OSDev.org

Schol-R-LEA wrote:Getting back to the topic at hand, I also asked about other mobile OSes, and they seemed to be confused - they didn't think it was possible to put an OS other than Android on an LG phone (which may be true for that brand, for all I know, but AFAICT it should be possible).

Your guess is correct. See here and here. However I never used a different OS, I just used a spyware and Google-free Android, same OS, different default applications.

Schol-R-LEA wrote:they use Android apps. It is the application ecosystem that matters.

I agree with PeterX, this is absolutely true. But again, you can install any application to your phone you wish. Simple as ITunes with iPhone, you just have to download the apk yourself. Just enable developer mode (no jailbreak needed), and with an USB cable and adb running on your PC you can install any .apk you wish. Of course, again, they won't tell you how simple this is, they rather tell you use Google Play. I'd like to point out that there's absolutely no risk in this, if you check for viruses and trojans yourself. Which is advisable anyway, because it was proven many times that using Google Play does not guarantee the installed application is malware-free, but robs you from the possibility to check for yourself.

Techcrounch says apps in Google Play are actually full of malware.
According to this, most antivirus software on Android was fake in 2017 and 2018.
Kaspersky found malware in a Google Play app that was installed by 100 million users (!)

On topic, now I'm hearing from Bloomberg that Google might face antitrust lawsuits in several countries? Iowa, Utah, Texas... they seem pretty serious about it.

Cheers,
bzt

Hi,
Thanks for all your insights. From a practical perspective, it seems downright inconvenient. I have been able to replace google for some of the services but
not everything. I have nothing against Google, but its pervasive hold over the internet is worrying.

May be alternate protocols have to be designed based on a custom hardware. Phones usually ship a wifi card this does have an adhoc mode ( Depending on the manufacturer this can be hard to get to , you possibly need to root the phone ). It is possible to create a local wireless mesh network. However someone smart could sniff the packets and still get important information.

We live in modern times, sky is the limit for a determined individual. May be small adhoc networks can accomplish some of the goals without relying on big boys. Getting widespread acceptance however may be hard.

--Thomas

phones need to be open and standard interface otherwise Google and apple will maintain stranglehold forever.

Schol-R-Lea: The gulf between what companies say and what they'll actually do is something I had to learn about too. It helped that I knew people, that there were "unlock your phone here" posters all over town some years ago, and of course the big provider-independent phone supplier, Carphone Warehouse. It's now been years since I bought a phone from my phone service provider. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S3 new, on the same day as but separate to signing up with giffgaff, and the rest have been second-hand.


I've made some attempts at getting away from Google, with mixed results. Duck Duck Go search engine seems okay, but I know pros who don't think it's very good. I use it, but on rare occasions I'll check Bing or Google too. It's the bubbling I don't like with these other services. For instance, my friend needed to look up some tech parts with part numbers beginning "HD", but ever since he had to buy a wing mirror for his Harley Davidson, all Google would show him were Harley Davidson parts. Plus, of course, it means you can't really link search results other than DDG's. For a short time, it looked like DDG's plain html service would be a good thing for us OS devs, but they couldn't be bothered to maintain it.


Duck Duck Go maps are provided by other organizations; mostly megacorps. The default is Apple, if I'm not mistaken. I quite like OpenStreetMap; they have at times been easier to read that Google Maps, although they vary. I liked Mapcarta until they managed to defeat Firefox with uBlock Origin to open an advertising pop-up! I also liked here.com for a while, but in the end there was just no point using it. The trouble with all these services is finding local businesses; more people contribute to Google Maps than any other. OpenStreetMap is second best that I know of; I haven't tried Apple. Of course, all that contribution has a down side: lots of the real-life equivalent of dead links; Google really don't like removing obsolete information from their maps. At least they have street view.

On learning of the existance of OpenStreetMap, a 15 year old friend immediately added a nuclear reactor in his parents' back yard. He was impressed with how quickly it was removed. I don't know what's better; obsolete information which you can usually check against photos (Google Maps), or information which is sparser in the first place but more likely to be up to date (OpenStreetMap).


