Fairphone open-sources Fairphone 5 and 6 software, and Moments switch
28 points by kmaasrud
28 points by kmaasrud
I was really interested as I'm planning on leaving the Apple ecosystem in the next few years, but the getting-started guide for moving to a Fairphone from iOS says create a Google account if you don't already have one.
Nope. no thanks. Apparently you can run a Google free version of Android, but I'm betting lots of stuff doesn't "just work", since they don't ship by default that way, and you apparently have to order it from Fairphone special.
If I'm forced to choose between Google and Apple, I'll stick with Apple. Guess I'll keep looking.
With e/OS, everything works without a Google account nor Google services. Just in case, instead of the included App Lounge, you can install Aurora Store (and of course, F-Droid or any similar one).
The default launcher is quite bad though, i went with the Fossify Launcher.
My biggest gripe about e/OS is that the "hand off" between apps often needs manual configuration.
Even after the "gold plaque to Trump" fiasco?
I'm not sure there's a better party to choose from, here.
You can buy a used phone!
Personally, I'm looking at postmarketOS as my exit strategy.
I still have at least a year given my phone is the oldest model supported by the latest iOS (iPhone 11). So security updates should continue for a bit after that.
You can buy a used phone!
Maybe, but I feel like that supports people who buy a new phone every year, and sell their "old" one. I prefer to buy the latest version, and run it till it literally falls apart (>5y).
A fine anonymization strategy is to create a Google profile with a different name, gender, and age, then use it only for activating your phone and such. https://sive.rs/anon
Then install F-Droid and replace Google's apps with Fossify ones, and voila. DAVx and run your own Radicale CardDAV and CalDAV server so Google never sees your contacts or calendar or really anything else of value.
Damn good privacy.
Unfortunately Google will soon stop allowing sideloading apps, which as far as I understand would make third party stores like f-droid impossible.
The planned, then retired/postponed workaround (because just "no sideloading" would have been the next conflict with the EU) they chose was "allow sideloading but require devs to sign up to get a certificate".
That doesn't seem much better. At least there should be third party certificate authorities
This is great news. In the spirit of "fairness" I would love for them to offer phones with a preinstalled degoogled android (LineageOS for instance).
When I bought my fairphone 6, there was an option to choose /e/os. It was 50€ more and that money was given to /e/os for the development efforts. Sounded pretty reasonable to me but unfortunately, the reseller I bought the phone from didn't have the /e/os option.
edit: I almost forgot the main reason I can't use /e/os, my banking app doesn't work with it.
the website is slow as hell, I had to wait 5s for anything to load. If that's your attention to details, thanks, I already have google/apple and a ton of chinese phones