Murena is in the business of deGoogling Android smartphones in the name of privacy. The French/European firm has been doing this for around five years, as We recently got our hands on a Fairphone 4 running Murena's tracker-blocking /e/OS. Our curiosity was piqued to see an alternative OS running on alt hardware. Step in for a closer look...
Can you elaborate on “limited”? Surely that is what we want. One of the problems with the Play store is certainly not that it does not have a wide enough selection, but rather that it is full of harmful, hostile, dangerous, exploitive software. Any solution to that problem is necessarily going to limit (or one might prefer to say curate) its contents. That is exactly why I use F-Droid. It is limited to software that is not trying to hurt me.
Those products that you “need” to function as professionals are never going to be available in a way that does not exploit you and put you at risk. You’re always going to be trapped with the incumbent marketplace’s shitty practices until you take steps to meet those needs in some other way.
You do not have to personally audit every application you use. After all, you DON’T audit closed applications, and neither does anyone else. At least with an application with code available under a public license, other people have the ability to review it and raise concerns. I can’t see how you can cast that as a disadvantage, just because you don’t personally want to audit the software yourself.
Personally, I’m not comfortable predicating my very livelihood on closed, commercial software that somebody else owns and leverages with the specific intention of exploiting me. That sounds like fucking madness to me.
I guess F-Droid is limited in the sense of low user awareness? Similar to lemmy in the sense that its just not that popular atm, but maybe its gaining popularity?
Can I get my banking app on F-Droid? How about my home security system app? How about a dozen other apps that I want or need, and can’t be replaced by loading a website in Firefox?
This is entirely on the companies. There’s no technical reason or requirement for this happening.
Fdroid works great and is the most likely thing to be adopted, in my opinion. It’s easy enough for anyone to spin up their own fdroid server and distribute their own app.
If you’re wanting to use a new store, you’re going to have to wade through the growing pains of adoption. It’s just a fact of life.
Wait, I assume if you install a banking app through Aurora it still works? Totally fair if that doesn’t work for your needs (you kinda need a google account, even if a blank one, to have it work right now) but I assume installing apps through it doesn’t limit them or make them less functional for having been installed through Aurora?
In what ways do the existing alternatives fall short of compelling?
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Can you elaborate on “limited”? Surely that is what we want. One of the problems with the Play store is certainly not that it does not have a wide enough selection, but rather that it is full of harmful, hostile, dangerous, exploitive software. Any solution to that problem is necessarily going to limit (or one might prefer to say curate) its contents. That is exactly why I use F-Droid. It is limited to software that is not trying to hurt me.
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Those products that you “need” to function as professionals are never going to be available in a way that does not exploit you and put you at risk. You’re always going to be trapped with the incumbent marketplace’s shitty practices until you take steps to meet those needs in some other way.
You do not have to personally audit every application you use. After all, you DON’T audit closed applications, and neither does anyone else. At least with an application with code available under a public license, other people have the ability to review it and raise concerns. I can’t see how you can cast that as a disadvantage, just because you don’t personally want to audit the software yourself.
Personally, I’m not comfortable predicating my very livelihood on closed, commercial software that somebody else owns and leverages with the specific intention of exploiting me. That sounds like fucking madness to me.
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I guess F-Droid is limited in the sense of low user awareness? Similar to lemmy in the sense that its just not that popular atm, but maybe its gaining popularity?
Sure, but that’s not going to be helped by making something new that’s “compelling” – which is the topic at hand
Can I get my banking app on F-Droid? How about my home security system app? How about a dozen other apps that I want or need, and can’t be replaced by loading a website in Firefox?
This is entirely on the companies. There’s no technical reason or requirement for this happening.
Fdroid works great and is the most likely thing to be adopted, in my opinion. It’s easy enough for anyone to spin up their own fdroid server and distribute their own app.
If you’re wanting to use a new store, you’re going to have to wade through the growing pains of adoption. It’s just a fact of life.
I’m still waiting for Linux on desktop to be a big thing like I thought back in 2004. I suspect the third party app stores will be just as quick.
Wait, I assume if you install a banking app through Aurora it still works? Totally fair if that doesn’t work for your needs (you kinda need a google account, even if a blank one, to have it work right now) but I assume installing apps through it doesn’t limit them or make them less functional for having been installed through Aurora?
Works on Calyx! My banks didn’t work on Lineage through aurora. I think it only checks for a locked bootloader?
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There are in fact banking apps and home security apps on F-Droid.
Here’s the ones I looked for:
Not one of them was available on F-Droid. Care to share the ones that you know of?
Cool! I’ll just call my bank and tell them that.
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