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Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't

Google is already not Google. The "Don't Be Evil" corporation that valued open source rather than open-washing, that valued openstandards over "oops, we didn't mean to break that for you!" isn't here anymore. The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. I despise Apple. Especially on mobile. No SDCards, no headphone jack, walled garden app stores. Ugh ugh ugh. I have applications that does E2E for contacts and calendars that I'll have to find an iOS solution for. I loathe the notch. But my next phone will be an iPhone. Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways. And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view.

Apocryphon 7y ago
How about the Librem 5?
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  It still reports your movements to your cell provider. Get rid of cell phones if you're worried about privacy.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    That is like saying that 'unless its 100% perfect, I may as well send everything to Google and the ad-verse' People can't simply get rid of their cell phones. At minimum, I need one for work.
    - gowld 7y ago
      If you care about protecting something, leaving one known-exploited exploitable backdoor open is practically as bad as leaving 100 open. "Closing all known backdoors" is a rational compromise. "Closing more backdoors known others are open" is an irrational feelgood measure.
- loudtieblahblah 7y ago
  The problem with Libre5/Purism is apps. A lot of the secure applications I use have a linux app of some sort (DEB, AppImage, Docker) but I fail to see how any of that is going to work on a phone. I certainly don't see how a docker container would be good for battery life on a phone either ProtonMail - for example - on Linux, requires a bridge application in order to talk to a IMAP capable email client. Etesync requires a bridge in the form of a docker image. Wire has an AppImage that I'm certain won't work well on a mobile screen. Signal has a DEB for Debian based environments and I doubt that'll play nice on mobile too. The only real way to do a Libre phone is for me to invest entirely in the Libre ecosystem for mail, chat, VPN, everything. if you've spent time moving your stuff into more secure and diverse sets of applications and services, and what's more - convincing friends and family to communicate with you over those very things, you'll have to migrate once more in order to use this phone. I would bet money that Firefox doesn't even work on it in a mobile/phone-mode. You'll have to use their stock browser which will probably be based on Epiphany.
  - mtgx 7y ago
    It's a shame the Copperhead OS died.
  - j05h 7y ago
    So much this. Without a ride share app (and a few others) I just can't see going to Librem 5 as much as I would like to.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      My understanding is that you can run Android apps in Linux, but I've never tried it.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      For Uber, there's https://m.uber.com https://m.uber.com, works fine on any browser.
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    FWIW docker apps are just regular processes with some additional data structures on the kernel side. If the process(es) in the container aren't scheduled on a CPU (e.g., blocked or sleeping), the app isn't taking any more resources than any other process(es). Frankly, a container-based app model sounds kinda nice!
OrgNet 7y ago
For me the worst part is that you don't own the pocket-computers (PC/phones) that you buy.... please let me install an OS that I can trust. there is https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility for ChromeOS devices but on many phones, it is currently not possible to install a 3rd party OS, unless you figure out how to root them yourself... and even then, some of its hardware will probably not be compatible because they don't release drivers I wish a Librem 4 was available (a lot cheaper then the Librem 5)
pgeorgi 7y ago
> And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view. While "deleted" might take a while (eventual consistency FTW), any company with a presence in the EU has a lot to lose if such a scheme (beyond what they declare, eg. "31 days to recover your account") ever sees the light of day.
- pdimitar 7y ago
  You mean the fines that the board of directors writes off as a cost of business and they never change policy due to them? Those fines?
  - pgeorgi 7y ago
    Not changing policy means escalating fines (those 4% of global revenue maximum are nothing to sneeze at, and so far compliance was the cheaper route) but also, at some point, the inability to operate in the EU. Even if a company only does the bare minimum required under GDPR, total deletion of data on request is part of that.
    - pdimitar 7y ago
      But these more severe measures are either 5-10 years away, or never going to happen at all (the latter part is my assumption, not claiming it as a fact). IMO the corporate board of directors will coast on the situation for as long as possible and only then will we see some changes, don't you agree?
      - pgeorgi 7y ago
        > IMO the corporate board of directors will coast on the situation for as long as possible and only then will we see some changes, don't you agree? There are a few cases already with fines around 2.8% of revenue, and those fines don't mean the DPA will go away. The expectation is that these fines are paid _and_ the reason for the fine is resolved. Turnover in the 2.8% case (Taxa 4x35 in Denmark) was from Fall 2018 (start of investigation) to March 2019 (when the DPA reported the incident to the police and "recommended" that fine). Sadly the only follow-ups on the case that I could find are behind paywalls (so I can't read them), but apparently the DPA isn't done with them yet. It's all a matter of exercising pressure, and it seems that the authorities are willing to do that.
pdimitar 7y ago
