I have felt this way about my phone for a long time. This is probably good because it will probably create a viable alternative to the apple-android ecosystem. Maybe Graphene will support more phones and new privacy focused mobile-OS will pop up.
What happens to existing side loaded apps on my phone?
I got grapheneOS on my phone right now. Go fuck yourself, google.
I will also do my damn best to make sure my older Samsung S23 doesn’t fall into that version. I have uses for that phone.
Yea but you had to buy a google phone right or do they support more phones now
We must all keep pushing people to go against this and to build up Linux mobile alternatives: PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch, JollaOS, and semi by extension, GrapheneOS
The problem is that the most important apps for users aren’t on those platforms. Bank apps and identification apps. They need to make apps for those platforms first otherwise a switch makes no sense.
Also I have tried Ubuntu touch and it’s a nightmare and dysfunctional. e_OS however works great.
People thinking this isn’t a monopoly enforcement action in disguise are the same people who think banning Huawei was justified.
Google’s one mistake was that they sold Motorolla to Lenovo, who ran it as low cost shovelware to make the mobile phone market in the US not look like a complete oligopoly. They kept their cost low by using complete stock Google ROMs while every other OEM exited the market.
Until recently when Lenovo properly built up their hardware lineup and started jumping ship to GrapheneOS the moment Google started clamping down.
That and thinking that they won’t be sued to oblivion for this. People are looking for ways to do lawsuits and this is a big one
– sincerely Apple users.Hot take: This is to stop the slop tsunami.
When any idiot can vibe code some slop app, things are going to get out of hand very fast.
When people program agentic AI to just scrape the app store for open source apps that copy them and slop them up, how do you stop it?
I’m not sure which future I hate more. Either way, things look grim.
Hot take: This is to stop the slop tsunami.
When any idiot can vibe code some slop app, things are going to get out of hand very fast.
But the play store is already completely filled with slop garbage, AI notwithstanding.
Your phone will be the same phone after September as it was beforehand.
On the long-term, I’d make some plans, get a small laptop, or even a linux phone, even as a second device to tether.
Yeah, this isn’t going to get “better”, this is going to get walked into a walled garden.
Get out or stay put, your call.
We need go start talking about the year of the GNU/Linux phone
Or the year of free (as in freedom) pocket computers, since the global telephony system goes against the freedoms.
PostmarketOS isn’t GNU
Anyways it’d be interesting to see more niche OSes on phones (there’s a mobile port of Genode/Sculpt OS for example)
Why has being in a state of constant “information” flow become so important for people? It’s not even relevant, important, or interesting information, just a never-ending nerve-jangling assault of slop, ADHD nonsense, and generic crap.
Because emotional maturity requires being comfortable sitting with yourself and your thoughts without any noise. A surprising amount of people can’t cope with the lack of noise.
At the end of the day, all you can really do is to start treating your phone more like a phone and stop carrying it everywhere and using it for everything.
The convenience of it has made it way too easy for people to spy on you.
No. You can do a lot more. You can develop alternatives and enforce anti monopoly legislation.
This. Degoogling and using FOSS alternatives can only take you so far. We should drastically reduce smartphone usage. I got a dumbphone so I can be reachable. Outside of work, my smartphone is mostly powered off. I can’t realistically get rid of it, as I need a bunch of banking apps, authenticators, Google Maps at times (and no, there’s no real alternative to this, everything else sucks). But I only use it when I absolutely need it. It’s gathering a lot less data than it used to. I’m striving to be as low value to big tech as possible. Reducing smartphone use has also done wonders for my wellbeing. I read more, I’ve regained my attention span, I have more time to do stuff I like. Stop scrolling, there’s nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you’re not missing out on anything. Stop trying to replace one app or site with another. Just let it go, it was never worth it.
Stop scrolling, there’s nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you’re not missing out on anything
Not sure about you, but I actually lookup something useful from time to time, while being “in the field.”
My wife would hate it, if I were no longer reachable.
No. I haven’t used Google apps on my phone for years already. That includes Google Play Services and the Play Store. Most apps are open source and I’m self hosting my media.
We gotta claw this shit back.
