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I have a lot of privacy concerns with Google. But they have also enabled my phone to run on mostly Open Source code, both OS and applications. This is important

by jeswin 7y ago

I have a lot of privacy concerns with Google. But they have also enabled my phone to run on mostly Open Source code, both OS and applications. This is important to me, and for that reason I bunch them apart from Apple and MS.

paulcarroty 7y ago
> mostly Open Source code, both OS and applications. It's not true. Without closed kernel drivers and closed-source Play Store/Youtube/Pay apps any Android is just piece of plastic.
- Yetanfou 7y ago
  The device drivers can be a problem on many devices, even when running AOSP-derived distributions many of these are lifted from a stock distribution and used as blobs. The bit about Android needing Play Store/Youtube/Pay apps is not true though, I do not have any of these on any of my devices which continue to work just fine - I'd go so far as to say that they work better without these parts: battery consumption goes down markedly, privacy invasion goes down tremendously. I might not be getting the 'Android experience' as Google intends but seeing as I do not want that anyway I don't see this as a negative.
  - paulcarroty 7y ago
    > can be a problem on many devices Can you provide a one 100% working Android device with open drivers?
    - Yetanfou 7y ago
      Replicant [1, 2] supports 13 (older) devices. As to whether they are 100% working depends on what you intend to use the device for given that some functions (e.g. GPS) are not supported. If you're genuinely interested in this subject a search for blob-free android will give more results, also pointing out alternatives like PostmarketOS and Librem which are not Android-based but (in the case of PostmarketOS) can run on Android hardware [3]. [1] https://www.replicant.us/ https://www.replicant.us/ [2] https://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php https://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php [3] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices

by jeswin 7y ago

paulcarroty 7y ago

> mostly Open Source code, both OS and applications. It's not true. Without closed kernel drivers and closed-source Play Store/Youtube/Pay apps any Android is just piece of plastic.

Yetanfou 7y ago
The device drivers can be a problem on many devices, even when running AOSP-derived distributions many of these are lifted from a stock distribution and used as blobs. The bit about Android needing Play Store/Youtube/Pay apps is not true though, I do not have any of these on any of my devices which continue to work just fine - I'd go so far as to say that they work better without these parts: battery consumption goes down markedly, privacy invasion goes down tremendously. I might not be getting the 'Android experience' as Google intends but seeing as I do not want that anyway I don't see this as a negative.
- paulcarroty 7y ago
  > can be a problem on many devices Can you provide a one 100% working Android device with open drivers?
  - Yetanfou 7y ago
    Replicant [1, 2] supports 13 (older) devices. As to whether they are 100% working depends on what you intend to use the device for given that some functions (e.g. GPS) are not supported. If you're genuinely interested in this subject a search for blob-free android will give more results, also pointing out alternatives like PostmarketOS and Librem which are not Android-based but (in the case of PostmarketOS) can run on Android hardware [3]. [1] https://www.replicant.us/ https://www.replicant.us/ [2] https://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php https://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php [3] https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices