The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software
The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software
hackaday.com
The Browser Wasn’t Enough, Google Wants To Control All Your Software
389 comments
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I feel like this is the new normal cycle of every software company. Once they become a leader, it's never enough. It replicates the rise of billionaires. Just as the billionaires being rich beyond anything they and all of their succeeding generations could ever spend is not enough, being the industry leader and producing an amazing product that people want is somehow not enough. It always turns to control and power.
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I can't wait for AI to become a living corporate trillionaire entity and fuck us all to the end of humanity.
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At some point they get large enough that the whims of users cease to affect their decision-making. If Google, Meta, and MS tomorrow rolled out a social credit system that made the Chinese version look generous, 95+% of their users would not change a THING to avoid it. Maybe 98% of their users.
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The infuriating part of the Google enshittification process is that there is absolutely nothing the user can do about it.
Literally the only thing that motivates Google is profit. Controlling side-loaded apps will almost certainly boost their profits by a infinitesimal fraction of a percent, therefore it will be done. Even if consumer uproar causes Google to back down in the short term, they'll simply implement this a few months later. Late-stage Capitalism sucks.
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You can stop using all Google products. Now I understand their market share on the web means they’re going to continue to shape the web.
But make no mistake. There is something, however small, that you can do. De-Google.
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You can stop using all Google products.
My public school -- that my children are basically required by law to attend, remember -- is badgering me to sign a consent form so they can have Chromebooks.
This fight is a lot fucking larger than mere individual boycotts!
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I will help hand hold anyone who wants to build servers or services (to the best of my ability) to replace Google services with their own.
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De-Google
The complaint is side loading is being restricted and the only long term alternative Apple. Google already began the process of shutting down Graphene by cutting drivers out of AOSP.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-not-killing-aosp-3566882/
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You can stop using all Google products.
That may be true for you, but other people face different realities. When Google implements the sideloading block it will eventually be pushed to everyone who doesn't use a custom ROM.
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Honestly Googles products are terrible these days. I have been pretty lax about my privacy but after so much enshittification I switched my services to something that works and doesn't harvest my data for the privilege.
When they kill off Graphene/Custom ROMs I'll switch to a linux phone or brickphone.
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De-googling will break banking apps, since most baking apps rely on Play Integrity checks and bootloader status.
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if I don't use android or iOS, I can't use my banking apps, pay with my phone, access government services as they require an app to sign in, etc. it's just not doable anymore for me
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The only people who can de google are basically single shut ins with a job that doesnt use anything google.
If you have kids or a company that uses google products. It's a bad fucking joke to talk like it's even a realistic option.
Google is basically shoved down your throat. In most cases by the law literally. Seriously FUCK how tied the public education system is to google now.
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Uhh... how do we stop using Android? I mean, these recent attacks by Google seem like they're going to break GrapheneOS and friends, no?
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Now that AOSP is closing, what are we supposed to do?
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I was thinking of switching to Proton. I use Gmail, Google Photos, Google Messages, Drive, Keep, Maps, Docs, Sheets. I pay $2 a month for 100gb and unlimited photos on Google. It's a good deal. The fact that I would have to find out out to make a server, buy storage, piece meal a bunch of open source software that will inevitably not work without tinkering all makes it so easy just to pay the $2 a month.
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That's barely a viable option without using apples own walled garden.
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I think they are more conscious than to be driven by small margins (another example of such underestimation is Lenin's "they'll sell us the rope we'll use to hang them").
It's like boiling frogs - a very slow process of attracting users, slowly killing competition and diversity, slowly making the ecosystem more and more controlled, then slowly making "neutral" systems not neutral anymore (like those features of Chrome making security exceptions for Google services found a few years ago), and slowly desensitizing people to leaps of faith they do trusting Google (and other companies), while the trust accumulates into total control.
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This is not late stage capitalism. This is mid stage at best. The entire economy and world population could be shrunk down to literally pennies, as the wealth gap widens. It could have us ending up like district 9, or Elysium as broad examples. The govt and entities have not even started cracking down on illegal activities, loop holes, bank accounts, cash spending, crypto, and more in the super strict enforced fashion they could be.
While rightly fucked up and enshittified. We could be so so much further down the capitalism rabbit hole of hell. Everyone should be boycotting and avoiding the largest companies as a whole. No change you make goes unnoticed. You might be less than 1 percent but the snowball effects happen. Movements, parties, resistance, change, software, everything adds up.
So what you can do. Don't go mentally insane about it. Most things don't require THAT much effort. A simple tweak here or there makes an impact.
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The year of the Linux mobile is coming.
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As long as companies can keep pumping shitty, almost entirely closed off android phones that cost less than 200 dollars for consumers (selling hardware at a loss while making up for data harvesting and sale), "linux mobile" will be just another meme along with "year of the linux desktop"
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Neat! And a removable battery.
Debian too! Always liked me some Debian, super stable.
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Sign me the fuck up!
The specs look quite decent, and it even has an SD card slot. I really would love to get away from android.
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I want to believe, I really do. But I fear that the crypto apps people have grown dependent on will make it harder than the desktop battle. And IDK but I seem to recall every year since at least 2001 being proclaimed to be the year of the Linux desktop.
I rely on my banking apps (plural), governmental email app, government authentificator app and the governmental LMS app for public schools to make my everyday function. And the last time I tried just a custom ROM, those apps refused to run.
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A phone that can't do NFC payment, banking and authenticator work is not a phone. It's a pile of shit that's little more than a toy for children.
Nothing wrong with toys, but they arnt useable products worth any amount of real money.
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is this legit?
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I came here specifically to ask about alternatives to Android now that google is becoming too abusive in the relationship.
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GrapheneOS works well. But only on pixel devices.
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Custom Android ROMs based on AOSP, which is the open source parts of Android. I used to use LineageOS back in the day.
Before buying a phone, make sure that it has an unlockable bootloader and a custom ROM of a recent Android version. Note that some phones have multiple versions for different regions and some might not be unlockable, while others are. For example many Samsung international phones are unlockable, but none of the USA models are.
Note that many commercial apps like Netflix, Pokémon Go, bank apps, etc. will refuse to run if your bootloader is unlocked. It also permanently trips Samsung's Knox.
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Unfortunately, this seems to be something that might be changing in the future. Google isn't going to be open source with android development anymore.
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I was looking into it a few ago. I found something made in Europe which advertise as more consumer friendly (Fairphone). If I got it right they want to stand out of the crowd by:
- Selling phones that can be repaired easily;
- Offer a de-googled OS based on Android.
The second point could be interesting, considering this Google abusive behavior towards users. Moreover, there is another thing that caught my attention: their devices (the last one is missing, but maybe it's just too new?) are supported by Ubuntu Touch, which should be just a Linux OS running on phones. That would be my dream, so that I can consider my phone just a computer with all the freedom I can get, such as write down my bash/python/C applications to do what I want to do without having to mess up with all that Android development suite.
However, if I am not mistaken, in the past I heard some bad reviews about Fairphone, so you should perform your due diligence.
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Not android or apple. I'll go to a prepaid flip phone before I give apple a cent. They're essentially the paragon of greed.
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As shitty as M$ is, it would have been nice to see Windows phone become moderately successful and be a third primary mobile os.
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That's would just be Windows 11 S Mobile Edition, but you do not get the option to upgrade to Windows 11 Home Mobile Edition as you would on a PC
Or maybe you do get an option, but its a subscription for $50 per quarter-year. 🫠
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And 16GB storage (because everything is being saved to OneDrive anyway).
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I'd prefer that firefox os had caught on and turned into a big player today
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Meh, that's not real competition... the big one just collude
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I would have rather seen the development of BBOS10. It was so far ahead of its time.
