De-googled Android ROMs:
- GrapheneOS
- LineageOS
- /e/ OS
- Volla OS
Linux OSes that (allegedly) work on Android hardware (please suggest additions):
- UBPorts
- PostMarketOS
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
- Pinephone
- Pinephone pro
- Librem 5
- Volla Phone 22
- Jolla Phone
- FuriPhone FLX1s
And pretty much every feature phone out there (way too many to list)
De-googled Android ROMs:
Aren’t most of them de-googled? Usually you install gApps separately, unless that’s changed
Non-android, non-apple smartphones:
Not non-android out of the box, but just to add to your list: Ubuntu reports that nearly everything except VoLTE works on the Fairphone 4 and 5, but sadly they don’t support the 6 yet. PostMarketOS shows more issues
I would guess that most Android ROMs are OEM ones that are not degoogled (and have the added spyware of Cellular Service Providers or phone brands), I’m not familiar enough with AOSP Stock Images to make a judgment on those, and the rest that I know of—which are actively maintained and have been around long enough brand-recognition that I trust them to be non-glitchy and spyware free—comprise the above list.
If you got more suggestions, I will gladly add them to the list though.
Ubuntu reports that nearly everything except VoLTE works on the Fairphone 4 and 5
Oh snap, so is that UBPorts? I’m not sure how to classify that tbh, I might need a 3rd category that’s Linux Phone OSes that work on Android-focused phones. Actually, just looking at it rn and it looks like PostMarket claims to support over 700 devices…
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I got the Manjaro edition of the PinePhone, but then tried to multi-boot image. I wish it had been better, but the call quality was abysmal; basically required a headset to be tenable. It’s a great miniature computer, but a really awful phone. I’m hoping the PinePhone Pro is better, and it looks promising according to the forums, but I won’t get to try it for awhile.
FuriLabs mentioned 😲🥹
I absolutely love my FLX1s
I don’t have them, they just come up in a search for “Linux-based Phone.” Please share your experience if you have the time! People need to know what they’re getting into!
Linux or Graphene?
Both actually
i have come to love just not owning a smartphone anymore.
World is way more of an adventure when you out and about without internet connection on you.
Wana know how to get somewhere? Find a map or ask someone.
Pay something? There is cash for that.
Wana take a picture? Just take a camera with you, because lets be real 99% of the pics in your smartphones camera roll wont get viewed ever again anyhow.
Wana meet with other people? Well make out a time and spot before u leave the house…
Wana be reachable to others while u out and about? Dont! Its a wonderfull feeling not to be.
Wana pass some time while waiting for someone/something? Bring a book.
Sure it may be inconvinient for others that you are not instantly reachable 24/7. But its a wonderfull feeling not to be. To comunicate on your own terms.
Spoken like someone who isn’t responsible for others. My kid is ADHD and autistic. She’s high functioning, but that doesn’t mean I get to just be unreachable. I’m several people’s emergency contacts. I have to travel unknown places all the time and be there exactly to get the help my kid needs.
I’m a single mother. I trade off whatever they are stealing from me for the ability to get cheaper versions of what my kid needs. My job is flexible, so it allows me to take my kid to what she needs with the understanding that I can answer questions when I’m away.
Oh, I also have a deadly neurodegenerate disease that is only kept in check by this specific medication that I need to be places for a while to get. I like my phone reminding me to go get that and also being able to fill out the paperwork on my phone because of my shitty hands.
A lot of people I see who are like, “Just live without a phone!” Are not the people who are actually responsible for people and/or things. I was like that when I was young, but then you know, I became a pillar of my family and friend network. People who are unreachable when needed are dropped from my network. I know several people who when I actually needed them and it was very dire, were unreachable. I left them messages and everything. Nope. Don’t think they ever knew the issue. Dropped. Sorry even in the 90s and 00s, you were expected to listen to your voice mails promptly. I shouldn’t have to mount a search party to find you, which is actually necessary for some people I know.
you were expected to listen to your voice mails promptly.
i do, when i am back home.
Tell me how many people rely on you? Because being unavailable for hours can actually be deadly to a child you are responsible for.
I have 3 examples I have experienced, one with my own child where if I or the other person was just unavailable while they were outside of the house, irreparable damage would have happened to the child. Or in my in kid’s case, she would have just died.
