As someone who switched from FP4 with /e/OS to GrapheneOS - absolutely not true.
My reason for switching was a bug where the phone calls didn't display the caller number. So I switched to GOS in hope it would be better... and it is, but not in all areas. For example their insistence on not supporting MicroG leads to poor UX, because let's face it, you can't trust Google services, even sandboxed, to not syphon tons of data into the cloud. MicroG was easybto use for privacy. They also seem to be very opinionated about (not) using a firewall for privacy, like NetGuard, instead recommending some weird alternatives like DNS firewalls. And don't get me started on their icons - I don't mind ugly-ish icons, but they are taking the ugliness to a whole new level.
GrapheneOS is not a bad OS, but it is very opinionated, and they (heavily) prioritize security over privacy. When I turn FP4 on, I still like it way better than GOS. Still, I like seeing who is calling, so I'm not going back... Ymmv.
I wonder how this compares to GrapheneOS in practice.
>Operated by Murena, your Murena Workspace account @murena.io is at the centre of the ecosystem, allowing to store, back up and retrieve your data safely on remote servers.
This sounds like their version is somewhat married to Murena. While probably better than Google, still not independent.
They're also advertising features such as "hiding your IP address [...] when you feel like it" – which sounds a lot like a VPN – without mentioning much about who the traffic is going through or how they might log it.
Tweaking user-hostile OSes into user-friendly ones is impressive, but not sustainable. Even worse, it slowing us down from leaving Android entirely.
Look at the AdBlocker crackdown of Google Chrome. Every single chrome-fork has shut down MV2 extensions, even Brave is about to do it, because it is impossible to maintain features that complex on a browser that Google spends >$1B/year to develop.
Same story for /e/ and GrapheneOS, the day Google pulls the plug on source code releases, god knows how long they will last. We should focus our efforts on truly open platforms.
At this point it is very difficult to develop truly open OSs for mobiles because so much of the hardware depends on undocumented binary blobs.
As I see it, the only options is to go for a drastically simpler design of the hardware - which means, we have to tone down our expectations especially when it comes to things like gaming performance, camera performance etc.
Over time even these things can be improved but it is going to take a few years.
In the meantime, I am not sure many people are willing to make those compromises to have a truly open hardware and OS though.
"Tweaking user-hostile OSes into user-friendly ones is impressive, but not sustainable."
Not sure about the first claim but the second is obvious. Yet peculiarly ignored
The OS literally comes from Google. As such, the term "de-Googled" is quite strange. Another recent HN front page item about the other project mentioned recently used the phrase "break free from Google" and currently only runs on Google hardware
AFAICT, the most significant issue with Android is "phoning home". Unwanted data transfer to third party. This is embedded in the OS. Google is the third party. Google operates as if it should be trusted as if it was a first party (why)
IMO, a user-friendly (cf. user-hostile) mobile OS would be one that does not phone home. But at times it seems like these projects are OK with the idea of phoning home to third party, as long as it isn't Google
Users will never have a mobile OS that does everything Android does, with the same polish, that isn't attached to a trillion dollar corporation. That "goal" results in projects where the majority of the Google-sourced code is unchanged instead of user-controlled source code
It isn't _that_ difficult to stop Android, i.e., system, pre-installed and user-installed "apps", from successfully phoning home (cf. trying to phone home) over WiFi. For example, this can be done by changing gateway and DNS settings. If the user installs an app that can forward ports nd use the the built-in VPN support, successfully phoning home over cellular data can be stopped, too
But a corporate-sourced OS like Android can change at any time for any reason. It changes often. Users have no control
I see some HN comments are starting to acknowledge the idea that control can be more important than performance. IMO, it can also be more important than "features"
Only if a user can embrace this idea can he begin to truly "break free" from the trillion dollar surveillance advertising company. Otherwise, sacrificing control for "performance", "features", etc., will always leave the user tethered to the company
With the corportate-sourced OS users have no control over performance, features, etc. anyway. The corporation controls them
Until there is a user-controlled, open source mobile OS like other form factors (HN commenters often claim this is not going to happen for good reasons), then, IMHO, "mobile" sucks
Generally, we all have to use mobile, as least for some purposes, e.g., it's replaced residential landlines, paper maps, and so on. But none of this means it is a good choice for for so-called "general purpose computing". It's not a computer the user can control
I don't get what's so user-hostile about Android. Everything negative about the ecosystem is mostly Google Play and the legacy of every OEM forking Android for the better part of a decade. Sure, file pickers are inconsistent, filesystem is chaotic but it's performing quite well on most hardware, runs on phones, TVs, laptops, tablets and mini PCs and AOSP doesn't contain any hooks for Google to siphon off data. GrapheneOS isn't so much undoing evil Google stuff but extending upon their work and improving memory protection and adds security features that can be easily toggled based on assumed threat models of the user.