I've actually ended up using Android for games more than anything. Here, Google Play is the best store by far. The Kindle store is a desert! I found a handful of good games, but it was a bit of a struggle. (Google's bubbling works better here, I think.) I tried two third-party stores, they had more content but everything looked like it was recycled from Google Play. I worried the apps might not be legitimate, especially that they might be modified. What would be the use of getting away from the big corporations only to have the little guys spying on you instead?

F-droid is starting to become a good source, I think. It's an app store for open-source apps only. It lacks reviews, so you have to try things. I installed a bunch of games from it a couple of days ago, 80% of the ones I've tried are quite good, which is much better than I expected from previous attempts. I picked carefully, of course, but even some of my less careful choices worked out. There are still good games on Google Play I feel I couldn't live without. Maybe I should become a game programmer.

I do use multiple phones now. My old Samsung S5 is my games machine because the cpu in the Moto G4 is just so slow! (And it's start-up chime is annoying.) I keep thinking of installing PostMarketOS which supports the S5 very well, but I'd miss Mini Trucker; a game where the G4's CPU falls short quite badly.

Thomas wrote:I have nothing against Google, but its pervasive hold over the internet is worrying.

My feelings exactly; that's why I started looking into F-droid and all the rest.

Thomas wrote:We live in modern times, sky is the limit for a determined individual. May be small adhoc networks can accomplish some of the goals without relying on big boys. Getting widespread acceptance however may be hard.

PirateBox ... Oh. They were active for many years, but now they're closing down. Reasons including, apparently, that there's better projects for it! One of the reasons is browsers forcing https; I thought that would have negative consequences. Hmm... ssh would make more sense; you can make your own key easily. Anyway, other projects & related concepts. But again, why trust the little guys? For example, dead drops have a reputation for malware & disgusting things.


Speaking of OS development and the future, I know some users don't like mobile devices because they can't use regular files with many apps, or exchange files between apps, so I think any mobile OS which offers a desktop-like filesystem will gain traction.

eekee wrote:Speaking of OS development and the future, I know some users don't like mobile devices because they can't use regular files with many apps, or exchange files between apps...

I'm not sure if that's true. You can download apps for nearly anything. So you can download apps that can share, create, convert files etc.

Greetings
Peter

Well, let's see... I thought I remembered a comic artist making a complaint about files. I was a little off:

Well, I still haven’t fixed my computer. I’ve instead attempted to make working on the iPad work well. And it actually has! I just miss things like a real file system and multiple monitors.

And some weeks later:

I’m still drawing on the iPad but I’ve linked it up to the desktop. Moving files around is still a pain but for now I can see this working out.

So maybe the opportunity is just for a better file-moving app, and it's possible one already exists. Oh well!

I think you both are right.

Because of this quarantine, I had to assure that my kids can learn from home. There was no way that I f*ck up my everyday desktop with all that spyware and malware (GClassroom, Messenger, Skype, Zoom etc. etc. etc. because every teacher used a different tool of course so parents had to install ALL of them).

So I got a burner mobile and installed all of that sh*t on that. Therefore I have a first-hand experience how problematic opening files under Android is. Yes, there are dozens of applications, but they are extremely LOW quality, buggy, requires internet, and I just can't believe that they are constantly pushing full screen ads.

For example: one of the teachers uploaded a doc file to FB, because they can't copy'n'paste links to FB... They had to copy'n'paste the links into a doc, and upload the doc... Don't even ask! With FB Lite, you can't download those doc. Simply there's no download icon for them. You must use the FULL FB app. Okay, I got the doc. Then I wanted to open it under Android. Not easy. No default app for that. I've tried Office365, but that wanted me to register online at M$. WTF? I want to open a LOCAL file on my LOCAL computer, why on earth do I need internet and an online account for that? I then started installing other doc readers, but one was worse than the others. It looks like there are dozens of applications, but when it comes to usability, you'll figure out there are NONE.

So the answer is no, you can't handle files on Android the way you want to.

Cheers,
bzt

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned this far is the browser plug-in decentraleyes - it tries to locally cache things typically pulled from CDNs like google fonts.

Codepixl wrote:One thing I haven’t seen mentioned this far is the browser plug-in decentraleyes - it tries to locally cache things typically pulled from CDNs like google fonts.

Thanks for that. I see there are two or three add-ons to do that job for Firefox, and a "Google Container" add-on too. I'd be happy with caching Google fonts, but I (ironically) hope the javascript caching checks for updates.