Given the way Google is going I'm not sure if my next phone will be Android. I am fully aware that I am probably in the minority here. For me the trust is entirely gone.
Given the way Google is going I'm not sure if my next phone will be Android. I am fully aware that I am probably in the minority here. For me the trust is entirely gone.
There really isn't much of an option. Apple's just as bad if not worse.
At least with an Android i have the option of Graphene, and have access to a terminal, and for now can sideload apps.
With apple there's no choices, so I'll continue to take my chances with Android
Possibly... but the extension of this to Android and Apple is going to be the entire internet shuts you out. And everything else will be a giant Dead Internet crawling with bots.
The sites that require you to log in are precisely the same ones that are crawling with bots. The personal internet or "small web" is, and still will be, full of real content. There are also lots of bot websites that are trying to be small web, but since it's an actual social network and not a giant pool everyone pours stuff into, they don't get traction. If you do find a website that seems to be human but links to a thousand AIslop sites, you'll stop following that guy's links.
It's less about those sites than it is about government services, banking, healthcare, employment, etc
I have to see. As much as I don't like Murena and /e/OS, they seem to have some clout with the EU/EC. Given that they are using microG and also hit by this, they might be able to nudge the EC to act on this.
Also, personally I care less and less. As long as my banks and government apps work, I'll just not use somebody's service if they put up barriers like this.
> Also, personally I care less and less. As long as my banks and government apps work
If most people care less and less, the result would be that banks and government apps will also work less and less.
Look, companies have to prioritise. And the obvious way to prioritise is to say "users are requesting X A LOT and nobody requests Y, so we will do X". Companies never, EVER say "it would be more ethical to do Y, let's do Y".
As people, we can do two things:
* Push our governments to regulate that shit. That means, complain a lot to the government.
* Be vocal to companies and complain when they don't support your system. If enough people do that, it will be prioritised.
Can Graphene OS pass this kind of Google attestation challenge, though?
No.
The hardware attestation (which is used by strict Play Integrity) checks the signature on your OS. It is totally possible to allow signatures other than Google, but Play Integrity doesn't do that.
Companies could totally decide to use hardware attestation and accept systems signed not only by Google, but also other systems (like GrapheneOS). But they don't care because not enough users complain to them.
Users of alternative Androids typically silently move to another service or stop using it entirely. Which is understandable but doesn't help the cause.
Both are terrible for privacy so it comes down to which one has a nicer screen now. :(
I'd rather have Google check an Apple phone attestation than have Google check a Google phone attestation, and vice versa, though, because you can assume each company is trying to keep as much information private to themselves instead of giving it to the other. Google is probably just getting "yes it's an Apple phone" and some kind of temporary token, instead of my IMEI, IMSI, phone number, all signed in accounts, biometrics and so on.
> Apple's just as bad if not worse.
Could you justify that? Because to me it seems like Apple isn't doing anything even like this.
https://httptoolkit.com/blog/apple-private-access-tokens-att...
Also, Apple sells themselves as a privacy company, but often pick (possibly intentionally) insecure defaults. E.g. you might use end-to-end encrypted chats, but by default iCloud backups are not end-to-end encrypted, so law enforcement can just request your backups/chats from Apple. If you are vigilant and enable Advanced Data Protection for E2E iCloud backups, it probably still doesn't matter because the people that you communicate with probably do not have ADP enabled.
Besides that, they are enshittifying in the same way as Google. Ads in Maps, Ads in applications that you get with the OS (Apple Creator Studio ads in Keynote, etc.), Ads in your system settings for Apple Fitness+ (really).
At least Pixel phones and soon some Motorola models have the option of installing GrapheneOS.
Apple never allowed custom ROMs to begin with, so their device attestation feels more seamless: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102591
Motorola + GrapheneOS next year could be an alternative. So far they've been relatively insulated from the changes that have been coming down from Google.
Motorola won't change a thing about hardware attestation. GrapheneOS is locked out from reCAPTCHA because GrapheneOS is signed by GrapheneOS and not by Google.
The way it's going, by the time the Motorola + GrapheneOS phone is out, it will be a lot more painful to use GrapheneOS than today. Not because of GrapheneOS of course, but because everybody accepts that bullshit Google is doing.
If you're waiting for Motorola + GrapheneOS, you could start complaining to banks and other apps that don't support GrapheneOS :-). If enough people did that, maybe those companies would consider it.
I'll be waiting.
In the meantime, I'm currently using a low end Motorola moto g 5G 2023 which lets me turn off Play Services. Chrome and the Google Calendar don't run (really do need to find a replacement calendar), and I couldn't be happier. Motorola's interest in GrapheneOS makes me wonder if they did this on purpose.
For calendar, I now have my own local setup, with Tailscale
Calendar server: https://radicale.org/v3.html Sync: https://manual.davx5.com/
So, you run Radicale server, you can import Google Calendar.
Set up Davx5 on mobile to sync with the local server
Access from anywhere with Tailscale.
Or if you need it now, Pixel + GrapheneOS. Pixel A-series are really affordable. E.g. the 9A is 350 Euro here, have great device security (Google Titan M2 hardware security processor, CPU that supports MTE, etc.), pretty good cameras/camera processing, etc.
https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at...
You won't be alone. I've resolved that this will be my last Googled phone.
My dad runs the family domain/emails/etc. The hard part will be convincing him to degoogle the whole family.
I'm inclined towards keeping an ancient android for those apps that require it, and maybe something open for actual use. Or perhaps a crappy old android for android and a small non-android tablet/laptop for daily-driver stuff, which always works better as a computer anyway!
I'm also becoming open to using software that lies to google about what it is :) Google will treat us like sh*t, why shouldn't we reciprocate.
I've been getting asked more and more how to degoogle stuff by non-nerds.
Android yes, but Graphene is the answer.