In case you are looking for Google alternatives to other services, I highly recommend Organic Street Maps or Magic Earth or Kagi Maps instead of Google Maps. Also FreeTube or Yewtu.be instead of YouTube. And mail providers like Proton or Tuta Mail that are end-to-end encrypted. And VPNs like Proton or Mullvlad. And most of all search engines like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia or Kagi or Tor to onionize your search experience. There are many alternatives to Google. I try to recommend for people to move away from Google where they can. I realize Google has worked their way into many websites and can be hard to get around in that sense, but ad blockers and DNS resolvers like uBlock Origin and NextDNS help to prevent tracking from Google.
Do you have custom ROM + no gapps? Gets harder and harder if you want a new phone once in a while.
Bought the Fairphone with e/OS.
Problem is many see Android equivalent with Samsung and Samsung is the worst when it comes to customize your HW because they really lock down their shit.
For my phone I just bought a new battery after many years of use and it’s back to working as if it’s new. Before that I had a Shift phone (with Google, I think) which allowed me to replace the camera module once the autofocus in the camera broke.
Not sure if I’m old fashioned, but I like to own my devices and modify them if I please.
Yep. My disdain for the combination of fascist government where everything is surveillance, and sociopathic corporations and billionaires where everything is a cynical cash grab, overcame me excitement for tech “products” a long time ago. I’m in the US so it’s especially bad.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old, and I do of course use it every day, but I consciously avoid using it every hour. I love when I misplace it in my own house, to then not look for it for hours. The only person who is going to message me anything urgent is my wife and she knows where to find me.
Constant phone addiction is one of those situations where when you remove yourself from it you can more easily see it in others. It’s like there’s a new form of body language where when you see that slight forward tilt of the head you know they are in the Phone Zone without even seeing the rest of their body.
I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old,
Mine is an older model too, thankfully. I never needed the bells and whistles other people are into, which probably helps me stay more secure.
But I also just love that I’m not reaching for my pocket every 30 seconds for another dopamine hit too.
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I have thought about trying to get away from shit but it’s hard. If I want to stop using my phone regularly I need to purchase a GPS unit, wire up a charger for it on both my bikes (go deep in woods some times so I use gaia on my phone to figure out where I am), I’d need to get an mp3 player for music, and no more scheduling everything on my phone calendar. It’s an effort, but the more this convenience starts to cost (both in $ and privacy) the more willing I am to make the effort. Another major gripe I have with phones is their all so goddamn big now too, last comfortable to hold phone I had was a damned s3 now everything is a mini tablet and I have big hands. My SO hates phone shopping cuz her hands are tiny! Can’t hold the damn things with one hand anymore lol
I understand.
It’s a bummer what we have to consider to avoid people snooping, but it’s (at least in my humble opinion), necessary.
A good way to start breaking the habit and only using it when you need it is to just keep it in another area of your home. I keep mine in a bathroom drawer.
A big one is just using a real computer for things that are actually better on a real computer. Don’t browse the web or deal with emails on the phone, for example. Make a habit of grabbing a laptop, or even sitting down to a desktop to do those things.
If you are going through this much effort you could consider getting an /e/OS or GrapheneOS Phone?
My buddy has a pixel with graphene and loves it. I am not familiar with /e/os how does it compare? I have a not terribly old Moto G (2025) right now as it was the cheapest phone I could get locally after loosing my last one deep in the green mountians so I hate to have to get a new phone again already as this one seems to be unsupprted by either G or E os’s
Graphene os gives more options. If your minimalist you can use the phone as-is without a Google account, it has all the basic apps you need. If you need more you can install f-droid and use Foss apps. And finally I’d you still want Google based apps, you can set up sandboxed Google Play and use it as a fully featured android phone, all while keeping granular permissions on the Google Play services, depending on what you need it for.
I don’t know your budget but I got a pixel 9 that I put graphene on, and a year of 10gb monthly cell service for 550 total. The pixel was from eBay, and the cell service is from usmobile. You could go cheaper with a pixel 8 and a different provider
Yea. Also have an old moto g and am sad to find that E and G os are not compatible.
But what about D?
I like to run poverty spec phones because I have a poor track record of breaking them. Shit I shattered a phone screen picking up a tire once, and I run case and screen protector at all times. I can’t be having a 600$ device in my pocket lmfao too big a loss when the inevitable happens.
Same here. Neuropathy fucked my hands so I drop shit all the time and phones have become unwieldy as fuck since touchscreens became the norm.
I literally shattered my phone screen dropping it on a skittle once.
About to…?