Sorry that you’re dealing with a rough situation. But you don’t need to get mad and make assumptions just because someone lives differently from you.
Sorry but making kids was your life style choice, and i wont feel sorry for not making any.
A lot of those things are possible, if a bit inconvenient. BUT I am old enough to have lived through the time before GPS and smartphones and navigating without it - especially in an unknown city - is simply terrible.
If you have never experienced having to park your car and walk around, looking for a street name, just to find out where the hell you are… Count yourself lucky.
Listen to an old timer: I never want to go back to that.
Anyone who says otherwise simply doesn’t drive around a lot or only in well known areas.
There is offline GPS tho.
I’m sorry no one ever calls you or cares about you. It probably doesn’t have anything to do with you being an insufferable bloviator.
Are you speaking from personal experience there?
lmao project harder troll
And then after doing all that you still need to confirm a scary warning every single time you install an app. As if it wasn’t enough.
Openness was the primary reason I always stuck with android. Without that, fuck them. If I have no options I’m just gonna use Huawei.
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Confirm with biometrics… WTF?!
People should have the universal right to live a cellphone-free life. In my country, it is assumed that everyone uses an iPhone or a Google Android phone as if it was part of your own self.
I’m confused by this comment. The outrage is that if you want to use your phone, in the modern smartphone sense of the word which uses apps, then you have to do so by Google’s rules which excludes a lot of apps you might want to run, or jump through ridiculous hoops apparently including biometrics to do so with your own device. That’s terrible, but, this particular outrage is quite separate to one’s ability to live a cellphone free life. I’m not going to pretend like that’s not increasingly unfeasible, but this issue with identified developers doesn’t have much to do with it since it’s only an issue for you if you’re even using a phone in the first place and then it just makes using it a much shittier time then it ought to be, it doesn’t lessen or increase the dependency upon phones in general.
It’s about control, in the end. Citizens are now linked by the governments to their phone numbers, as well as companies make it a priority to get your phone number and data.
Somewhere in the middle of not using a mobile at all and having a device that monitors everything you do, non stop, are owning a dumb phone and having some control on the apps you install in your smartphone.
Can anyone explain how this isn’t an illegal monopoly? I’m genuinely curious
Because there are more iPhones in America.
Ignore that Apple also makes it impossible to side load apps.
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Doesn’t matter when the CEO sits at the table with the US president. If it’s illegal it won’t be enforced. Or it’ll be made legal. Or it won’t be made illegal. And if you want to make it illegal in your country - there’s punitive tariffs coming your way from the US president.
The public institutions responsible for tearing apart monopolies would have a field day with google if they were even remotely as powerful and willing as they used to be.
Graphene os is a good alternative to android. Its privacy and security focused, and also does not come with google serviced preinstalled. The only problem is that its only supported on google pixels, and porting it to other devices is impossible.
Didn’t I hear that they’re planning to release graphene on Motorola?
Yes, that will be my next phone provided the price is decent and it has a headphone jack and everything else I need
I’m hoping for a MicroSD card slot. I’m on a Note 20 Ultra which I planned to run for far longer but it got the infamous “random green line out of nowhere” problem. I think Sony is the only one who still puts it in flagships
Shoot I also recently got the freaking green line a few weeks ago. Yeah I also refuse to have a phone without a microsd option, why TF are they doing away with that?
To sell cloud storage.
Pretty much. On a Sony Xperia 1 V and it works great (best phone I’ve ever had). Downside is that the bootlocker for the US version is locked (AT&T thing) so I can’t just put lineageos on it or something, so I’ve been on the lookout for a replacement recently, and the pickings are pretty sparse.
I’m probably gonna have to ride out the stupid Google bullshit for a few months until there is a decent alternative, as the graphene phone from Motorola probably won’t be released this year (and even then it probably won’t have a headphone jack and a micro SD card slot) and pretty much all of the Linux phones available now don’t really meet my needs (also no headphone jack on something like the jolla phone, which as someone used to Linux for years, I know Bluetooth headphones aren’t much of a solid option).
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Thats it, planned, and not yet released. But its good that at least in future there will be more options for a smartphone with foss operating system.
