I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
I guess just don’t by one of these “certified Android devices”. Might become a selling point. Other option would be to run SailfishOS (buy a Jolla phone) or install Ubuntu Touch / Mobian and use Anbox.
I would love to go all in on one of the newer Linux distros made for phones. Haven’t tried any yet.
Find a phone to use plasma mobile on most likely.
ADB in the meantime.
I only use app from f-droid on lineage and I don’t have a google account anymore, if that stops being an option I guess I’ll use an old dumb phone and fuck all.
I have read you will still be able to install using ADB and I figure I will do that since I have done that a lot in the past anyway.
Are you going to constantly plug in your phone to update via ADB too?
You can connect ADB via wifi and push updates via command line. Honestly trivial to automate when you’re at home.
With shizuku you can even run adb and access it via your own phone.
Use my phone less.
I can’t think of a single app I use that doesn’t have a desktop/web version.
Camera
You don’t need any apps for that, you can just use a normal camera.
I’ll happily continue using my GrapheneOS Pixel since nothing will change for 3d-party ROMs :)
Is this verified, or does it still depend on how the mechanism is implemented?
If all installation is not managed by Google (i.e. if you’re not using Google Mobile Services or GMS), Google cannot block the installation of any apps. Graphene’s devs have confirmed themselves that this new measure will not affect their ROM
Perfect. I thought about some kernel level shenanigans which could be out of influence for third party vendors.
That’s great to read
Until it does. Google is already closing development, so the GrapheneOS devs will have a more difficult time rebasing their changes to AOSP each snapshot.
Not exactly. GrapheneOS has an OEM partner and has early access to AOSP changes that aren’t public. A huge downside to that is that security preview releases can’t be open source until after Google makes the code public.
Well, that’s not a huge downside. They still provide those security updates in their binary builds.
Fair enough. I said “huge” because I guess some people care a lot. I personally don’t and have been on security preview releases since they started releasing them.
Yeah, it’s a moving target for sure. For now, the devs seem to be very certain that AOSP will stay and that they will still be able to port GOS on new devices (although it will take more time and work).
Can you tell me how the ad experience is with GrapheneOS? As in, do apps which try to insert ads in screen transitions (or anywhere) still do so? Or websites which put in AdSense popups?
GrapheneOS doesn’t recommend AdAway or other adblocking solutions, so does it do so itself?
It does not block anything by itself. I use Adguard as my DNS provider and it does that system-wide. It you can also use a VPN provider such as ProtonVPN that does it
Hmm. OK, I’ve been using AdAway (not AdGuard) as DNS and/or VPN, experimenting with both) under Pixel 9 stock OS, and it mostly works… but some apps and websites still get ads through.
LineageOS w/Adaway root /etc/hosts blocklists was 100% perfect on my older phone… that’s my main quibble with trying LineageOS vs. GrapheneOS.
I know some people recommend against rooting, but I’ve never had security issues doing it and it seemed to offer more bulletproof ad-blocking.
Man this is depressing. I’m hoping the EU will put a stop to this.
They are kinda the cause. They allowed apple to do this crap and know that it’s settled android profits
Every country on the planet has allowed Apple to do this for 20 years. EU is the only one that is fighting back (poorly).
But they set a precedent
Nothing.
My daily driver is an iPhone. We’ve always had the problem of limiting sideloading (to be nonexistent for most people) and it’s never been a problem for me.
I also have a Galaxy S10, but all my apps on that come from the Play Store.
This won’t affect 99% of users, just like it doesn’t on iPhone.
I just hope now that they’re taking sideloading, and they’ve already taken memory card slots, headphone jacks… and they’re still taking a cut off the back end by selling your personal information… maybe the cost will come down. But I doubt it. Android makes sense when it’s cheaper than iPhone. I mean, iPhone makes sense to be expensive. It’s a pocket Mac, it’s made by a computer company. Sure, they have telemetry but it’s not an ad company like Google. So for a phone that’s less powerful and still has the same restrictions, and I’m paying with my personal data? I expect the phones to be cheaper. They really should be cheaper.
But I’m gonna let you in on a secret. Smartphone performance plateaued a long time ago. All these new phones are kind of a scam. Okay, so the Pixel 10 has the benchmark performance of an iPhone 11. The Galaxy S25 is like 40% faster than the iPhone 16 Pro until it hits load (like the top 1% of games, maybe) then the iPhone is like 10% faster… Who Cares? My 2019 Galaxy S10 is still a viable daily driver in 2025. So, I think I’m done chasing the latest model for a while. If Apple Health comes to iPad (I’m not sure if it’s there or not), I’d even consider replacing my Android phone with a newer phone next, like a gently used Galaxy S24 or S25 (I mean in a few years). These new phones talk about performance numbers, but for most people, they don’t really mean shit. Phones don’t slow down like they used to. They got a lot better and it wasn’t even that recently.
Rename sideloading with installing and play store with baby mode
The thing is an iphone wont let me do anything. It’s useless. No custom connection to my server, no seperate maps, no music, no ssh, no RDP. No adblock, no firefox.
Iphones are kind of nice but you can’t do anything worthwhile with them.
I will switch to Android roms that don’t have that defect, and continue to buy and tinker with Linux phones when I can afford it, until they become daily-drivable.
Fuck i don’t think i can unlock the bootloader of my xiaomi anymore…
It was the push I needed to start building my dream device. They say Linux phones aren’t ready, and they aren’t. But the Linux desktop on aarch64 has come a long way thanks to things like the Raspberry Pi so I’m currently working on a Mobian pocket laptop that can replace my phone entirely. You can find a Pixel 3a XL for around $100 with an unlockable bootloader, just don’t expect a usable camera. Currently the tradeoff is either freedom of software with some missing drivers (USB host mode in particular) or using a distro like Droidian or UBports which is custom built to run on Halium and the android kernel and can’t be easily modified/tinkered with.
I tried to root an old pixel of mine and soft bricked it somehow and my only other two phones are samsung, so ill have to figure it out as i can and would love a fully linux based device; but im definitely not planning on giving up
LineageOS user here, so nothing will change for me. Perhaps in the long-term Google might kill off AOSP for good, in which case I’ll seriously consider a so-called real Linux device. Cautiously optimistic about the FSF’s Librephone project, which right now is attempting to reverse engineer blobs in Android devices.
I already have a Pinephone sitting around so maybe I’ll re-flash Mobian on it and play around with it. In the long term my ideal distro would be Guix or some Guix derivative.
If we can, donate to the devs. Let’s supercharge the evolution / revolution.