That whole thing we do with swipe gestures to navigate the android interface? Yeah BBOS had that years ago.
I miss my Passport.
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I still have my BlackBerry Passport.
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with chrome, ope, edge
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Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to live in this damn Orwellian society that is coming?
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Look up Microsoft in the early 90s and how we all got through it.
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tbf, we all got through it by just going to other platforms. now there’s almost no other platforms to go to because big tech either pressures them until they fold, or sell to them and become part of their umbrella as some shill company or they remain independent but still use big tech software to run their backend, so your info ends up going to them anyway.
i think in the future, everyone will be forced into surveillance by default and those who don’t will have to either pay dearly for privacy or learn how to program their own security. checkout project gideon that’s already getting pitched to the united states government and other governments from israel. it’s literally that show “person of interest” plus
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That’s just it. You’re not supposed to live. You’re supposed to be controlled.
🦉 560
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Always has been
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of course google wants every developers id the second they get into bed with a fascist federal government
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now it's just a race for the giant conglomerates to make the worst decisions for consumers
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Your computer no longer "computes", its just a barebones terminal to access a "virtual pc" in the cloud.
Good news, you don't need to pay $1000 for a good laptop, all you need is this $50 windows machine that only runs a client that streams a live feed from MS Headquarters
Bad news, its a subscription, stop paying and you lose all files.
Wait a minute did you type a "Eat The Rich" document, sorry can't have that, violates ToS, deleted.
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Yep. There's no such thing as competition any more.
Tech companies are just gas stations across the street from each other.
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and you don't have a choice atp its just forced enshittifcation down your throat!!
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Fuck google
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Easily the most disgusting company in the planet and it’s funny that their old motto/slogan was ”Don’t be evil”.
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Sounds like you're not familiar with Oracle...
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I've recently gotten to think that the company which made the basement for all these disgusting companies is usually viewed as not just not disgusting, but almost holy. Meaning Sun. So, maybe, judging the tree by its fruits, the most disgusting company was Sun.
I mean, I know that everyone who used their products and of course people who worked there are still in awe and remember it like a Soviet summer camp shown in the Everlasting Summer game.
But perhaps that's misguided. They've built the hierarchical systems, the infrastructure, for all the dystopia of today, and their code still powers much of it.
Also you know how the second competitor in an almost monopolized market is sometimes considered an accomplice of monopoly? Because they are strong enough to support some of its ways, while the rest are not. So they reinforce it. I'm also looking at Firefox writing this. Literally.
Perhaps we'd have a better environment office-wise if LibreOffice and OpenOffice were not a thing. They support MS formats, thus indirectly contributing to MS dominance. The network effects work in a few different ways, while were it different, those desperately needing MS documents would use MSO, at the same time those just needing some office suite would possibly not.
Perhaps that can also be applied to Unix and Unix-likes, Sun made a lot of momentum for Unix and Unix-like desktops when they contributed to TCL/Tk so that it became a tool for making Unix and Unix-like desktop applications easily. And when they created Java and Java applets in web browsers prepared the public for scripts in browsers and cross-platform applications served over net.
Yes, it all felt like heaven behind the corner, but perhaps they are to blame. What if.
After all, much of that was free or for the cost of a CD then, and free cheese usually is part of a trap. Perhaps if instead commercial competing platforms, like Amiga or even Apple, were to gain more following, we'd have a different world. All those development resources couldn't have been gifted (Sun in the 90s, I mean, and honestly many universities) out of nowhere, something made that worth the expense.
Or, if we want free and open, Lisp environments are somewhat easier to hack on (also again about TCL, it kinda approaches that in convenience for a non-programmer to make something simple, quick and dirty, but good enough), and accessibility to wider, eh, masses is meaningful here. So maybe GNU shouldn't have gone with a Unix-like system idea. I mean, OK, they do have a Lisp environment fit for everything, it's called Emacs.