Please consider donating to PostmarketOS to build up a pure mobile Linux alternative that is completely free of Google’s influence. It’s the best option we have.
Just signed up to donate 5 euros a month. Took me about 45 seconds.
Legend! :D
What about fairphone? Don’t they run a Ubuntu option?
Hijacking as I’ve done on other posts. In my country all 3 major tellcos needed to verify phones can call emergency on VoLTE.
FP5 does this. For whatever reason the telcos cant “conform” that (its not sold here but important and DOES work) so the device is blocked at a network level.
Not blocked just for calls but even data.
Phone is now a brick. Double brick once the Android changes roll through.
Damn, that sucks. What country does that? (If it’s large enough to not dox yourself, of course)
Sounds like Australia to me.
Damn. The guy just doxed himself.
The issue with Ubuntu Touch is that unfortunately it uses an outdated Android kernel (which is also usually not receiving security updates) and a Halium abstraction layer to access the closed source binary blob Android drivers for the phone’s hardware. It also requires that it be installed on top of an existing Android install, so in all it’s more of Linuxified layer on top of Android, which means it’s not truly escaping the control of the Android/Google ecosystem.
UBPorts also appears to inherit the use of CLA’s from Canonical:
I’m very much not a fan of CLA’s., which SailfishOS also employs.
The advantage of PostmarketOS (even though it is not ready as a daily driver for the average person), is that it uses the upstream Linux kernel with open-source GPU/hardware drivers, not an Android kernel to access the outdated proprietary GPU/Hardware blobs.
The other problem is that Ubuntu is the “How do you do, fellow kids?” of FOSS operating systems.
It suffers from that less now since Canonical abandoned the project. UBPorts is AFAIK just a community project to keep it alive. I would’ve assumed they would drop the CLA stuff, but I guess they didn’t want to or couldn’t for whatever reason?
no they don’t. they do have a partnership with Murena, which sells them preinstalled with /e/, which is a degoogled Android ROM. there is a Ubuntu Touch port available for some Fairphone models though.
So that would be a yes. Yes they do.
And Why are we being confrontational about this?
I thought graphene was the best daily driver for the moment ?
Graphene is currently the best daily driver for the average person, but as they are a hardened Android fork, they are still somewhat reliant on Google playing ball.
PostmarketOS is not ready for the average person, but it is our best long-term option since it is not based on Android at all.
It’s the best option we have.
Wow, that guy is an absolute putz. Like, postmarketOS literally tells you that their shit is not ready for prime time and to be ready for it to be a little bit wonky right now. And this guy is acting like they’re advertising it as it is ready for Freddy and it’s just garbage or something. Not to mention the way he installed it was just stupid. My 8-year-old niece could do this better than he did.
I think I’ll find a video made by somebody more competent.
He’s a comedian. His videos aren’t meant to be taken seriously.
Comedians really need to stop using that line to justify being putzes, as it ignores the fact that they have a very real influence on people’s perceptions, and therefore the decisions they make and the overall trajectory of society.
Every media personality needs to recognize this responsibility, regardless of whether or not their content is intended to be “serious.”
“It’s just a joke, bro.” Yeah, well your “joke” is actively harming the development and adoption of one of our only potential ways out of this duopoly of walled gardens.
The channel description says
SAMTIME is probably the only channel on the internet not smelling the farts of the big tech companies! From Apple to Samsung, Huawei to OnePlus, we make fun of everyone and tell it like it is (aaand maybe exaggerate just a little if it’s funny).
and that seems about right from the handful of videos I’ve watched. He spends a lot more time mocking big tech firms than poking fun at Linux.
If his intention is to mock big tech, then mocking linux and the only viable alternatives to big tech is kinda misplaced.
The intention is to mock everything in tech. He mostly mocks big tech, but nothing is immune.
Long-term, yes. It isn’t ready as a daily driver for the average person (hence why I used the term ‘build up’), but there is realistically no other option that can truly be called community owned like PostmarketOS can. It’s our best shot at a permanent non-enshittified platform, it just needs our support so it can become polished and support more phones :)
As a person who uses a few sideloaded apps, this is sad news.
Well, as far as I know the current idea is that you’ll have to toggle a setting in developer options and wait 24 hours (once). After that you can sideload unverified stuff as much as you like. So it’s not horribly sad, I´d say.
