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ardi60@reddthat.com to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 20 days ago

Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid

www.neowin.net

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Google's shocking developer decree struggles to justify the urgent threat to F-Droid

www.neowin.net

ardi60@reddthat.com to Technology@lemmy.worldEnglish · 20 days ago
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Google's new developer mandate is hitting alternative app stores hard. F-Droid says forced registration, fees, and ID checks could end the open-source project.
  • cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de
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    20 days ago

    There’s never been a more urgent time to switch to Linux on pretty much every device.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      20 days ago

      The mobile options for Linux are years out from being ready and the hardware vendors are locking them out as fast as possible.

      • tomenzgg@midwest.social
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        20 days ago

        There’s generally been positive reviews for FuriLab’s FLX1 model:

        • https://clehaxze.tw/gemlog/2025/07-20-flx1-actually-usable-linux-phone.gmi
        • https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41839326
        • https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1fa1ljn/furilabs_flx1/
        • https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1j46f2w/flx1_linux_phone_display_out/
        • https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/03/furiphone_flx1/

        Their new one, the FLX1s has 2GiB more RAM (for 8GiB, in total). I’ve heard battery gets 2 days without charge even with Android emulation.

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          19 days ago

          It’s still Android kernel and drivers :/ but it is private. For Linux you’d need postmarket or one of their derivatives and they are fighting to get cameras and power under control.

          prob the best we have at the moment.

          edit: to be clear, I’m saying Halium is the best we have at the moment, real linux is trucking along but it’s still a long way out.

          • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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            19 days ago

            and what’s the problem with android other than google’s fuckery?

            • rumba@lemmy.zip
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              19 days ago

              Assuming google’s fuckery doesn’t affect them, nothing.

              But we’re relying on google to keep up that code and not see them as a threat. Right now AOK, but in the future that makes longevity questionable.

              It’s something to be noticed and understood so there’s no surprises when the company that did no evil now does all the evil.

              • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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                19 days ago

                they can take down the code today and not much will happen, as the code is mirrored elsewhere.

                • rumba@lemmy.zip
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                  19 days ago

                  Obv, they can’t take what we have, which is why for now we’re OK. The winds are shifting, though. I expect at some point, I expect android will require a deal with the devil from manufacturers. Start actively combatting linux phones.

                  For now, it’s a quick path to privacy, long term, we’re going to need friendly hardware

                • mfed1122@discuss.tchncs.de
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                  18 days ago

                  I think the big problem with this, as far as I know, is that this code needs pretty rapid security updates that require a fairly huge and experienced team of people to both find, understand and implement the security changes. Otherwise it becomes very insecure very quickly. So yeah we can always use 2019 Android, etc. But it would just put you at a huge security risk.

                  • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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                    18 days ago

                    doesn’t the same apply to any operating system, including the linux phone distributions? android has security measures that may be breached, but mobile linux has much fewer security measures at all

              • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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                18 days ago

                By “Google’s fuckery” you mean “Google doing all the updates and giving it to them” though, right?

                Until these alternative AOSP-derived OS developers stop relying on Google and start doing their own stuff, Google will have the ability to break their OS’s. This isn’t a Google issue, it’s a OS developer issue.

        • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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          deleted by creator

          • tomenzgg@midwest.social
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            19 days ago

            Sure; but we won’t close that gap immediately. Intermediate progress can be helpful for further progress.

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              deleted by creator

      • cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de
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        20 days ago

        So it would seem.

    • pHr34kY@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      The stepping-stone would be de-googled Android like LineageOS or GrapheneOS. I think Linux is the end-game though.

    • Photuris@lemmy.ml
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      deleted by creator

      • cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de
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        20 days ago

        Beats me! I’m in the process of moving banking and payment off my phone in preparation for a Linux one. These things will very likely not work on non-proprietary devices.

        • FutileRecipe@lemmy.world
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          20 days ago

          These things will very likely not work on non-proprietary devices.

          Depends on your bank. Most work on alternate OS (like GrapheneOS), and of course some don’t. https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/

          If an app (especially bank) doesn’t work, I forward them this and try to ELI5 that their current method is flawed and less secure: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide

        • Prathas@lemmy.zip
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          18 days ago

          I’m in the process of moving banking and payment off my phone

          Go on… How are you doing so?

          • cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de
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            18 days ago

            Going for plastic when paying instead of using a digital wallet, using the banks’ websites for transactions instead of the app.

            • Prathas@lemmy.zip
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              15 days ago

              Oh, yeah, absolutely. Mobile apps should only ever be used for check-scanning or for features that the online banking simply doesn’t allow (which would be messed up of the bank to do); same with mobile wallets.

    • kepix@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      wish it would have support

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