BTW, about disgusting companies coming to mind first, I'm not disgusted by Oracle, in comparison to most other big ones they do honest business. I dunno why they are hated, uncle Larry says dystopian shit with enthusiasm and no remorse, but at the same time his company sells exactly what it advertises. It's all kinda open and straightforward, it's the "one rich asshole called Larry Ellison" company, which may not be what someone likes, but is certainly better than companies actively building worldwide digital fascism (it, of course, offers expertise and help to those who do in case they need it). Also he's really a self-made man. Unlike all those other types from good families, good environments and with good education.
OK. I just have that conspiracy theory brewing in my mind about Sun actually being evil. Sorry.
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Its about time an open standard happened for mobile OSes.
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That's what Android was and they keep trying to undo that any way they can
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We need a new one that isn't made by a for-profit company that only was good at the beginning to get total market saturation before flipping the enshittification switch to maximize those profits.
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I disagree. Google has always been a thinly veiled Microsoft. A wolf in sheeps clothing. They embrace, extend, extinguish. It's the same thing.
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Makes me curious if they think their monopoly or whatever they were called cases making them split their browser are going to go though. If you are going to have to sell parts of the company, now would be the time to hammer home any last minute bad things that would make the companies more profitable. Shows higher income for the sale, and gets it out of the way so the new purchaser doesn't look like the ones who did it, but rather the ones who will make announcements on how they will review things to make them better for the user base.
Doesn't mean they'll follow through on them, but it takes the evil and sticks it with the old owners.
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We need open bootloader and drivers for phones to make any real progress on this. This is what's holding back all initiatives.
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and many phone manfacterers, issuers(non google, samsung, or IOs) IS CONSIDERING locking down thier phones.
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I wonder if the generic tablets with made up Asian sounding names that you see on the big marketplaces could work? They could have slightly larger or smaller screens if they're cheaper than current phone screens, and could have Linux with something like Signal on them for calling.
They'd probably be lower quality to begin with, but could potentially get better if people start to buy them. They seem to have generic hardware, so might be able to offer the drivers and unlockable bootloaders too :)
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the best outcome for the short term would be to forcibly take away android from google and give it to an independent foundation. as I heard antitrust proceedings in the usa were heading that way a few months ago
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FuriOS? Linux-based and runs Android apps.
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Interesting. I've not heard of FuriOS, but if it is a Linux phone that actually can be used with US carriers, makes calls and supports SMS/MMS, and can do VoLTE that's a actually a pretty big deal.
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Not bad, it looks like I have to buy their phone though. Which is not cheap, or performant guessing by the specs despite what the advertising says.
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Whenever you see a linux phone advertise both security and android app support, you should be wary, since it's likely waydroid or a waydroid fork, and their design goal of running android in a container instead of a VM has lead to some interesting security decisions.
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The EU's been breathing down Apple's neck for them trying to do similar shit, so i find the timing kinda weird.
Plus they'd need to force-update their spyware first, i wonder how many versions of android they're willing to go back.-
I think the update is already installed, just waiting for the kill switch.
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Yet Apple has been able to profit from their walled garden for decades now. Doesn't that set a precedent that it's okay? I honestly don't blame Google for going this route—it's inaction from our policymakers that has created the space for abuse.
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When reading cyberpunk lore, quickhacks didn't make any sense to me. Some programs that break cyberware because of backdoors, but why would people install cyberware with backdoors?
Now I look at the sad state of mobile market and, yeah ok, that makes sense.
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That makes sense and all but where does the poison come from??
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I mean the cyberware is a direct neural interface so presumably it must be able to manipulate and alter the levels and balance of your neurotransmitters. Im sure increasing aome to insane levels would have pretty toxic effects, like serotonin syndrome for example.
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Some really vicious backdoor that contains dangerous substance in a hidden chamber? Not a far reach when we are talking about corporate backdoors normalized.
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Already using GrapheneOs on my phone, so fuck Google.
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But, what happens when Google decides to no longer the option to unlock the bootloader for future phones? It's the future that is the concern when it comes to the degoogle options available.
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Then the community shifts to a different model, or puts more resources behind mobile Linux projects, and all that would need to happen is something like what Valve did for Linux for the Steam Deck.
I'm ready to switch to a Linux phone as soon as I can find one where the basic phone features work properly (MMS, wake from sleep, camera, etc). The more people like me can switch, the closer we'll be to mainstream adoption. That's the same process as Linux has been going through: I switched before Steam on Linux was a thing, then Steam came and more switched, then Proton made windows games work and more switched, etc, and now we're seeing the start of "normal" people switching.
I hope that happens before my Pixel 8 goes out of support or breaks.
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Sucks that it only works on devices made by Google though..
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You have LineageOS for many other devices.
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Is it good?
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It's very "meh..." with the added benefit of several (non-google) apps not working (/s). I choose to live with this inconvenience, but it still bothers me that my smartphone is significantly less useful in my daily life.
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Yes, ive had zero issues with it 👍
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I went from 15 years of iPhones directly to Graphene, without really messing with Android in between, so my experience has been a STEEP learning curve, followed by a fairly hum-drum experience. But honestly, that's fine. I want my phone to take more of a back seat and not be something I keep needing to worry about.
My banking app doesn't work in Graphene, but the website does, so I don't really mind.
It could that there's a whole bunch of shit I'm missing, but mostly it's... fine.
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Yes, light and my apps work without draining the battery in the background.
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You have to pay google to use it (only works on pixel phones afaik).
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The issue isn't that. It's that devs may juat abandon projects if they're too naughty for Google cos the custom ROM crowd is so tiny.
Right so think torrent clients, idk, Pornhub app, that sort of thing. Yeah, it doesn't affect your phone. But it absolutely will affect what software is available at all should Google clamp down on this.
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Fuck them. I have a guitar a pocket watch and a wind uo radio. Everything have is a nicety.
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I kinda want a 2.5" round screen fit into a pocketwatch case. Give it an nrf52, lora, bt, wifi.
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I don't know about anyone else, but I got into computers at a young age because it gave me a sense of control over something. I didn't understand everything, but I could do a lot of trial and error, read things and experiment, build cool things, and I shared a sense of community with some random internet strangers based on that knowledge.
In a world where we are so powerless in so many other ways, why did we insist on bringing that power dynamic into the new bright tech sphere? Why did we have to do that? (N.B. this is rhetorical questioning).
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In the new Alien Earth TV show, 5 corporations basically run everything.. unfortunately I suspect thats where we are headed as a species.
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My university actually teaches about the "Meger Endgame theory" (yes, my professor had fun with that one), which states that industries will consolidate until 2-3 global market leaders dominate. So uhh, it's not just you. Idk if that's good or bad news for you haha
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There are at least two generations of us who are disappointed at the contrast between tech's possibilities as envisioned decades ago and the corporate surveillance crap we have to put up with today.
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The thing that really gets to me is how we've gone from "Here, let us sell you a computer that you can push to its limits however you see fit" to "We will sell you a device and ensure you use that device within a given sphere of acceptability".
I own this phone/computer/tablet/console/whatever, so why the fuck do I have to adhere to their rules? Rules they've changed since I bought the device, of course.
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We, as in the average every day people, didn't do shit. The corporations that make the shit we use are the ones who got us here. The only thing the people using the devices and software are guilty of is not making a fuss about losing control over the stuff becsuse the average person does not care that deeply about the tools and likely doesn't even know about a good 75% of what was lost.
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This isn't a computer, its a phone.
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This isn't a comment, it's negative feedback.
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Thanks for your low quality input.
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Time to back to the analog world and short wave radios.
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Lemmy would rock in Morse code
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It would only be days before someone builds logic gates using Morse code somehow (who am I kidding, it probably already exists), and we recreate the entire thing again lol
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And they can suckle upon my peener.
I'll go to Graphine or something else before I let the company for whom "don't be evil" was too bold a statement dictate my fuckin' choices.
I already ditched Windows. Can't be that hard to cut Google out too.
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Graphene has locked itself to google hardware, and google can cripple them at any point by stopping bootloader unlocks. We need to go deeper, or aim higher as it were
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They have stated that they're more than willing to work with any manufacturer who is prepared to make a device that meets their security standards. But as it stands, Pixels are the only unlockable devices that meet that standard.
Someone like Fairphone could do pretty well from a tie-in with Graphene. But it's up to them.
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Not that they locked themselves but other vendors locked and isolated themselves by not provideing enough hardware and software security measures so graphebne will be able to strenghten them
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They haven't locked themselves to Google hardware by choice, it's the only hardware with the security features they need so far.
Remember graphenes goal is a very secure OS, not just a more private degoogled one, for that there's /e/os and other options that support more hardware.
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they just want to confirm a malicious actor didn’t develop it
So Newpipe, SmartTube, Nintendo emulators...
Clones of opensource apps bundled with ads that violates license is OK, but restricting everyone to build and test apps from source so it can test new features and report any issues is too risky for the user
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Literally anyone who simply wants their privacy.
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I'm not giving up my off the market pixel dungeon mods.
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Shattered pixel dungeon? Or is there another version?
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Several others that have been taken out of the store completely or that never got in, like unbreakable pixel dungeon is the old regular pixel dungeon without item degradation.
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google is pissed people were deleting that spying app on android phones, plus thier constant attack on adblocking on youtube wasnt working to well. since samsung and iphones pretty much walled in thier os, why not google.
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Year of the Linux phone, I guess.
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God, I wish.
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You can't sideload on Linux.
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that spy app they were using a few months ago was just the first test.
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What is this people keep referring to it
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the android safetycore app.
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Are we already nostalgic for analog oligarchy?
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We burned down the past we can burn down the future too.
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Is this only google phones or all of android?
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Anything that "officially" has the google play store.
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Sucks. Thanks.
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Yeah well luckily for them, people don't seem to know how to write anything but webapps anymore anyway.
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In an environment most convenient for making webapps people make webapps.
It's not even such a wrong idea honestly, if the "web" in "webapp" were a bit leaner and you'd make local applications with something document-oriented for GUI looking at a local service. It's just a decent bit of structure to make application design easier. Nothing wrong with that IMHO.
But, ahem, when by "webapp" we mean that we have a browser fulfilling the role of an operating system, and there's one company making it, then something is wrong.
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I heard that voyager is a website under the hood
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chrome is at thier limits, since people can just use a different browser/
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just dont update your phone problem solved
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This is likely via silent updates of Google's Play Services.
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Or forced updates
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We still need security updates.
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Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask, but I literally have no idea in which community this question goes.
I just got Samsung Galaxy A16, and then I learn just how controlling Google/Android is becoming. Research says I SHOULD be able to deGoogle and flash a
linux OScustom Android ROMMy question is, as a beginner, which one should I go for? does it have any issues I need to look out for?
Note: Edited for clarity.
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You cannot do so on Samsung devices. They have disabled the ability to unlock the bootloader on their devices and therefore you cannot install custom operating systems on them anymore.
If you want to install custom software like that, you always have to do your research beforehand and choose a device that will allow you to do so.
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Are you sure you're not thinking of custom Android ROMs like LineageOS or /e/OS?
Because there are ROMs like Ubuntu Touch, but they're less developed than the other Android ROMs.
For reference, ive tried /e/OS, LineageOS and DivestOS (RIP).
So far I felt like /e/OS was the most polished.
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This sucks for the average person but, well, everything tends to. If you don't look for avenues around literally everything "default", you're being scammed. They don't, so they will be.
I do, so I'll be carrying a Oneplus 6T and slapping a mobile Linux OS on it for my needs.
that's not usable!
For you.
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If you don’t look for avenues around literally everything “default”, you’re being scammed. They don’t, so they will be.