I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017. I realised in the next months that the perceived "freedom to tinker" on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app. Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes. What are Android apps doing with that? You guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users). iOS' sandboxing is not a bug. It's a feature which I appreciate a lot. I'll not shy away from the fact: there are areas that I miss from Android. For example, I could have inspected WiFi strength signal with an Android phone and I cannot with a non-jailbroken iPhone. Again though, as a guy who used Android phones for 4.5 years before switching to an iPhone, I found that the uncomfortable feeling of switching to an entirely new (and supposedly more "locked down") ecosystem is mostly an illusion created by our brain's unwillingness to endure big changes. You get over it very quickly. Don't trust your brain on these matters, it floods you with non-truisms to avoid cognitive shock. P.S. I too loathe the notch. So after 15 months with the iPhone X I switched to iPhone 8 Plus. Easily the best phone on the planet to this day (plus a bigger screen and a slightly bigger battery). Now I dread the day the device will no longer be sold.
- BoorishBears 7y ago
  Android just announced a move away from the traditional visible file system as well. The best part is the equivalent Android APIs have terrible performance and stability. Android has been steadily moving away from both being open and supporting power users, with stuff like Doze relying on GCM, nerfing WiFi control, disabling getting BT mac addresses (and not even letting apps ask for permission) It turns out being able to replace a users lock screen with a full page ad is not a good thing.
- loudtieblahblah 7y ago
  >Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes That's awful in my eyes. What's more is my inability to browse that file system without a third party application when i want to simply move files to my computer. The only reason I'm even contemplating the move to iOS, is b/c I have a android based, digital audio player that has 2 SDcard slots that I keep disconnected from Wifi (and it does n't have a 4G connection at all). If my music was still on my phone, I simply would not move to iOS over this singular issue. You're talking 250-400GB of files, not including my downloads, my pictures, my Keepass databases, my SSH keys, my certs file for my VPN, and files that I don't want the OS to index and put in some general library. It stills seem ridiculously daunting to let go of. Because I use it extensively. Daily - even without my music on there. >ou guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users) Except only the apps I trust are allowed storage access.
saghm 7y ago
> No SDCards, no headphone jack > I loathe the notch. To be fair, each of these either already is or is becoming the norm on Android phones as well (at least, ones at a similar price point iPhones). Several of the top end phones have notches and no headphone jack, and I haven't had an Android phone with an SD card slot for about five years now. [edits: formatting/typos]
- loudtieblahblah 7y ago
  Every phone I've had, my parents have had and my wife has had (since i support them all) has SDcards. Including phones bought this year. They all have various Samsung models right now. My DAP has 2 slots. (android based) And it's a god send when your phone decides to boot loop and you can no longer actually get into your phone. Oh they say - use their cloud services for the low low price of whatever. F- that.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
I feel exactly the same way as you. Loathe is a strong word. And I loathe everything about Apple and the iPhone. But I think I'll get an iPhone next. And it's not even because I hate Google or because I don't like Android. I just believe in voting with my dollars. And Apple at least is masquerading as a company that makes a product and wants to sell that. I like the idea of the transaction. I buy my phone and then I own it; I'm done. With Google, I buy the phone, and the phone owns me.
resters 7y ago
> The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. This is the key point. Google came of age during the GWB administration, when the folly of trusting government was more clear than it had been for decades, and under Schmidt's leadership Google became a major defense contractor. It's impossible to know how much unlawful surveillance has already been done thanks to Google's collaboration/complicity. How can Google earn back some trust? Implement warrant canaries at the google account level, decline to do business with the Pentagon, and come forward and reveal all of the shady and unethical things the firm has done, and simply ask the public for forgiveness.
djsumdog 7y ago
> But my next phone will be an iPhone. I ordered a new old-stock Nexus 5X to run KDE Plasma on. Fuck both Google and Apple. I hope the Purism and Pinephone actually get released as well so we have more real Linux options. I hate we live in a world with totally non-standard mobile hardware. Back in the day you could wipe Windows and run Linux on nearly anything. Maybe you would only get VESA graphics or text, but it would at least boot. PostmarketOS is trying to make a dent in it, but we still have huge gaps in hardware support.
- aerique 7y ago
  I don't understand why no one mentions SailfishOS. It's an alternative that is available right now. Sure, it's not up to the level of Android and iOS in most respects, but it takes effort to get something like this going. Also from the users. Like Linux 20 years ago. Developing for it is not a nightmare either. And it's running Linux so there's advantages as well. I used it as my daily driver years ago and I've been using it as my daily driver again since six months or so.
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    I've looked into Sailfish before. Isn't it closed though? (It might have a Linux kernel, but that doesn't mean the rest is open) and as far as I can tell, it's not (easily) available in US markets.
    - aerique 7y ago
      It's not as open as the Librem phone, I think. What do you mean with "open"? What I meant to indicate is that it is a viable alternative to iOS and Android, available right now. (Except it's hard to get outside Europe, China, Russia and India apparently. I missed that.)
AsyncAwait 7y ago
> But my next phone will be an iPhone. If it pans out, you may want to wait for the Librem 5[1], that's definitely my next phone. 1 - https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5
martinlaz 7y ago
> Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways. There must be some kind of way outta here. How about carving out a Google-free chunk of the web, and then only visiting sites for which you're somehow certain there's zero Google in them (no Google Analytics, no DoubleClick, no fonts, none of the other junk they use to track you). Otherwise you'd be slapped in the face by a dire warning akin to those for the expired SSL certificates. Would that be crazy?
- icebraining 7y ago
  Not crazy, but you would be excluding 85% of the top 100k sites, including stuff like Github. I'd rather just try to block the Google domains themselves.
  - martinlaz 7y ago
    Well, that's a good start. It even already includes cool stuff like Hacker News and Wikipedia. From there on, site owners need incentives to enter and remain in the "cool" zone. No idea ATM how/if that can be realized but there seem to be enough bright folks out there wanting it to happen. > I'd rather just try to block the Google domains themselves. This works to some extent but falls short of really penalizing the site owner for installing the trackers (of course, they probably lose some revenue but that's not enough). If sites had a rating reflecting how "tracky" they are, then, given a choice, people who care would tend to pick the less tracky one. Benevolent browsers, search engines, and other tools can enable them to make this choice.
dgzl 7y ago
As a lifelong Android user, I'm pretty close to switching to Apple/iOS because of Google's gross surveillance behavior. I used to have the same qualms about the lack of features or components, but I recently began to see those complaints as pedantic.
mindslight 7y ago
> Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways. Do you really intend this statement in regards to pure AOSP/LineageOS (ie microg)? Yes Android will always be a product of a surveillance company, rather than being focused on user-centric security. But I would think that microg should be enough to deprivilege Google's backdoors, and generally avoiding stuff from the Play (Yalp) store should shield you from the bulk of OS-facilitated commercial surveillance. If you have information to the contrary, please share! Obviously given the choice I'd rather run an OS not designed by a surveillance company, but it's awfully hard to find a pocket-sized computer that can. I look forward to PostmarketOS, but I don't think we're anywhere close there.
throwaway99blns 7y ago
And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view. This came many times before and it is incorrect. If you delete your data from google, it is deleted permanently. Deletion of multiple backups takes longer, but eventually it is gone, forever. Disclaimer: Googler.
cr0sh 7y ago
> But my next phone will be an iPhone. I'm seriously considering my next phone to be one I build. The hardware is available - cheap 4G LTE modules that plug right into a Raspberry Pi Zero exist; that and a cheap touchscreen will get you around 90% of the functionality most of us need, hardware-wise. You won't have a camera, or motion sensors. You will have GPS, voice, data, a screen, storage... Basically everything you need for most purposes. And adding a camera and an IMU isn't that difficult, either. The difficult part is - as always - the software. But people out there are building those pieces. Quite a bit can be done using plain-old Raspbian and Python on top, because the cellular module is essentially a virtual serial port device, and everything else has simple drivers or is otherwise easy to interface to. Where I'll probably start, though, is with the idea of a custom "cyberdeck"; I already have most if not all of the parts, I just need to find the time to do it. It's form factor will be close to what the TRS-80 Model 100 was, though the screen will be...well, different. I'm considering a few options; probably a standard 800x600 HDMI screen along with a secondary 128x64 monochrome serial GLCD. The ultimate thing about the whole project is independence (well, as independent as I can get - still have to pay some piper - aka T-Mobile - but maybe voip over wifi could be done in the future?) - and customization. I may not have everything I want in the beginning, but what I want may only be a bit of extra coding, a tad bit of soldering, or likely a bit (or a bunch!) of both. I'm honestly tired of the games Google and pals are playing; kicking them to the curb may be the best thing to do.
- the_pwner224 7y ago
  You may be interested in the Purism Librem 5 [0]. It's made by people who care about software freedom. It doesn't use the common ARM-based SoCs which require proprietary drivers and will be unusable with modern software in a few years. Everything except the cell modem (on a replaceable M.2 card connected over USB) runs 100% free software. The device as a whole runs Linux with Gnome, and Plasma Mobile + others also developing for it. The company contributes back to the OSS software they use/improve. It doesn't have the form factor of the TRS-80 Model 100, but basically the deal you get with it is that you pay the price of a decently high end smartphone in exchange for a midrange smartphone which is completely controllable by you, as much as a normal Linux desktop, but still offers a 'pretty good' UI out of the box for normal phone usage. [0]: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
opan 7y ago
It's one thing to compare iOS and Android, but if we're gonna talk about actually buying phones, it's worth looking at some other aspects here. Such as being able to unlock the bootloader on some android phones and potentially run an alternate OS on them. Whether it's just LineageOS, which is essentially a better-tasting Android, or something even more different like Sailfish or postmarketOS. I don't believe there is a similar option or community effort around Apple devices.
neop1x 7y ago
There are things I would miss on iOS (e.g. widgets, dual sim, sdcard, headphone, more RAM) but for example Backup is is so much better on iOS! I fear that my android breaks at some point and I lose some data because there is no proper way to do full system backup. I have to use as much cloud services as possible and it has always been a big pain for me to upgrade to a newer android device. And I remember how straightforward it was and probably is on iOS.
kexx 7y ago
please dont give money to apple. it gives them the illusion of being a good company. instead: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (i know it's not ready, but it's coming) or https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/