Google's ownership of Android is definitely headed towards user hostility though, I'm not arguing against that. But just the source that GrapheneOS is based off of doesn't contain too much stuff that shouldn't be there, to my knowledge.
Personally I'm pretty happy with GrapheneOS (Android AOSP distribution) and also donating to it. It works for me, its licensed under a free software license, there are plenty of cool free software applications available. I'm familiar with Android application development if I need something custom.
Unless Android (itself, not Google Play Services because I don't depend on them) goes closed source I don't see a reason to switch to something (imo) inferior.
I have nothing PmOS, phosh and other free mobile smartphone projects and will probably redirect my resources towards them if Android goes closed source.
Not that it matters but I just noticed certain titles on their website can be edited. For example the text "Use our /e/OS Installer" can be modified and I noticed it because I accidentally pasted my clipboard there. I suppose contenteditable should be set to "false".
fuck me i'm doing work even though i should be working right now
The irony of advertising a privacy-enabled de-googled system, and then telling me that my Firefox browser is not support, and that I should use Edge, Opera or Chrome instead....
e/OS is not degoogled, only some of the functionality has been rewritten in microG (eg not implementing security checks but instead spoofing them), but still uses Google play sdk and libraries.
Additionally it runs in the privileged mode, so any exploit on that, well, means back luck.
I have both a Jolla C2 phone, and an E/Os device, on a nothing CMS1 phone. Both are great. I like the Jolla Phone for its SailfishOS, which has great UI/Ux. I am less enthusiastic about the hardware. (good enough though) The E/OS really is good, all apps work good, and really much is done for privacy protection. But if the hardware is more performant, and with a few extra features i'd still opt for SailfishOS
I get the appeal of degoogling, but this seems to just be replacing that with alternatives run by another commercial company, just one I've never heard of before.
Why does it even need "One account for your privacy" ... "Operated by Murena, your Murena Workspace account @murena.io is at the centre of the ecosystem" when it'd be even better to have everything on-device without an account at all.
Even more, Murena seems to be owned by Qwant who seem to be in the business of selling a search engine, and while they currently claim to be all about user privacy, this is basically exactly how Google started nearly 30 years ago.
I wonder if they'd be happy if, for instance, somebody took this system and debundled Murena and switched it to using duckduckgo. Would they embrace that too, or sue them into oblivion?
Tell me how you can set up an Android device and install apps that require Google Play services (like all the most popular and important apps) and not have Google syphone all your contacts details. I mean everything: name, date of birth, addresses, emails, websites, relationships,etc.
Answer: you cannot.
Any time you log into a Google account just to use the Play Store, Android will instantly starts syncing all your contacts and you can't prevent that. You can't even toggle airplane mode as a network connection is required to login. And you cannot configure Android not to sync all contacts data with new Google accounts by default.
I bet Google has syphoned the details of every single person on Earth (without their consent) and I have to trust them not to use that?
At the link, I see a lot of text about a company called Murena. Including:
> Operated by Murena, your Murena Workspace account @murena.io is at the
> centre of the ecosystem, allowing to store, back up and retrieve your
> data safely on remote servers.
That seems to suggest that we would be replacing one large overbearing corporation with a smaller and less-evil overbearing corporation. Is e/OS an open-source facade for Murena?
/e/OS and Murena are the same company. Initially, they used the name /e/ everywhere, but a single letter is not searchable on the web, so they rebranded to Murena. Everything is now called Murena except the OS itself.
> as we are reaching more and more people and progressively catching interested from a mainstream audience, we have to introduce a new, strong brand, easier to use, easier to refer to and easier to share with people.
* /e/OS sends user speech data to OpenAI without consent [1], and thought this was ok until they got caught [2].
* /e/OS massively delays security patches, and calls this a "standard industry practice" [3]. Meanwhile, GrapheneOS' opt-in security preview releases provide early access to security updates prior to official disclosure [4]. Also see [0] (Security update speed) and [7] (WebView being 40 security updates behind).
* microG downloads and executes proprietary Google binaries in a privileged environment [5] [6]. You can obviously not audit these, nor should this count as "degoogled".
* microG still phones home to Google by default (android.clients.google.com for device registration check-in, mtalk.google.com for FCM push, firebaseinstallations.googleapis.com for SIM activations) [7].
[0] has a comparison of popular privacy and security-focused Android-based OS, which paints the whole picture. Privacy-friendly does not necessarily mean secure, but in this case "privacy-friendly" is quite a stretch already.