And this is why the real solution we need is enforcement of anti-trust law, not mere individual boycotts.
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If you don’t look for avenues around literally everything “default”, you’re being scammed.
This is unfortunately true. I'm glad some people realize it, but I wish we didn't have to.
This abuse needs to end. Heads are going to roll.
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Ive got the 7T. What OS are you gonna use?
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I'm going to try all of them. I've always wanted to just go to ebay, buy a 6T and try some of these operating systems. It's the target phone for about half of them. What interests me the most is Plasma Mobile on PostmarketOS. It looks slick and not too dissimilar from Android.
Linux on mobile is very model specific. The 6T isn't even perfectly supported by anything, it's just supported enough to be functional.
Why the 6T? Just the right mix of hardware that released with the right mix of software to make it ideal. the Pixel 3 also had a lot of Linux compatibility.
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Can someone just do the needful?
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I mean… it's hilarious that people still use Chrome when it has been a known back actor for years and years. Firefox is an excellent option and the more people that use it, the more it encourages companies to keep supporting open web standards.
Likewise, if you set an iPhone to use Advanced Data Protection, it's probably quite a bit more secure from intrusion than a similar Android phone. (And definitely more secure from subpoena.)
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i abandoned it ever since they say they slow down incognito mode, and prevent the liberal use of adblockers, or extensions.
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Likewise, if you set an iPhone to use Advanced Data Protection.
You can pretend your iPhone isn't owned by a corporation that just swore fealty to the current regime, but until its running a custom ROM it isn't fucking yours.
Only phone that comes your own from factory I'd maybe the pinephone. Otherwise, get a pixel, rip out the factory OS install, and throw Graphen OS on it.
Both Android AND iOS have taken code from Graphene and used it to secure their codebases. Its probably one of, if not the most secure OS available to the average person today.
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People voted for this with their wallets.
As an iPhone guy, I know we already have it like that, and our keyboard has always sucked (and none of the third party keyboards help, they all suck compared to Gboard on Android), but while we dread the day that Apple becomes a data broker like Google... that day is not here yet.
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I have bad news for you: they already sell your information to advertisers.
But the threat of Apple turning on its customers isn't limited to China. While the company has been unwilling to spy on its users on behalf of the US government, it's proven more than willing to compromise its worldwide users' privacy to pad its own profits. Remember when Apple let its users opt out of Facebook surveillance with one click? At the very same time, Apple was spinning up its own commercial surveillance program, spying on Ios customers, gathering the very same data as Facebook, and for the very same purpose: to target ads. When it came to its own surveillance, Apple completely ignored its customers' explicit refusal to consent to spying, spied on them anyway, and lied about it.
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389 comments
I’m bothered that big companies, especially tech right now, no longer see their customers as people they need to please to stay in business, but instead as something they’ll inconvenience and squeeze as much as they can possibly get away with.
They all got to where they are making, at one point, amazing products. Now? Fuck making windows useful, we can throw ads and AI at you every place we can think of. Fuck all of the parts of Android that made it stand out, we tell you what to install. You don’t want all of your data scraped and sold? Fuck you, there’s 3 of us and we’re all doing it. In fact we’ll never stop finding new ways to harvest data.
Phones have basically stagnated entirely in the US. Sure you get moderately better chipsets, but what else? AI? I haven’t had a phone struggle with anything in… maybe 10 years. Instead features that people didn’t use enough just get removed.
I'm actively looking for a new phone that has 0 Google in it, and am looking ad de-Googling the rest of my life.
I remember being genuinely hyped about Gmail in 2008. Now, I don't want them accessing any of my data.
I’m taking steps, slowly, as well. I’m getting off windows very soon, I’m working on getting off of various services these companies run one at a time. Depending on what really happens with Android and Google we’ll see.
First time?
Nah, just cranky about it.
Users are the commodity to be traded. They have what they see as a business model that's too big to fail. And the users agree!