7 ms·

they should just make an awesome FirefoxOS

oasis4005 3y ago
FirefoxOS was too ahead of its time. Robust in idea, lacking in proper marketing and objective understanding. Now we've got direct USB to browser capabilities and no web first OS. Backwards but true. For those not aware: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS
- nologic01 3y ago
  > FirefoxOS was too ahead of its time I think it was just-in-time but competing against incredible odds. It was perfectly usable as a first step (I had a cheap ZTE phone [1]) but it came out as the craze for ever more powerful mobiles for taking selfies and sliding down media on social media was reaching feverish levels. I think of the intervening decade as a lost decade. Imagine if the project did not fold and had iterated this entire time... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open
  - pyr0hu 3y ago
    I won a dev phone on a competition near my uni (the competition was who will be the fastest to create a simple app for FFOS and I just created a simple html page with a hello world in <p> tags lol), some ZTE one I think. Developed a few games just for myself, it was a fun tech tbh, but the phone was pretty unstable so after a time it just collected dust on my shelf and I sold it to someone.
    - pyr0hu 3y ago
      ps.: it was this one not a ZTE: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-os-developer-preview-phone/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-os-...
- puzzlingcaptcha 3y ago
  FirefoxOS sort of lives on through the KaiOS fork, unfortunately many devices come locked which prevents from installing homebrew apps. I have a rooted Nokia 2720 Flip, and while the hardware is abysmal (KaiOS is targeted at emerging markets) you can get quite a bit of functionality out of it (including openstreetmap, podcast/music players, rss readers, google-authenticator-compatible TOTP etc).
cassepipe 3y ago
They tried to make a FirefoxOs for mobile in the past. It even shipped with some phone then in true Mozilla fashion (am I being harsh ?) they dumped it and then it became a hit, rebranded as KaiOs in developping countries for unpowerful smartphones
- twelvechairs 3y ago
  There's /e/os now. I stand to be corrected but a lot of the privacy issues are more about the ubiquity of 'Google Play Services' rather than Android as a base OS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system)
  - opan 3y ago
    Not sure why this gets recommended over LineageOS. It forcefully comes with Micro G, which can't really be removed, unlike Lineage where you can just choose not to install any gapps of any kind and use the device fine.
    - notpushkin 3y ago
      I think shipping microG by default is a fine choice nowadays. In default setup, it doesn't connect to Google servers at all (/e/ might have different configuration though), but it enables maps and geolocation in apps (using different APIs, not Google). It is also relatively small (4 MB should not be a problem on most devices). That said, I think a no-gapps build would be nice to have, too. (I use LineageOS as well, though. It works with microG too, but you need to get a build from here instead of the official one: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/)
      - yellowapple 3y ago
        I gave /e/OS and microG a whirl when I bought my Fairphone (Murena preinstalls it on the phones they sell in the US), and it was cool how much it was able to do without the "real" gApps, but two snags ended up being showstoppers and pushed me to my usual LineageOS+gApps: 1. The Google account for my day job has various security settings that block authentication under various circumstances, including (I guess) Google services running under different signatures/IDs than expected 2. The App Lounge was really crashy for reasons I was never able to discern, and there was little rhyme or reason to certain Play Store apps being missing or uninstallable (namely: my banking app and T-Mobile's voicemail app)

FirefoxOS was too ahead of its time. Robust in idea, lacking in proper marketing and objective understanding. Now we've got direct USB to browser capabilities and no web first OS. Backwards but true. For those not aware: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_OS

nologic01 3y ago
> FirefoxOS was too ahead of its time I think it was just-in-time but competing against incredible odds. It was perfectly usable as a first step (I had a cheap ZTE phone [1]) but it came out as the craze for ever more powerful mobiles for taking selfies and sliding down media on social media was reaching feverish levels. I think of the intervening decade as a lost decade. Imagine if the project did not fold and had iterated this entire time... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTE_Open
- pyr0hu 3y ago
  I won a dev phone on a competition near my uni (the competition was who will be the fastest to create a simple app for FFOS and I just created a simple html page with a hello world in <p> tags lol), some ZTE one I think. Developed a few games just for myself, it was a fun tech tbh, but the phone was pretty unstable so after a time it just collected dust on my shelf and I sold it to someone.
  - pyr0hu 3y ago
    ps.: it was this one not a ZTE: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-os-developer-preview-phone/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/01/announcing-the-firefox-os-...
puzzlingcaptcha 3y ago
FirefoxOS sort of lives on through the KaiOS fork, unfortunately many devices come locked which prevents from installing homebrew apps. I have a rooted Nokia 2720 Flip, and while the hardware is abysmal (KaiOS is targeted at emerging markets) you can get quite a bit of functionality out of it (including openstreetmap, podcast/music players, rss readers, google-authenticator-compatible TOTP etc).

cassepipe 3y ago

They tried to make a FirefoxOs for mobile in the past. It even shipped with some phone then in true Mozilla fashion (am I being harsh ?) they dumped it and then it became a hit, rebranded as KaiOs in developping countries for unpowerful smartphones

twelvechairs 3y ago
There's /e/os now. I stand to be corrected but a lot of the privacy issues are more about the ubiquity of 'Google Play Services' rather than Android as a base OS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki//e/_(operating_system)
- opan 3y ago
  Not sure why this gets recommended over LineageOS. It forcefully comes with Micro G, which can't really be removed, unlike Lineage where you can just choose not to install any gapps of any kind and use the device fine.
  - notpushkin 3y ago
    I think shipping microG by default is a fine choice nowadays. In default setup, it doesn't connect to Google servers at all (/e/ might have different configuration though), but it enables maps and geolocation in apps (using different APIs, not Google). It is also relatively small (4 MB should not be a problem on most devices). That said, I think a no-gapps build would be nice to have, too. (I use LineageOS as well, though. It works with microG too, but you need to get a build from here instead of the official one: https://lineage.microg.org/ https://lineage.microg.org/)
    - yellowapple 3y ago
      I gave /e/OS and microG a whirl when I bought my Fairphone (Murena preinstalls it on the phones they sell in the US), and it was cool how much it was able to do without the "real" gApps, but two snags ended up being showstoppers and pushed me to my usual LineageOS+gApps: 1. The Google account for my day job has various security settings that block authentication under various circumstances, including (I guess) Google services running under different signatures/IDs than expected 2. The App Lounge was really crashy for reasons I was never able to discern, and there was little rhyme or reason to certain Play Store apps being missing or uninstallable (namely: my banking app and T-Mobile's voicemail app)