Apocryphon 7y ago

How about the Librem 5?

pgeorgi 7y ago
It still reports your movements to your cell provider. Get rid of cell phones if you're worried about privacy.
- jammygit 7y ago
  That is like saying that 'unless its 100% perfect, I may as well send everything to Google and the ad-verse' People can't simply get rid of their cell phones. At minimum, I need one for work.
  - gowld 7y ago
    If you care about protecting something, leaving one known-exploited exploitable backdoor open is practically as bad as leaving 100 open. "Closing all known backdoors" is a rational compromise. "Closing more backdoors known others are open" is an irrational feelgood measure.
loudtieblahblah 7y ago
The problem with Libre5/Purism is apps. A lot of the secure applications I use have a linux app of some sort (DEB, AppImage, Docker) but I fail to see how any of that is going to work on a phone. I certainly don't see how a docker container would be good for battery life on a phone either ProtonMail - for example - on Linux, requires a bridge application in order to talk to a IMAP capable email client. Etesync requires a bridge in the form of a docker image. Wire has an AppImage that I'm certain won't work well on a mobile screen. Signal has a DEB for Debian based environments and I doubt that'll play nice on mobile too. The only real way to do a Libre phone is for me to invest entirely in the Libre ecosystem for mail, chat, VPN, everything. if you've spent time moving your stuff into more secure and diverse sets of applications and services, and what's more - convincing friends and family to communicate with you over those very things, you'll have to migrate once more in order to use this phone. I would bet money that Firefox doesn't even work on it in a mobile/phone-mode. You'll have to use their stock browser which will probably be based on Epiphany.
- mtgx 7y ago
  It's a shame the Copperhead OS died.
- j05h 7y ago
  So much this. Without a ride share app (and a few others) I just can't see going to Librem 5 as much as I would like to.
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
    My understanding is that you can run Android apps in Linux, but I've never tried it.
  - icebraining 7y ago
    For Uber, there's https://m.uber.com https://m.uber.com, works fine on any browser.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  FWIW docker apps are just regular processes with some additional data structures on the kernel side. If the process(es) in the container aren't scheduled on a CPU (e.g., blocked or sleeping), the app isn't taking any more resources than any other process(es). Frankly, a container-based app model sounds kinda nice!

OrgNet 7y ago

For me the worst part is that you don't own the pocket-computers (PC/phones) that you buy.... please let me install an OS that I can trust. there is https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility https://wiki.galliumos.org/Hardware_Compatibility for ChromeOS devices but on many phones, it is currently not possible to install a 3rd party OS, unless you figure out how to root them yourself... and even then, some of its hardware will probably not be compatible because they don't release drivers I wish a Librem 4 was available (a lot cheaper then the Librem 5)

pgeorgi 7y ago

> And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view. While "deleted" might take a while (eventual consistency FTW), any company with a presence in the EU has a lot to lose if such a scheme (beyond what they declare, eg. "31 days to recover your account") ever sees the light of day.

pdimitar 7y ago
You mean the fines that the board of directors writes off as a cost of business and they never change policy due to them? Those fines?
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  Not changing policy means escalating fines (those 4% of global revenue maximum are nothing to sneeze at, and so far compliance was the cheaper route) but also, at some point, the inability to operate in the EU. Even if a company only does the bare minimum required under GDPR, total deletion of data on request is part of that.
  - pdimitar 7y ago
    But these more severe measures are either 5-10 years away, or never going to happen at all (the latter part is my assumption, not claiming it as a fact). IMO the corporate board of directors will coast on the situation for as long as possible and only then will we see some changes, don't you agree?
    - pgeorgi 7y ago
      > IMO the corporate board of directors will coast on the situation for as long as possible and only then will we see some changes, don't you agree? There are a few cases already with fines around 2.8% of revenue, and those fines don't mean the DPA will go away. The expectation is that these fines are paid _and_ the reason for the fine is resolved. Turnover in the 2.8% case (Taxa 4x35 in Denmark) was from Fall 2018 (start of investigation) to March 2019 (when the DPA reported the incident to the police and "recommended" that fine). Sadly the only follow-ups on the case that I could find are behind paywalls (so I can't read them), but apparently the DPA isn't done with them yet. It's all a matter of exercising pressure, and it seems that the authorities are willing to do that.

pdimitar 7y ago

I fully switched from Android to iOS when iPhone X came out in November 2017. I realised in the next months that the perceived "freedom to tinker" on Android is something hugely overrated. I could achieve almost everything I wanted on my iPhone -- it just took a bit of time to find the proper apps. Later Apple added the Shortcuts which is a very solid automation app. Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes. What are Android apps doing with that? You guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users). iOS' sandboxing is not a bug. It's a feature which I appreciate a lot. I'll not shy away from the fact: there are areas that I miss from Android. For example, I could have inspected WiFi strength signal with an Android phone and I cannot with a non-jailbroken iPhone. Again though, as a guy who used Android phones for 4.5 years before switching to an iPhone, I found that the uncomfortable feeling of switching to an entirely new (and supposedly more "locked down") ecosystem is mostly an illusion created by our brain's unwillingness to endure big changes. You get over it very quickly. Don't trust your brain on these matters, it floods you with non-truisms to avoid cognitive shock. P.S. I too loathe the notch. So after 15 months with the iPhone X I switched to iPhone 8 Plus. Easily the best phone on the planet to this day (plus a bigger screen and a slightly bigger battery). Now I dread the day the device will no longer be sold.

BoorishBears 7y ago
Android just announced a move away from the traditional visible file system as well. The best part is the equivalent Android APIs have terrible performance and stability. Android has been steadily moving away from both being open and supporting power users, with stuff like Doze relying on GCM, nerfing WiFi control, disabling getting BT mac addresses (and not even letting apps ask for permission) It turns out being able to replace a users lock screen with a full page ad is not a good thing.
loudtieblahblah 7y ago
>Many Android users also lament the lack of a visible filesystem but that's a huge plus in my eyes That's awful in my eyes. What's more is my inability to browse that file system without a third party application when i want to simply move files to my computer. The only reason I'm even contemplating the move to iOS, is b/c I have a android based, digital audio player that has 2 SDcard slots that I keep disconnected from Wifi (and it does n't have a 4G connection at all). If my music was still on my phone, I simply would not move to iOS over this singular issue. You're talking 250-400GB of files, not including my downloads, my pictures, my Keepass databases, my SSH keys, my certs file for my VPN, and files that I don't want the OS to index and put in some general library. It stills seem ridiculously daunting to let go of. Because I use it extensively. Daily - even without my music on there. >ou guessed it, scan your internal storage and SD card and upload them feck knows where (and this has been proven by many advanced Android users) Except only the apps I trust are allowed storage access.

saghm 7y ago

> No SDCards, no headphone jack > I loathe the notch. To be fair, each of these either already is or is becoming the norm on Android phones as well (at least, ones at a similar price point iPhones). Several of the top end phones have notches and no headphone jack, and I haven't had an Android phone with an SD card slot for about five years now. [edits: formatting/typos]

loudtieblahblah 7y ago
Every phone I've had, my parents have had and my wife has had (since i support them all) has SDcards. Including phones bought this year. They all have various Samsung models right now. My DAP has 2 slots. (android based) And it's a god send when your phone decides to boot loop and you can no longer actually get into your phone. Oh they say - use their cloud services for the low low price of whatever. F- that.

onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago

I feel exactly the same way as you. Loathe is a strong word. And I loathe everything about Apple and the iPhone. But I think I'll get an iPhone next. And it's not even because I hate Google or because I don't like Android. I just believe in voting with my dollars. And Apple at least is masquerading as a company that makes a product and wants to sell that. I like the idea of the transaction. I buy my phone and then I own it; I'm done. With Google, I buy the phone, and the phone owns me.

resters 7y ago

> The company that bends over backwards, much farther than the law requires, to enable the surveillance state. This is the key point. Google came of age during the GWB administration, when the folly of trusting government was more clear than it had been for decades, and under Schmidt's leadership Google became a major defense contractor. It's impossible to know how much unlawful surveillance has already been done thanks to Google's collaboration/complicity. How can Google earn back some trust? Implement warrant canaries at the google account level, decline to do business with the Pentagon, and come forward and reveal all of the shady and unethical things the firm has done, and simply ask the public for forgiveness.

djsumdog 7y ago

> But my next phone will be an iPhone. I ordered a new old-stock Nexus 5X to run KDE Plasma on. Fuck both Google and Apple. I hope the Purism and Pinephone actually get released as well so we have more real Linux options. I hate we live in a world with totally non-standard mobile hardware. Back in the day you could wipe Windows and run Linux on nearly anything. Maybe you would only get VESA graphics or text, but it would at least boot. PostmarketOS is trying to make a dent in it, but we still have huge gaps in hardware support.

aerique 7y ago
I don't understand why no one mentions SailfishOS. It's an alternative that is available right now. Sure, it's not up to the level of Android and iOS in most respects, but it takes effort to get something like this going. Also from the users. Like Linux 20 years ago. Developing for it is not a nightmare either. And it's running Linux so there's advantages as well. I used it as my daily driver years ago and I've been using it as my daily driver again since six months or so.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  I've looked into Sailfish before. Isn't it closed though? (It might have a Linux kernel, but that doesn't mean the rest is open) and as far as I can tell, it's not (easily) available in US markets.
  - aerique 7y ago
    It's not as open as the Librem phone, I think. What do you mean with "open"? What I meant to indicate is that it is a viable alternative to iOS and Android, available right now. (Except it's hard to get outside Europe, China, Russia and India apparently. I missed that.)

AsyncAwait 7y ago

> But my next phone will be an iPhone. If it pans out, you may want to wait for the Librem 5[1], that's definitely my next phone. 1 - https://puri.sm/products/librem-5 https://puri.sm/products/librem-5

martinlaz 7y ago

> Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways. There must be some kind of way outta here. How about carving out a Google-free chunk of the web, and then only visiting sites for which you're somehow certain there's zero Google in them (no Google Analytics, no DoubleClick, no fonts, none of the other junk they use to track you). Otherwise you'd be slapped in the face by a dire warning akin to those for the expired SSL certificates. Would that be crazy?

icebraining 7y ago
Not crazy, but you would be excluding 85% of the top 100k sites, including stuff like Github. I'd rather just try to block the Google domains themselves.
- martinlaz 7y ago
  Well, that's a good start. It even already includes cool stuff like Hacker News and Wikipedia. From there on, site owners need incentives to enter and remain in the "cool" zone. No idea ATM how/if that can be realized but there seem to be enough bright folks out there wanting it to happen. > I'd rather just try to block the Google domains themselves. This works to some extent but falls short of really penalizing the site owner for installing the trackers (of course, they probably lose some revenue but that's not enough). If sites had a rating reflecting how "tracky" they are, then, given a choice, people who care would tend to pick the less tracky one. Benevolent browsers, search engines, and other tools can enable them to make this choice.

dgzl 7y ago

As a lifelong Android user, I'm pretty close to switching to Apple/iOS because of Google's gross surveillance behavior. I used to have the same qualms about the lack of features or components, but I recently began to see those complaints as pedantic.

