This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Ordered a Jolla phone with their SailfishOs (linux based). Time to leave android
Ironically, this may be a catalyst for better Linux Phones
Just in time for them to be practically outlawed, if my gut can be trusted. I hope not.
Dark times ahead...
Nobody (for now),/as it can be easil, bypassed
I only hope that manufacturers respond to this kind of behavior. Motorola deserves full credit for adopting grapheneos. I think some of the Chinese manufacturers have their own forks too?
How? The TOS for selling phones with Google services is that they can't sell phones with an Android fork outside China. Even the ODM is affected, meaning nobody will ever think this.
I saw in Italy that selling phones without Google services is a death sentence, Huawei crashed from 25% marketshare to 0% basically overnight even if they already had a "plan B" where they made "new" phones using the same specs and codename but in a different shape to buy time and when they launched their fork they had a 1:1 replacement for GMS called HMS so devs could still embed Google Maps and it will be replaced automatically by petal maps. Devs could upload their apps with a single click and users could install Google services unofficially installing an "unofficial 😉" APK with all the right signatures. Nobody did that. One click = too much work = nobody touches the default
At least they can leave the bootloader unlockable for us, but fucking Xiaomi really needs to make 200 new fucking models a year with lots of proprietary bits and abandons them after 6 months so it's impossibile for the community to make a well supported custom ROM. They copy everything from apple except the part where they should only make 4 fucking models a year. Basic, standard, pro and pro max. Don't need a "Xiaomi Redmi note 29T pro 5G wideband edition"
To be clear, GrapheneOS or any other fork of Android is not a long term viable solution as it is still dependent on Google. We need to break the Google/Apple duopoly. And of course, Linux phones are an option but people need top get behind it.
The way google is behaving is making a hard fork more likely.
Its not a solution, but it buys time - Linux phones will take some time.
I'm guessing that features like relockable bootloaders & open source drivers help both.
Thank god I run /e/OS. I just hope this won't hurt the popularity of sideloaded apps too much, as this might mean FOSS apps becoming stagnant because they don't receive as much attention anymore
I also use /e/OS. I'm not too versed in these things, but if I understand correctly from your comment, this decision by Google won't directly affect us right? Only in the sense that it discourages developers to not support FOSS apps?
Hard agree. If I'm forces to only run barely used FOSS apps, then I might as well buy a linux phone.
This is my #1 concern with this bullshit.
I can't see this move by Google as anything but a power grab to reduce competition. If someone wants to bear the "risk" of installing software that hasn't been vetted by Google, why does Google insist on being a nanny that makes it more difficult? Money, that's why. Google is acting to try to enforce its monopoly over android apps. GrapheneOS, which is more secure than android, doesn't make a fuss over this issue. No, this is only an issue with the company that hoovers up all your data in breach of your privacy.
I can’t see this move by Google as anything but a power grab to reduce competition
It locks down phones. Without sideloading the elite controls which messenger services can be used. They most likely can also secretly update apps and replace them with versions that leak the encryption keys.
With Google not being threatened by a competitor this essentially tells us that the elite is serious about moving to fascism.
It's frightening to me that the comment has 85 upvotes but no reply that points this out.
