rub would be that abandoned projects will be uninstallable. That’s true, but that’s vastly understating the problem. The real problem is not that abandoned projects will be rejected, because they would phase out due to version upgrades within a few years anyway. The real problem is that programs that would take power or money away from Google are guaranteed to be rejected or delayed for bullshit reasons. And even if they are initially accepted, Google can always pull a Darth Vader and reject them later, as soon as they feel threatened. And all of that shouldn’t be happening at all on an open source operating system on a cell phone that we purchased when we’re controlling it ourselves.
This is also an imperialistic move. What happens if someone from Iran or Palestine tries to create an account on Google’s server? Will they be blocked as a terrorist? I think maybe they will. So then the only software that’s allowed to run on Android phones is going to be software that’s approved by Google, which is subject to pressure from the United States government. But we don’t even have to go that far to find the badness. If a marginalized group has a software developer who wishes to remain anonymous that creates a perfectly good program that will help out that marginalized group, by Google’s new rules they won’t be able to distribute it.
That’s the real rub. All of that. Google’s strong desire to gain as much control over its own applications as Apple has on the iPhone. This is a massive grab for money and power, and we should never think of it as some minor thing that might mildly inconvenience abandoned projects.
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.
<img alt="" src="https://feddit.org/pictrs/image/7725579f-24ce-4059-95f0-6dcbe2c87fa6.jpeg">
Remember after widespread public outcry, petitions, and developer pushback google still went ahead with Chrome’s Manifest v3 because it made adblockers worse? This won’t accomplish anything.
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.
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.
Change.org is where action goes to die.
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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 petition us useless. Way too many people just don’t care or even understand what it’s really about. To me, personally, this is the final nail in the coffin that is android. Welcome Linux phone, and if I can’t find any, fuck the phone altogether. I don’t need another crapple.
Do it anyways
Why? Just to fight the next war that is unwinnable? It’s like 5000 ants against one Bagger 293. Could also be one million ants.
And even IF, which chance is already infinitesimal, they’d just start another slightly different war succedingly, which, by then, already faces lesser resistance.
I did fight since they ditched their “don’t be evil”-slogan. and here we are. I’m tired boss.
Do it for posterity. We need to corner them as much as possible. Use it as motivation & justification
I don’t care for posteriority.
“Corner them”…that was funny 😊
So you’re a defeatist
So, you’re a dreamer? I was that too, once. One should know what battles are worth fighting for. I would never go bare-handed and blindfolded into cqc with a grizzly. Not saying you shouldn’t. Great for you if you can uphold that fire.
Who said anything about fighting bare-handed
Oh right, I forgot about the petition that they should stop being evil.
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.
Why the hassles? There are some Linux phones available.
linuxstans.com/linux-phone/
Didn’t test them so far, but the moment my pixel dies I’ll try them all. And I hope at least one has a decent camera.
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.
I actually don’t know. And besides all your worries, mine would be the camera. It most likely will suck, even for the >2000 moneyz one. But i will try them, what else could I do? I wouldn’t touch crapple with a 20m-pole and android goes down the same drain.
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.
Great. That sounds way worse than I expected. Why the fuck is it so hard in 2025 to manufacture a tiny computer that runs Linux? If battery is such a problem make it swappable. Crap. So what now? Buy a dumb phone and take a DLR with me? Like back in the day? Dumb enough I’d need a new car without android auto.
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.
I wouldn’t even care if the battery would only last 5 hours or so. I’m never away from a charger for long :) As for apps I’d be glad if telegram works, a browser and maybe some lemmy-app. But most of all: a good camera. I was already willing to step down to a pixel, but below that? Nah :( But yeah, I hear you. Yet, if the current ones are that shitty, why are they even sold? who would throw >2000 moneyz at such a phone? Just because?
That $2,200 phone is the Trump phone. Puresim. It’s made “in the usa” with 10-year-old technology. And I guarantee you they paid to be on the top of that list…
Yeah just after posting I actually checked that one out and was like “ah yeah nope”. Also the main components are still Chinese. And, no insult meant, I prefer Chinese over murican any time. I couldn’t even name one american product that is awesome (“besides the war-machinery”, he said sighingly), that others don’t do better anyway.
But before buying this phone-thingy I’d carry around a laptop for chat.
I see my next phone being a flipphone. I don’t like how locked down mobile platforms are already, and smartphones are so big now.
Netbook 2-in-1’s look promising, picked one up off eBay to update my mobile rollout when all this started. ~550ish USD for a better CPU, more RAM, easily replaceable storage and battery, and actually compatible with Linux, all for the price of Google’s 9a at launch. It will be slightly more inconvenient to travel with, but I’ll try to fully replace the smartphone with a flip when that’s ready for an update.
Google seems to be gambling that their monopoly is big enough to start strongarming everyone, but with a slight reimagining, their mobile division can be completely cut out of my life, and the replacement devices are cheaper per specs and more open to modification, so really I should’ve done this long ago.
Things are changing, but the people who care enough about this will change too. Still sad about it, was hoping the smartphone platform would go the other way and become more open. Mobile processors have more throughput and better energy efficiency now than briefcase laptops from the 2005 - 2010 era. Always dreamed of everything evolving into a single device where my phone could plug into a docker and replace my office desktop for web browsing, but I just don’t see it happening in a closed environment like this.
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.
I’ll just vote with my feet
Like Carl?
„Sideloading“? By using this word, you already letting google know, that they have won. Since when installing an app is called like that?
Stop using all Google products. That’s your petition.
You play in Google’s ecosystem, you get your control taken away; just like with any other big tech ecosystem. Don’t want to play that game? Then don’t use any products made by them. It’s that simple.