All that talk about sovereignty, and we are giving full control of our digital lives to 2 American companies.
Andy Rubin was no saint, on so many levels, but when he was removed from Android leadership and the Chrome culture effectively took over this was always how it was going to go.
No you don't, otherwise we wouldn't have banking apps on it.
It wasn't hard before LLMs and it's nearly trivial now.
So maybe they prefer another solution to the sovereignty issue.
Why would these corrupt bureacrats give up their full control over the lives of those who didn't elect them?
There's MNT in the EU.
The EU has enough tech talent to do it, but the political and managerial class lack both the strategic ability or the willingness to adequately reward the effort it would take, almost certainly preferring to, again, outsource the concern, and then be shocked Pikachu later.
Anyone doubting this should see how BMW think about their in car software. And that is for a supposedly premium product.
BMW isn't the EU government. Like I said, someone has to actually do it. BMW Actually Did It in a really user hostile way, and that's the best we have. Why is nobody Actually Doing It but good? Or why aren't we buying MNT products?
As is your comment. It is basically “someone else should do this properly and I will take the benefits” but not actually willing to put up the hard bit themselves.
The root problem here is the EU is culturally broken, and until some grand disaster will simply decline ever further with everyone involved wondering why no one else is doing anything about it.
Because kids, because pornography, because terrorism, whatever. This is too powerful an option for control freaks to resist.
Some system apps are being overhauled, so that's something to look forward to. Gallery will be [2] based on ReFra [3].
[1] Except phone and messaging but that's the cell network.
GrapheneOS recommends Signal/Molly or SimpleX instead.
[2] https://nitter.net/GrapheneOS/status/2083724696722301266#m
Also, GrapheneOS supports device attestation (the non-google kind at least), which is still ridiculous as such systems have no benefit to people, only to technofeudalist corporations.
And I'm not trying to be snarky, if that's the only thing, it's solvable right now. Everything else will work.
And concerning "you can't just buy a device and install is" - android and iOS are far more secure than any desktop os, and both pixel/iPhones are far more secure than any computer (or any other phone as well (we'll get the third one next year)). GrapheneOS actually explains "whys" in their hardware support faw section.
Generally maintaining an os is a hard work, so that perhaps explains why there's not many mature offerings.
GrapheneOS literally has an app that uses attestation and isn't for "technofeudalist corporations".
[1] https://frame.work/products/fingerprint-reader-kit?v=FRANTD0...
This is very useful on OEM ROMs with a bunch of scrapware, no one expects a custom ROM to have this issue.
If you're smart enough to buy a phone that supports GrapheneOS, AND install it, yeah you should have root.
And tools like XPrivacy and plugins allow control of subsystems like GPS spoofing and lying to apps.
I think the decision of GrapheneOS to maintain the attestation features and not providing user root is what gives it a fighting chance of being accepted as legitimate 3rd choice. See: Revolut and others adding GrapheneOS keys and trusting their attestation
Like or not, for most users, having root access is a liability, especially with more and more important things being held on phones . Someone downloading a photo editing app and then having a rootkit installed in the background that waits to empty their bank account is not a workable situation.
You don't even need to patch it, AFAIK. You can just install magisk, which is how you're supposed to get root on LineageOS as well.
It's not anti-user if it doesn't add the features you want that would destroy the security of the OS.
It has many features that give the user more control. Like disabling emergency alerts, protecting your data from attackers, contact and storage scopes (lying to apps for more privacy while retaining functionality), sensors permission, network permission.
Can’t you run an android sandbox in Linux?
Docker phone?
I’m sure I’m missing something here, but what?
Not to mention that the options outside iOS and Android are slim and for the most part bad (or atleast simply even worse than those).
I mean, it really sucks that so many people have made themselves dependent on this crap, but at some point you just have to stop buying the poison or stop complaining that it makes you sick.
"Disabling" an app does not do that much, the OS can re enable it with an update or prevent you from disabling it.
I doubt there is true full privacy on a phone anymore with a stock ROM.
Despite it's name it can also block IPs and specific apps from connecting to specific servers. I use it to block all manufacturer and OEM related apps that I cannot uninstall through adb or disable. Very handy for blocking constant Chinese phone telemetry pings, as well as additional network level blocklists for ads (Pi-hole like), completely locally so you can trust it unlike a shady VPN.
I checked out your link; it seems to be a mailing list for a hosts file for telemetry? Why is there no option to just see the file without giving in my email? Not the most private.
It's horrible. I don't think I can trust them to produce a Graphene phone at all, really, despite all of everyone's assurances.
I think GrapheneOS might have issues in the future considering that Android will be getting more and more locked down. People say GrapheneOS is the better OS when it just is hardened Android; it is doomed purely because of the Android base.
Perhaps a Linux based edition of GrapheneOS would do well, even if it will not have a lot of app compatibility. There's only so much patching you have to do to Android before it just becomes more work than good.
Shizuku + ShizuTools
* https://github.com/timschneeb/awesome-shizuku
I looked into the Light Phone and The Mudita Kompakt, but I ended up buying a refurbished Pixel 8 and putting Graphene OS on it, then I installed only essential apps I need. I keep my old iPhone 12 in a drawer at home and use it for anytime I Need any apps that don't work on a custom ROM, which includes my bank app (plus, imo, it's safer not carry around a phone that has my baking data on it in case it gets lost or stolen).
The light phones are a really cool concept but the Light Phone 3 is quite expensive (more expensive than a new Pixel 10) and the Mudita Kompakt seems to have a huge amount of grievances from users on their forum, so that put me off.
if you don't want some system app running just "uninstall" (disable) it with Shizuku + Canta on any non-rooted Android, my current phone is the first one in 15 years with Android which I didn't root since unlocking bootloader on XIaomi is pretty much impossible, but anyway I can achieve pretty much same results with Shizuku and additional apps like Canta, Hail, Shizuwall, etc.
Potential benefits:
as mentioned, Android 17 prohibits uninstalling system apps, but allows disabling disabling apps is usually safer, and they could be re-enabled from Settings in some cases many system apps run in the background after being uninstalled, but it's unknown whether they do when disabled. Neutral:
some apps might get re-enabled unless they're uninstalled (or the opposite). Potential harm:
that would make it more risky for those who prefer to uninstall instead to save storage most of the already listed apps are primarily tested for uninstalling rather than disabling disabling instead, decreases privacy by not hiding apps, keeping the device unique.
We'll see what happens with the proposed ADB changes. Lots of no one asking for this, lots of people describing how badly their phone use will be greviously impacted, and seemingly very little discussion/engagement/justification. Maybe they'll fire the bullet anyways. https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/526109803
I thought it was 24 hours OR use adb?
Perhaps the problem is our desire to have everything, no matter what the compromises are. Perhaps the problem is our inability to say, I'm going to go with product X even though it lacks Y because we actually own X. There is virtually no incentive for competition to pop up in such an environment since established companies have a lead of years, decades if you consider the size of the established companies, so consumers will follow their lead.
I don't mean to suggest that buying alternatives is a solution to the problem as a whole, but doing so may allow enough niche products to survive to give those of us who are interested in alternatives and alternative to choose from.
It was always a bit surprising you could uninstall an app in a "read only" partition