mindslight 7y ago

> Google collects so much absurd amount of data - that all the Proton-mail, DuckduckGo, Wire/Signal, Firefox (loaded with adblocking and tracking plugins) apps in the world can't keep you totally from it as long as you're on Android. You disable things, you opt out of stuff and it just keeps on collecting anyways. Do you really intend this statement in regards to pure AOSP/LineageOS (ie microg)? Yes Android will always be a product of a surveillance company, rather than being focused on user-centric security. But I would think that microg should be enough to deprivilege Google's backdoors, and generally avoiding stuff from the Play (Yalp) store should shield you from the bulk of OS-facilitated commercial surveillance. If you have information to the contrary, please share! Obviously given the choice I'd rather run an OS not designed by a surveillance company, but it's awfully hard to find a pocket-sized computer that can. I look forward to PostmarketOS, but I don't think we're anywhere close there.

throwaway99blns 7y ago

And i don't believe for a second the data they're allowing you to "autodelete" genuinely gets deleted. It just gets removed from your view. This came many times before and it is incorrect. If you delete your data from google, it is deleted permanently. Deletion of multiple backups takes longer, but eventually it is gone, forever. Disclaimer: Googler.

cr0sh 7y ago

> But my next phone will be an iPhone. I'm seriously considering my next phone to be one I build. The hardware is available - cheap 4G LTE modules that plug right into a Raspberry Pi Zero exist; that and a cheap touchscreen will get you around 90% of the functionality most of us need, hardware-wise. You won't have a camera, or motion sensors. You will have GPS, voice, data, a screen, storage... Basically everything you need for most purposes. And adding a camera and an IMU isn't that difficult, either. The difficult part is - as always - the software. But people out there are building those pieces. Quite a bit can be done using plain-old Raspbian and Python on top, because the cellular module is essentially a virtual serial port device, and everything else has simple drivers or is otherwise easy to interface to. Where I'll probably start, though, is with the idea of a custom "cyberdeck"; I already have most if not all of the parts, I just need to find the time to do it. It's form factor will be close to what the TRS-80 Model 100 was, though the screen will be...well, different. I'm considering a few options; probably a standard 800x600 HDMI screen along with a secondary 128x64 monochrome serial GLCD. The ultimate thing about the whole project is independence (well, as independent as I can get - still have to pay some piper - aka T-Mobile - but maybe voip over wifi could be done in the future?) - and customization. I may not have everything I want in the beginning, but what I want may only be a bit of extra coding, a tad bit of soldering, or likely a bit (or a bunch!) of both. I'm honestly tired of the games Google and pals are playing; kicking them to the curb may be the best thing to do.

the_pwner224 7y ago
You may be interested in the Purism Librem 5 [0]. It's made by people who care about software freedom. It doesn't use the common ARM-based SoCs which require proprietary drivers and will be unusable with modern software in a few years. Everything except the cell modem (on a replaceable M.2 card connected over USB) runs 100% free software. The device as a whole runs Linux with Gnome, and Plasma Mobile + others also developing for it. The company contributes back to the OSS software they use/improve. It doesn't have the form factor of the TRS-80 Model 100, but basically the deal you get with it is that you pay the price of a decently high end smartphone in exchange for a midrange smartphone which is completely controllable by you, as much as a normal Linux desktop, but still offers a 'pretty good' UI out of the box for normal phone usage. [0]: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/

opan 7y ago

It's one thing to compare iOS and Android, but if we're gonna talk about actually buying phones, it's worth looking at some other aspects here. Such as being able to unlock the bootloader on some android phones and potentially run an alternate OS on them. Whether it's just LineageOS, which is essentially a better-tasting Android, or something even more different like Sailfish or postmarketOS. I don't believe there is a similar option or community effort around Apple devices.

neop1x 7y ago

There are things I would miss on iOS (e.g. widgets, dual sim, sdcard, headphone, more RAM) but for example Backup is is so much better on iOS! I fear that my android breaks at some point and I lose some data because there is no proper way to do full system backup. I have to use as much cloud services as possible and it has always been a big pain for me to upgrade to a newer android device. And I remember how straightforward it was and probably is on iOS.

kexx 7y ago

please dont give money to apple. it gives them the illusion of being a good company. instead: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/ (i know it's not ready, but it's coming) or https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/