Your speech data assertion looks to be inaccurate, the user does have to opt in. Nor does the response sound like a mea culpa. I wouldn't use it, but seems reasonable for people who might want to.
I have been using e/OS but moved away when an upgrade to the next version required to manually wipe the device. I could cope with the little inconveniences of a degoogled phone, but wiping the device myself following a unclear procedure was too much for me. My phone is not a hacking subject. It's a tool. Still, it worked reasonably well and I would have upgraded and kept using it if the upgrade had been easier.
I'm currently looking for a new Android phone. I don't like the Pixel and deep integration with Google. I looked at the Fairphone with /e/OS and the Pixel with GrapheneOS, but unfortunately there's no certainty that everything will work or where the boundary is between Google Android and "clean" Android. For example, it turned out that Android Auto is essentially Google Auto and I don't what find out what is dependent on Google. I want something that just works. A phone isn't something I want to tinker with like Linux ten years ago. So basically the choice comes down to Samsung and Chinese brands.
Why rip off Apple design so much here (see homescreen image). Seems like a lot of unnecessary effort. Plus it’s not done well enough so instead of looking like itself, it looks like a bad ripoff.
For how polished the launcher looks, it's a bit jarring to install /e/ and realize that under the hood, all the apps are just running a very stock Material theme. I'm not shaming the developers; developing a custom theme is no doubt an involved task that they don't have the resources for.
68 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 76.2 ms ] threadhttps://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
My reason for switching was a bug where the phone calls didn't display the caller number. So I switched to GOS in hope it would be better... and it is, but not in all areas. For example their insistence on not supporting MicroG leads to poor UX, because let's face it, you can't trust Google services, even sandboxed, to not syphon tons of data into the cloud. MicroG was easybto use for privacy. They also seem to be very opinionated about (not) using a firewall for privacy, like NetGuard, instead recommending some weird alternatives like DNS firewalls. And don't get me started on their icons - I don't mind ugly-ish icons, but they are taking the ugliness to a whole new level.
GrapheneOS is not a bad OS, but it is very opinionated, and they (heavily) prioritize security over privacy. When I turn FP4 on, I still like it way better than GOS. Still, I like seeing who is calling, so I'm not going back... Ymmv.
>Operated by Murena, your Murena Workspace account @murena.io is at the centre of the ecosystem, allowing to store, back up and retrieve your data safely on remote servers.
This sounds like their version is somewhat married to Murena. While probably better than Google, still not independent.
They're also advertising features such as "hiding your IP address [...] when you feel like it" – which sounds a lot like a VPN – without mentioning much about who the traffic is going through or how they might log it.
Look at the AdBlocker crackdown of Google Chrome. Every single chrome-fork has shut down MV2 extensions, even Brave is about to do it, because it is impossible to maintain features that complex on a browser that Google spends >$1B/year to develop.
Same story for /e/ and GrapheneOS, the day Google pulls the plug on source code releases, god knows how long they will last. We should focus our efforts on truly open platforms.
As I see it, the only options is to go for a drastically simpler design of the hardware - which means, we have to tone down our expectations especially when it comes to things like gaming performance, camera performance etc.
Over time even these things can be improved but it is going to take a few years.
In the meantime, I am not sure many people are willing to make those compromises to have a truly open hardware and OS though.
Not sure about the first claim but the second is obvious. Yet peculiarly ignored
The OS literally comes from Google. As such, the term "de-Googled" is quite strange. Another recent HN front page item about the other project mentioned recently used the phrase "break free from Google" and currently only runs on Google hardware
AFAICT, the most significant issue with Android is "phoning home". Unwanted data transfer to third party. This is embedded in the OS. Google is the third party. Google operates as if it should be trusted as if it was a first party (why)
IMO, a user-friendly (cf. user-hostile) mobile OS would be one that does not phone home. But at times it seems like these projects are OK with the idea of phoning home to third party, as long as it isn't Google
Users will never have a mobile OS that does everything Android does, with the same polish, that isn't attached to a trillion dollar corporation. That "goal" results in projects where the majority of the Google-sourced code is unchanged instead of user-controlled source code
It isn't _that_ difficult to stop Android, i.e., system, pre-installed and user-installed "apps", from successfully phoning home (cf. trying to phone home) over WiFi. For example, this can be done by changing gateway and DNS settings. If the user installs an app that can forward ports nd use the the built-in VPN support, successfully phoning home over cellular data can be stopped, too
But a corporate-sourced OS like Android can change at any time for any reason. It changes often. Users have no control
I see some HN comments are starting to acknowledge the idea that control can be more important than performance. IMO, it can also be more important than "features"
Only if a user can embrace this idea can he begin to truly "break free" from the trillion dollar surveillance advertising company. Otherwise, sacrificing control for "performance", "features", etc., will always leave the user tethered to the company
With the corportate-sourced OS users have no control over performance, features, etc. anyway. The corporation controls them
Until there is a user-controlled, open source mobile OS like other form factors (HN commenters often claim this is not going to happen for good reasons), then, IMHO, "mobile" sucks
Generally, we all have to use mobile, as least for some purposes, e.g., it's replaced residential landlines, paper maps, and so on. But none of this means it is a good choice for for so-called "general purpose computing". It's not a computer the user can control
Not sure what this fatalism is about but it's a hysterical take.
