How to select a mobile OS
19 points by abnercoimbre
19 points by abnercoimbre
I really appreciate how this post leads with all the trade-offs of using a fringe mobile operating system. It provides a metal checklist of what I could or could not do with out if I chose to switch.
I think it misses the largest trade-off, which is that it's not just mobile payments which you lose, but also banking apps. This is especially crucial since in the UK to log on to mobile banking usually requires using the app for 2FA, which you then cannot do.
Heavily depends on your bank/banking app. All the ones I tried worked on Waydroid without any fiddling: ING, mBank, Revolut, and a few more.
Some of the bank apps print a warning, that your device might be insecure, but 2FA for gov services works nonetheless and I use it everyday.
I read on a forum that sometimes you have to reach out to your bank to allow installation on a compatibility layer like Waydroid, but it seems like they are obligated to comply with your request (at least in the EU/Poland).
It does indeed. Last I checked Monzo worked for me but HSBC didn't, which is one of the larger banks in the country. None of my building societys worked either.
In the UK they are not obligated to comply with that request.
Is this a banking policy at the national level? Can you write a letter to your representative about this? This seems like a horrible access issue along with exposing all citizens to US big tech. Last time I lived in the UK cash & plastic still worked for basically everything…
I also liked the Degoogling checklist. Got me to write my own~
It’s quite the journey going down this path. I’m a decade in & the only things left I don’t have real replacement for is Voice (JMP is great, but I just don’t need a US phone number often enough to justify the cost) & YouTube (Peertube doesn’t have anywhere enough steam, & Nebula has some of the greatest hits, but lack the ubiquity). Now if you could get businesses off a GSuite & users off GMail… as private conversations require both sides to be off Google to truly work. …That & many worry about unGoogling without unMicrosofting too.
Now if you could get businesses off a GSuite & users off GMail…
Proton has faced criticism for larping a bit with privacy, but it's still a real improvement over Google. They're obviously positioning themselves as a GSuite replacement, what with the recent release of Proton Meet which I hear works pretty well.
I have mixed feelings about Proton (I left them as my primary account several years ago), but even scattering your data across different platforms helps user to not have a single, all-knowing entity. I would welcome it—even if it’s just one step in the right direction (same with my feelings about Signal).
This is the first I'm hearing of iodéOS and it looks interesting. I've got a Pixel 9 Pro XL that I'd like to degoogle, but I don't have the patience to babysit my main phone and I really need a functional camera.
I can corroborate having tried most of these. My main phone is a Sailfish OS phone running on alpha-supported (they say beta, but call a spade a spade) Sony phone. The access to Android really helps smooth over my 2 missing services: a decent XMPP client (using Cheogram) & a decent mail client (Thunderbird); Sailfish technically has both but they are unusable with the lack of features. My crypto exchange app & an investment + checking app work fine thru Android, but my ‘main’ local bank app doesn’t even work on LineageOS without waay too much tinkering in that arms race (ironic since I cashed out my prior bank on these grounds, but 3 years later the new bank caught up in being hostile toward owning your device) …so I gave up & almost exclusively do cash + physical bank visits now, occasionally debit, & rarely open the never-mobile-optimized website to do the arduous task of a transfer that was built for a workflow from 2 decades ago. Sailfish OS has a Signal access via 3rd-party WhisperFish that works surprising well given the project resources—tho has rough edges trying to keep up with upstream sometimes breaking what seem like should be stable APIs considering it’s just chat; but it works well enough to be registered as a primary device & I schedule any ‘necessary’ calls for when I have access to my linked laptop (tho needing a mobile “primary” device is another misstep with Signal that really makes me regret getting my family to switch to Signal years ago). The Sailfish browser is also so unfortunately outdated being Fx 91 which in the last year has degraded to the point that it’s almost unusable with folks even doing basic sites that don’t require the evergreen features of browsers (as is the defaults in a lot of front-end tooling too unfortunately), that most things have stop functioning when it used to just be deal-with-it-able broken CSS (more reason to stop needlessly requiring JavaScript!); Fennec from F-Droid has had to step up to fill the browser bill & it works without hitch; the main trade-off is the native one is a bit smoother + supports about:config + userStyles like desktop, with the flipside of Fennec actually working + has add-ons (uBlock is hard to live without). I get no fingerprint reader, or working camera, & even my most beloved feature, a headphone jack, is rendered useless without the firmware patched in (tho Jolla says the next big patch it should be ready along with some of the other big hardware issues), but at least the phone + SMS + hotspot part works along with the ability to run real Nix on my hardware.
My backup is a different Sony device running LineageOS for microG as it takes a lot of the setup pain out of running unGoogled LineageOS & I think upstream’s arguments about this fork is bad is just wrong which I think was about some spoofing mechanism (it was so long ago). Sadly this device is before Sony fixed the thermals (don’t get any gen before V) & has green lines (the Xperia subreddit seems to affectionately call them “lightsabers”) in the screen & replacements ended in the same state. The only real downside of this fork you need official LineageOS to get a ROM—which is annoying since there are unofficial LineageOS builds for almost every phone. So what do I have on this phone that makes me carry 2 phones? 1) there’s a game I play with my partner, 2) GPS + maps (which I don’t use that often since my watch has a compass & I don’t mind asking directions in any country—where getting lost mostly leads to something fun/unexpected), 3) Matrix as I don’t want that resource usage bloat on my lesser-powered Sailfish OS device, 4) placing XMPP/Mumble VoIP calls as they crash Sailfish OS on the alpha-level support, 5) that pesky headphone jack so I can listen to something on the go that isn’t music (I have a dedicated DAP, but it’s a bit of a faff to deal with audio casts/books since it doesn’t save state).
