
Leaving Apple and Google: more devices now supported - prince707
https://e.foundation/towards-an-e-fairphone/
======
dang
Large previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17972448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17972448)

~~~
kcirtap-hs
Dedicated /e/ discussion forum at
[https://community.e.foundation](https://community.e.foundation) also.

------
danvittegleo
If you are looking to maintain a secure device similar to stock Android
without google services, a Pixel phone with verified boot using your own
signing keys, latest AOSP, and up to date drivers/firmware is a far better
option. I've been working on a project that automates the entire process in
AWS and it supports all Pixel phones now:
[https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-
stack](https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack).

~~~
josteink
Frankly all I need my phone for these days is running Firefox.

Locked down computing via proprietary apps is getting less and less appealing
by the day.

~~~
SwellJoe
I think the Firefox OS and phone was just a little too early. We're
approaching the point where the web experience of an application is superior
to almost every mobile app. There are exceptions, of course, but I foolishly
bought an Amazon tablet recently because my brain doesn't work right when it
sees a bargain, but the lack of apps isn't such a terrible thing.

I eventually did put the Play store on it so I could get a few must have apps,
but, Reddit is better on the web (though it is an absolute pain in the ass
about it with constant overlays trying to get you to use the app). Wunderlist
is fine, gmail is fine, Twitter is ok, etc. The big win, however, is that I
trust Firefox/Mozilla not to sell me out (I have mostly forgiven the Pocket
thing), unlike just about anybody else. That has some value...also, all of my
accounts and stuff is synced via Firefox, where with apps I have to login on
every new device...some apps demand a fresh login every time, like my bank
app, so Firefox is a better experience there.

~~~
RussianCow
This. I recently got a new Android phone, and decided to go Google-less with
microG and LineageOS. Since I had to install everything from scratch anyway, I
only installed apps as I needed them, and I've found that I have not
reinstalled a large portion of the apps on my old phone—Amazon, Yelp, YouTube,
etc all work perfectly fine in the browser, and I now have the added advantage
that uBlock in Firefox blocks all of the trackers that are impossible to avoid
in native apps. Hell, many of these "native" apps are just the web versions
wrapped in a web view, so there is absolutely no discernible difference in
functionality or UX between the two.

~~~
dcbadacd
Ads are impossible to avoid when you have no control over your device. A
rooted Android phone can easily block native ads.

------
kop316
So reading through it, my understanding of what is going on is that they use
MicroG + LineageOS and provide their own email/app store/other services. I
tried to go through to figure out what exactly they did to degoogle /e/
further than that, but I couldn't find the documentation to show me.

If the folks from /e/ are here, is there some sort of documentation of how you
degoogled it past LineageOS + MicroG? I would be interested, as I use AOSP
without Play Services nor MicroG, and I would be interested in seeing what /e/
gets me that my current set up does not.

~~~
indidea
Interesting reading: [https://hackernoon.com/leaving-apple-google-e-first-
beta-is-...](https://hackernoon.com/leaving-apple-google-e-first-beta-is-
here-89e39f492c6f)
[https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/wiki/en/wikis/faq](https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/wiki/en/wikis/faq)

~~~
kop316
The hackernoon article was really good, thank you for that! It looks like it
can integrate into a nextcloud installation, and nextcloud appears as the
default for the /e/ install . That is a really nice feature for self hosting,
but that also means that the data on the back end is accessible to the folks
hosting it.

------
notatoad
My question whenever one of these de-googled google projects comes up is how
do they keep up with the security patches released in stock? This is an
especially big problem with all the "de-googled" chromium forks, that remove
autocomplete from the address bar at the expense of running 3 versions behind
stable. The only fork i've seen so far that even came close to keeping up with
the average android install was Copperhead OS, and they seem fairly proud of
that - it's right at the top of their features overview [1].

Seeing no mention of how up-to-date this OS is is worrying - I have a hard
time seeing it as an improvement to reduce the number of calls to google
services, while running an OS that's missing the last couple months of
security updates.

[1] [https://copperhead.co/android/](https://copperhead.co/android/)

------
ma2rten
I am confused. Everything I read on the website is very vague.

What exactly is their issue with Apple? Apple is already privacy focused. I
can imagine what it could be (mistrust of closed source, big corporations) but
they never say so. What exactly are they building? Are they just a distro or
are they building their own software?

EDIT: All the replies focus on Apple. But my point is not that Apple is
privacy-friendly. When I say Apple is privacy-focused, I just mean Apple
claims they focus on privacy. They can disagree, but should provide some
arguments.

~~~
andrepd
>Apple is already privacy focused.

Says you (and say them).

>I can imagine what it could be (mistrust of closed source, big corporations)
but they never say so.

Yes, that's exactly it. With proprietary software I have no idea what _my_
device is doing. Maybe they're spying on me! Maybe they aren't! Who knows!