Google's ownership of Android is definitely headed towards user hostility though, I'm not arguing against that. But just the source that GrapheneOS is based off of doesn't contain too much stuff that shouldn't be there, to my knowledge.
Unless Android (itself, not Google Play Services because I don't depend on them) goes closed source I don't see a reason to switch to something (imo) inferior.
I have nothing PmOS, phosh and other free mobile smartphone projects and will probably redirect my resources towards them if Android goes closed source.
But then again, maybe that's the point :)
> a unique privacy enhanced environment.
... consider proofreading.
fuck me i'm doing work even though i should be working right now
Browsing:
https://e.foundation/installer/
Reply:
https://imgur.com/a/al1Q9DM
Additionally it runs in the privileged mode, so any exploit on that, well, means back luck.
Very poor first impression.
This seems like the worst of both worlds.
I get the appeal of degoogling, but this seems to just be replacing that with alternatives run by another commercial company, just one I've never heard of before.
Why does it even need "One account for your privacy" ... "Operated by Murena, your Murena Workspace account @murena.io is at the centre of the ecosystem" when it'd be even better to have everything on-device without an account at all.
Even more, Murena seems to be owned by Qwant who seem to be in the business of selling a search engine, and while they currently claim to be all about user privacy, this is basically exactly how Google started nearly 30 years ago.
I wonder if they'd be happy if, for instance, somebody took this system and debundled Murena and switched it to using duckduckgo. Would they embrace that too, or sue them into oblivion?
EDIT: maybe I was too hasty. I've just seen that it's open source and it seems like you can self-host the required cloud parts: https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/infra/ecloud-selfhosting
Answer: you cannot.
Any time you log into a Google account just to use the Play Store, Android will instantly starts syncing all your contacts and you can't prevent that. You can't even toggle airplane mode as a network connection is required to login. And you cannot configure Android not to sync all contacts data with new Google accounts by default.
I bet Google has syphoned the details of every single person on Earth (without their consent) and I have to trust them not to use that?
F** em
> Operated by Murena, your Murena Workspace account @murena.io is at the > centre of the ecosystem, allowing to store, back up and retrieve your > data safely on remote servers.
That seems to suggest that we would be replacing one large overbearing corporation with a smaller and less-evil overbearing corporation. Is e/OS an open-source facade for Murena?
from https://gael-duval.medium.com/murena-smartphones-and-cloud-w... :
> as we are reaching more and more people and progressively catching interested from a mainstream audience, we have to introduce a new, strong brand, easier to use, easier to refer to and easier to share with people.
This is what that auditing actually reveals:
* /e/OS sends user speech data to OpenAI without consent [1], and thought this was ok until they got caught [2].
* /e/OS massively delays security patches, and calls this a "standard industry practice" [3]. Meanwhile, GrapheneOS' opt-in security preview releases provide early access to security updates prior to official disclosure [4]. Also see [0] (Security update speed) and [7] (WebView being 40 security updates behind).
* microG downloads and executes proprietary Google binaries in a privileged environment [5] [6]. You can obviously not audit these, nor should this count as "degoogled".
* microG still phones home to Google by default (android.clients.google.com for device registration check-in, mtalk.google.com for FCM push, firebaseinstallations.googleapis.com for SIM activations) [7].
[0] has a comparison of popular privacy and security-focused Android-based OS, which paints the whole picture. Privacy-friendly does not necessarily mean secure, but in this case "privacy-friendly" is quite a stretch already.
[0] https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
[1] https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114880528716479708
[2] https://community.e.foundation/t/clarification-about-voice-t...
[3] https://community.e.foundation/t/e-os-and-security-updates/7...
[4] https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/27068-grapheneos-security-p...
[5] https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/blob/e19a9985204ec8329c1d9...
[6] https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/blob/e19a9985204ec8329c1d9...
[7] https://www.kuketz-blog.de/e-datenschutzfreundlich-bedeutet-...