After both Android app support for the Sailfish OS phone + general news of sideloading (terrible FUD-inducing name for, ya know, installing software) was going to be banned by default & involve wait times on Android… I saw the final writing on the wall & needed to turn that whim Sailfish OS phone I had been playing with as my main phone starting my off ramp to give myself & others time to accommodate/adjust. I can’t be having these US tech companies controlling me. …I do however see a sadly probably inevitable future where I retire my fits-in-a-human-hand-sized LineageOS phone & instead need to carry basically a burner for the horrible world that is digital payments backed by spyware OSs on digital kiosks we call modern smart phones—especially I would need to travel to the West (hopefully I don’t). I won’t be considering any Jolla phones tho: they don’t sell them in my market & the latest iteration removed the headphone jack.
Why not GrapheneOS? I have a Pixel 10 Pro with GrapheneOS and all the hardware works. Also much better security and faster security updates than any of the options discussed (in fact, GrapheneOS also applies the embargoed patches that will be released in future Android Security Bulletins).
If you want to half-transition, GrapheneOS supports sandboxed Google Play Services. So you can use most Android apps, including those that use Play Services, but Google does not get privileged access on your phone. It's just like any other app and you can revoke most of Play Services' permissions.
Primary thing that doesn't work is passing strong Google Play Integrity (basic works), which means that contactless payments with Google Pay and some banks, etc. do not work (my bank, national ID, credit card, and mortgage apps work fine though).
You got me at "most apps" but you lost me at "contactless payments [...] do not work". That's basically my main use case for my Pixel9XL.
I wanted to ditch Google walled garden but it's so convenient. Any idea if there are any OSes which could support payments?
edit:
You can't pay with your phone. This works almost exclusively with Google's software. Neither can degoogled Androids make it available, nor can mobile Linux distributions. I won't repeat it for every alternative.
Google Pay is not going to work on any other system long-term, since Google will not attest them. You can fake another phone through leaked TEE keys, but your Pay support will be living on borrowed time, since Google will eventually block these keys.
There are several alternatives. For instance, some banks do not use Google Pay, but NFC directly, and those will usually work. Unfortunately, banks that do this have largely disappeared, at least from Europe. Another alternative is using something like Garmin Pay on a Garmin watch (after adding Garmin Pay, you can use the watch through GadgetBridge if you do not want to send data to Garmin). This is what I'm currently doing. Unfortunately, in my country, not all shops accept credit-card backed NFC payments (debit-card backed NFC payments always work). And since my bank does not support Garmin Pay, I have to use a credit card (which is from a separate company, which does support Garmin Pay).
So, yes, alternatives are going to hurt a bit. But nothing will ever change if everyone stays in the duopoly.
Just to endorse this comment, I happily use Curve Pay via NFC on my Pixel 7 running GrapheneOS. One does need to have the sandboxed Google Play Services enabled, but to me that feels like a reasonable trade off for the convenience
to add a bit more to that - in Poland one can use contactless BLIK paymentwith 6 out of top 10 largest banks here. There are also more widely available BLIK codes (basically every bank here has support, even Revolut) and they're widely supported both online & in-store
I'm kinda biased, but it's a bummer it's not available elsewhere, because it's way more convenient than using card (especially for online payments, as you just have to type 6-digit code and confirm the prompt)
I heard about expansion to Romania, but I'm not sure what's the current status and whether it's working with PLN-RON conversion
You can't pay with your phone
I am still holding on to my debit cards. I will continue for as long as possible, but I am scared of the day where banks go 'digital only'
Could you elaborate why you find phone-only more convenient?
The lack of functional camera is a Fairphone 5 thing specifically, not an AOSP thing generally. Camera is at minimum fine on most devices. If you're installing LineageOS on something, the device page for official devices or the XDA Developers thread for unofficial devices will tell you what does and doesn't work. GrapheneOS supports a narrow range of devices (Pixels that are still supported upstream), but supports them all perfectly.
The bigger limitation is stuff that depends on Google's blessing specifically like most contactless payments and some banking apps. You won't find those supported by any OS except the stock Android provided by the phone's manufacturer.
This was a great read. Some years ago I ended up with Fairphone 3 and lineageOS for similar reasons, although at the time, the state of AOSP-based distributions looked different. I'm still running the FP3+lineageOS and even got extra screen and battery, so I'm hoping will last me another 5 or so years.
The main camera will not work. Although secondary cameras (like ultra-wide) and selfie cameras might work to a certain degree, for many devices, there is no solution so far to make the main camera work properly.
On these devices, the images taken are noisier, blurrier, and more discolored than the camera would be capable of under stock Android. The reason is the chipset manufacturer's decision to force you to use Google's product. Monopoly men scratch each other's backs. There is also the lack of proprietary post-processing software that is included in stock Androids by the manufacturers. Both are hard to replicate.
(emphasis mine)
That isn't really the case. The issue really mostly boils down to they only support some old downstream kernel with android. Doesn't even have to be googled android.
Strange you mention the main camera doesn't work. On pmOS it's known. But I've used LineageOS on my Fairphone 5 and I certainly have the main camera working.