If you use the term “sideloading” you already lost the battle before you finished your sentence
I honestly wish for the responsible people to die. A natural, painless death, but let it be quick. All of silicon valley is so evil it would be deemed unrealistic for a movie villain. They are selling out our freedoms and planet for what? They are already stinking rich.
Most moderate lemmy user when talking about digital freedom:
Moderates is what got us into this dystopia. We should have never tolerated greed and selfishness to begin with.
They are sexually aroused when they torture both individuals and society at large.
I wish I could accuse you of exaggerating. But I am not sure it is an exaggeration.
Everything is about sex. Sex is about power.
Only for toxic people.
I agree. One should strive to evolve beyond the tyranny of our amygdalas.
The Android ecosystem has been feeling more like an invasive chaotic advertisement machine the past few years. The play store is a cesspool, the weather app switch was poorly executed, Google Podcasts went to the graveyard, and Google pay getting shut down meant I had to switch back to vomits Venmo.
I still have Android gaming handhelds, but why wouldn’t I just get an iPhone the next time I go to replace my phone? I can’t believe I’m even saying that after being so die hard Android so for years.
why wouldn’t I just get an iPhone
Jumping from the frying pan straight into the fire.
Exactly this. Just left iOS and got a pixel8a and flashed grapheneos on it. Apple is doing the same shit. GOS might be a pain in the ass sometimes but I feel much better knowing that Tim Apple isn’t reading my texts and monitoring my bank apps so they can target me with ads.
I can’t do Graphene because of work. I am an IT manager, and one of our guys did graphene and had a host of issues with the work apps. I really can’t risk any issues.
This is the unfortunate hell I am in too. I’m debating an iPhone and I fucking hate Apple with a passion.
It is a tough choice, both companies are gigantic and kind of scumbags. Funny story though, I was also in the market for a new computer recently as my 10 year old Windows 10 tower was really starting to show its age. My frustrations with Windows had also peaked.
I have been doing a more photo and video editing for fun, and I ended up taking a leap. I got an M4 Pro Mac mini. Mac OS is definitively better (IMO) for home use than Windows, and the M series processors are like wizardry. I liked it so much that shortly after I bought a used M2 Max MacBook Pro off of a coworker.
Coincidentally, a few months after I got my Macs LTT also switched over first to Snapdragon-based Windows laptops and later to Macs for a 30-day challenge and they ended up staying on the Macs.
I am an IT manager and I don’t think I would ever want to deploy Macs at scale in my workplace, though it is the only computer I look forward to using now.
Personally I’ll never purchase a Mac.
It sucks that at this point both systems suck. Apple is not great but at least it’s been pretty stable. If Apple allowed side loading that would be the dream.
Yeah, Apple is also a very proprietary ecosystem in a walled-garden style presentation. I don’t want an appliance. I want a computer.
I’m sure we all have a different perception, but my current view is that Google sells you a phone that they need to push ads and harvest vast amounts of data from you in order to make money on the phone, and Apple somehow needs to do this less.
Which company do you feel takes privacy more seriously? From what I understand, Google primarily makes their money from advertising.
I’ve never owned an iPhone, but I 100% agree with you. The reason I choose android is because of the freedom to use my phone how i want (for the most part).
Apple is a walled garden, but their security is good, they’re not an advertising company in the same way google is and don’t have as much of an incentive to harvest and sell your data. If android is going to be a walled garden like iOS, I trust apple more than i do google and If in the future I can’t find a phone that has all the features i want anyway, then i may as well just get an iPhone.
Agreed across all points. Android’s main advantages after the changes go through with side loading will be:
- choice of manufacturer and
- the still-deeply-flawed-but-far-superior implementation of a work profile in Android.
I love being able to press one button and have all of my containerized work apps shut off. It is also quite nice that a remote wipe from M365 could be limited to the work app container rather than the entire phone.
They also managed to remove a feature from the fucking clock app. It’s not much, but seriously, it’s like a headless chicken running toward a cliff from the business end.
Google pay being shut down is news to me. I still pay contactless with Google pay and also for paying on websites…
Isn’t this like 90% of the reason people prefer android over apple?
it was. Time for a new phone OS.
I doubt most people care that much. I do, but I don’t know anyone else who does.
But even if I were to lose this, I would not even consider switching to apple (but I would consider switching to something more open).
It is, yeah. It’s like 100% of the reason for me. I’m gonna buy an iPhone later this year most likely.
Understandable, if youre gonna eat straight up dog shit it might as well be gourmet dogshit
Two things especially worth noting from the article.
If you have a non-Google build of Android on your phone, none of this applies.
This means that at least GrapheneOS will be unaffected for now. Other ROMs without gapps will be unaffected only as long as you don’t install gapps. Since Graphene has a sandbox for them, I’m assuming it’ll be fine. That is, unless Google decides to lock the bootloader entirely.
In September 2026, Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The next step is still hazy, but Google is targeting 2027 to expand the verification requirements globally.
So most users worldwide still have at least 1.5 years until it’s implemented. Plenty of time to get a Pixel and install Graphene on it. Or to figure out some other plan.
Don’t get me wrong - this is insane, unreasonable and horrible news for everyone. We should push back as hard as physically possible against it. However, at the very least we still have some time to figure things out before the policy rolls out.
Last I checked, unverified software didn’t run the risk of making my phone fly itself into, and bring down, a skyscraper.
You haven’t seen the way I write code.
I guess it’s time to buy a linux phone
Support for this will grow, I hope. Linux on PC has been really easy for the past 10 or so years, but phones often have locked bootloaders. There’s not that much support for different models either, feels like a work in progress. I hope someone just starts up a volunteer organisation that can provide pre-installed free software. Not just one centralised company, but multiple outlets.
Great i guess it is time to root my phone, and run a custom rom. I haven’t had to do that in years because android finally got good.
I need an OS for phone which is completely controlled by community.
GrapheneOS for Pixel
How does it compare with LineageOS? What are the pros and cons in your opinion?
They are very different.
GrapheneOS’ whole thing is security and privacy. It’s big on sandboxing apps and browser sessions. Google Play and most Android features are opt-in (Google Play Services are also sandboxed). Just check their features.
LineageOS doesn’t have most of the above. It’s mostly just a regular barebones Android distribution without all the vendor bloat, and a great alternative if you just want more control and less BS (if you’ve used a Samsung device you will know what I mean - absolutely horrible distribution imo).
LineageOS also significantly regresses security compared to barebones AOSP.
- Userdebug builds
- No locked bootloader or verified boot
- Incomplete backports of patches
Fuck Google
Well. They will try anyway.
Please let this be a nightmare…
Because of using Shelter, this will make my phone practically unusable.
This is fucking ridiculous
Ok this needs harsh pushback, because phones are affordable, computers are not. There needs to be a massive project dealing with making phones platform agnostic.
Have you shopped for those items recently? You have 200 buck computers and 2000 buck phones.
Also I live in a 3rd-world country
So does Google.
My current phone, a Pixel 7a, cost me around 350€ (let’s say it’s roughly the same in $). There is definitely cheaper options. And most of these options will give you a decent phone.
A $200 computer will bring you to basic office stuff and playing facebook games.
A 350€ computer will be capable of similar computing power as a 350€ phone, plus the form factorc comfort. I struggle to do basic office stuff on my high end phone, for instance.
This is dystopian.