I actually kind of think that’s a reasonable change. It improves safety for the clueless majority, but it still gives those that know what they are doing a free reign with a minor initial inconvenience. And I kind of feel like articles still claiming how horrible this all is are mostly just outrage farming. Unless the plans have changed to something more fucked up, that is.
No, it’s not reasonable. Fuck the clueless majority. Stupid people should be prevented from hurting others, but they should not be prevented from hurting themselves. If you manage to download malware that’s on you, no big brother should ever be controlling what you can and can’t install on your personal fuckin devices. I’m a fucking adult and I do not need or want some bullshit fucking kid mode imposed on my personal shit because Google went full fucking nazi. Companies have no business dictating how you use your own purchases property. Imagine your fucking car saying nah you’ve already driven twenty miles today it’s not safe for you to drive more and just shutting the fuck down. Every motherfucker making these decisions in every industry need to be publicly gruesomely executed. The owner class needs to remember who they’re accountable to.
I have some bad news for you about cars…
Don’t cut yourself on that edge there, bro.
You know why we first called malware computer viruses, back in the day? Because they spread.
Every infected computer makes the botnet stronger and more effective at infecting future computers.
Every personal email account that’s hacked and exploited is a treasure trove of information against all that person’s friends and relatives and contacts, and a vector of attack against everyone that person has ever emailed.
So yeah, we need security controls for the same reason we need vaccines. Because public health protects everybody.
If that’s the case, then Google really needs to fix the play store because you can absolutely get malware from there. This change is mostly to start locking down the ecosystem to force users to only be able to pay Google a cut of all revenue on the platform (apple already does this). It’s bullshit, and it hopefully backfires for Google.
Google also allowed malware ads, and phishing ads since its existence
This change is the opposite. It makes it possible for a user to install the Epic Games Store from their website without seeing a scary warning, and Google won’t get a cut of any of the revenues from that store. The same with any other company. Netflix can now offer their app from their website, and people can install it without any warning, and Netflix won’t have to send any revenue to Google for people who subscribe in the app.
Uh, no it’s not. Quite literally the opposite actually. You can get apks for your apps outside of the play store currently, just have to install them yourself (yeah, you need to check a box to install third party apps once, but that’s it). The proposed change from google is mostly to make that harder, and make most users locked more into the play store ecosystem so that Google gets their cut from everything.
Uh, no it’s not.
It is. As a result of the Epic Games v. Google, Android builds with the Play Store are required to allow users to install apps without any warning at all. They obviously can’t allow any app to be installed without a warning because this would be a boon to malware authors, so this is now enabled with verification. You can now even share apps you build with your friends without requiring them to go through an unverified apps flow with a scary warning. Additionally, Google is not allowed to take a revenue cut from those installs.
You’re confused because the install process for apps that are not verified (a path that didn’t exist before at all) or installed from a system app store has changed. This now has to be done with adb, which takes effect immediately, or via an on-phone process that takes a day to complete. Once it is done, this setting is copied to new phones, so the process actually becomes easier for most people who do this because they don’t have to go through the process repeatedly.
Publicly traded companies are soulless entities that are legally bound to 1 and only 1 goal, short term profits. Any time you see a company do something stupid, ineffectual, completely pointless, ect., then what you are seeing is step one in a plan. It is costing them money and future profits to make these changes that they know will be wildly unpopular just to maybe, sort of, possibly could, but won’t really, protect a very small number of the dumbest people on the planet? No, companies ruin, poison, make homeless, and kill people constantly while being completely aware of what they are doing. They do it and continue to come up with new ways to do it because they have just the 1 goal, profit. So, if this is not altruism then what is it? That’s what people are upset about. Because there are a lot of reasons for them not to do this, but the only reasons for them to do it are all bad in addition to violating their 1 goal. And they are still doing it anyway.
It will kill off projects that rely on sideloading. Slowly, but if you need to do the dance, fewer and fewer people will use them.
I’m not sure that’s true. Fewer, sure, although not necessarily that much fewer. But “fewer and fewer”, I don’t think so. It’s not big enough of a hurdle to dissuade anyone who has already done it once.
boooooo
If that’s the plan that is perfectly reasonable to me. Thank!
“Android fans”
Android Hostages lol, what am I supposed to do use an Iphone?
Yes
Yes, the much more open iPhone.
Not for much longer.
Android will still be more open than iPhone.
Whatever helps you sleep at night.