Also, while in practice it would propably never happen, i hope that in the future, more smartphone makers will put alternative operating systems on their phones, or at least make it easier to install third party operating systems on their phones, like it is done on googles own pixels.
You never know. For the time being, foss supporters and enthusiasts are the minority. But with the rising surveillance and information restrictions, such as it is happening with ID/age verification checks in many countries, people will start looking for ways to walk around all this pathetic chicken wire. VPNs seem to do the job for now, but I wonder if maybe alternative OS will gain traction in a not so distant future. They would allow for more flexibility and options
I’d be interested in seeing a statistic of how much this reduces the impact of intentionally malicious apps. I know it’s not the real motivation, but still.
All for a scam, that rarely happens…
and worse, scams that are ALL over the play store
I mean, getting verified as a developer is a similar pain in the ass in other ecosystems. I recently got an LG smart TV and the developer mode there automatically runs out and deletes all unofficial apps after 9999h if you don’t manually go into the developer app and extend the time.
My hot take is that you shouldn’t have to claim that you’re a developer to sideload content. It should be allowed for normal users 🤷
I am not 100% clear on this. Is sideloading different from installing an APK from unknown source by simply taping on it?
Still worth it for revanced!
Ok this sucks, but there is something that seems to be not implied. Wait one day, then confirm with biometrics, then decide if you want this only this time, or 1 week, or forever. You have to only deal with this one time if you choose forever (as long as you don’t reinstall, I assume).
This is by no means ideal, but I think I’m ok with this. In a way I believe the rhetoric they are framing, to protect the vulnerable populace (e.g. the elderly) from frauds. For your phone, you can get the hurdle over one time, if you are installing for your parent you can do “don’t ask me for a week, or ask me again everytime”, so they don’t install something malicious as part of a guided “tech support”. Not saying that will prevent all and any spams but it will add some barrier. Just my opinion though, I could be off base with this.
I do wish that 1 day waiting was a bit shorter.
You’re off base with this. Almost unbelievably so.
They know they aren’t concerned with scams, why are you pretending? The move is to restrict competition and improve surveillance capacity as much as possible with as much legal protection as possible for Google. “Vulnerable people” don’t typically know how to use F-Droid, and scammers would take a week to find out am effective alternative even if this was somehow their main tactic; which it is not and they did fine before it was an option.
I own my phone. I get to pick what is installed on it. The fucking mandatory Google apps were already too far, this is straight up telegraphing intent to commodify as much of my life as they can get access to. Even beyond how fucking bad this is for the overall health of tech development and sovereignty, I dont want a company that is complicit with a fascist state to force me or anyone else who would challenge that state to register our fucking identities with them. For all I fucking know, they’d get me thrown into a camp as readily as they’d cut off my access to pirated media. You think it’s a coincidence they’re doing this shit at the same time liberals and fascists are desperately trying to seize some kind of control over the internet? It’s for grandma’s safety? The fuck it is.
I dont want a company that is complicit with a fascist state to force me or anyone else who would challenge that state to register our fucking identities with them.
Now in fairness to google, they’re complicit with multiple fascist states.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally agree with you. I bought my device, I should own it and install whatever the fuck I want. Whatever the fuck google is doing is putting barrier in opening “their market to other stores”. This is malicious compliance in google’s part that 'oh yeah you can install from whatever source but you gotta do this list of ridiculous thing before you do". I am only surprised the “install from any source” isn’t a paid ‘DLC’.
I do realize when I wrote what I wrote, I sound like a employee from the marketing department of google. My words “I think I’m ok with this” is probably wrong, more like I kinda understand the notion behind it, (assuming a world where they were doing this in good faith, which they are not).
But. Scams are a thing, and elderly are good targets, something to help against that (which wasn’t apparently an issue until now for google) would be great. What they are offering does help a bit, but it’s not a good way. I do hope there will be a better solution than this.
This would mean something if the old people google is pretending to give a shit about couldn’t already download all sorts of scammy shit from google’s official store.
Yes exactly.
The same with “oh we need the app creator/publisher to register so people don’t submit random shitty apps”. <looks at google’s play store populated with bunch of random shitty, scammy apps>
Or, just use ADB and be done with it.