The reasoning behind the people that say "Apple respects privacy" is always
"because they say so".

~~~
mynameisvlad
> With proprietary software I have no idea what my device is doing. Maybe
> they're spying on me! Maybe they aren't! Who knows!

This is entirely untrue. You can sniff the outgoing connections to see what
data is being sent. Here's instructions for how to do it on a Mac:
[https://medium.com/@jamesmarino/monitoring-ios-https-
network...](https://medium.com/@jamesmarino/monitoring-ios-https-network-
traffic-a5d9fbe0edfe)

On Windows, a similar thing can be achieved through Fiddler.

~~~
amelius
You can't:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography)

~~~
mynameisvlad
Oh please. Take your tinfoil hat off. Hell, take your tinfoil suit off.

Apple's biggest claim to fame in the last few years has been defending users'
privacy. It is in their best interest to be as transparent about this as
possible because any revelation that they are publicly saying X and privately
doing the opposite is going to completely tank them as a company. They're not
about to jeopardize their entire company by going so far as concealing
tracking information in other information that is transmitted from the device.
Especially while at the same time going so far as implementing many security
and privacy features like FileVault, E2E encryption, and the Secure Enclave.
Everything they have said and done, and analysis of the data that leaves their
devices points to them not doing it.

Sure, it's theoretically possible. But it's about as far from probable as
Pluto is from Earth.

~~~
andrepd
>Apple's biggest claim to fame in the last few years has been defending users'
privacy.

The vast majority of Apple's buyers don't know or don't care about privacy. To
assert "this is their biggest claim to fame" is ludicrous.

>It is in their best interest to be as transparent about this as possible

This is _still_ the only argument for Apple that I've ever seen. They _maybe_
aren't doing this, because _maybe_ it doesn't make business sense for them,
and _maybe_ we could detect it if they were. Nothing about this is solid; for
me it's just wishful thinking.

>any revelation that they are publicly saying X and privately doing the
opposite is going to completely tank them as a company

Literally hundreds of companies have been caught doing the exact same thing
and next to none of them have "tanked".

>Especially while at the same time going so far as implementing many security
and privacy features like [...] Secure Enclave.

The Secure Enclave is an unauditable chip running god knows what software.
Completely outside your control; someone else has the power to dictate what it
does and doesn't do. The notion of paying money for _my device_ and having it
subject to the control of someone else is... like buying a car with my own
money and having it be controlled by someone else.

~~~
mynameisvlad
> The vast majority of Apple's buyers don't know or don't care about privacy.
> To assert "this is their biggest claim to fame" is ludicrous.

The users don't care, but the media and government are going to pounce on
whatever they can, especially the government after the FBI debacle and
subsequent refusals to cooperate. If you don't think such a revelation isn't
going to completely upheave the company, then you're the one that's being
ludicrous. Just because the end user doesn't care now doesn't mean they can't
be made _to_ care with the right messaging from someone who takes advantage of
such a discovery.

> This is still the only argument for Apple that I've ever seen. They maybe
> aren't doing this, because maybe it doesn't make business sense for them,
> and maybe we could detect it if they were. Nothing about this is solid; for
> me it's just wishful thinking.

Did you somehow miss my grandparent comment, or just decide to completely
ignore it because it doesn't fit your narrative? If you don't trust them, then
go do what I said to do in said comment and audit the data that is being sent
by the device to their servers. This isn't rocket science, it literally takes
a few minutes to set up. Just because you don't want to doesn't mean that
trusting them is somehow the only option you have. And just because you don't
see the source code doesn't mean you can't possibly know what data is being
collected and sent. That's literally the whole reason these MitM proxies exist
-- to inspect data leaving your device for various purposes.

> like buying a car with my own money and having it be controlled by someone
> else.

So, what already happens today and has been happening for at least a decade
now?

------
kop316
To help everyone else out, here is the comprehensive list:

[https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/wiki/en/wikis/devices-
list](https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/wiki/en/wikis/devices-list)

------
haolez
Why use slashes in the name? Why not just E Foundation or something similar?

~~~
Jorge1o1
I agree, it makes me think of 4chan. Not the best brand association.

~~~
solarkraft
Same here. Additionally it's pretty dumb to use special characters in an
actual name, especially one that short. Search for "/e/" on Google and you
should get results for everything about the letter e. What does it even mean?

~~~
thinkingemote
> search for "/e/" on Google

> Leaving apple and Google..

Maybe they want to leave Google entirely. Maybe they are walking their walk
and not just talking about it.

~~~
throwawaylolx
It's applicable for any search engine...

~~~
ArunRaja
This makes their discovery difficult.

------
netdeamon
This is why I always wanted the boot to gecko (B2G), also called firefox os,
to succeed. It was different and also open source. The concept was also good.
But too bad they only released on very low cost, low feature phone like Spice.
It was a shit phone with good os.

I don’t know about e foundation, but what I came to know from their mobile
phone os page is that they are providing a os with data privacy as main
feature. Why cannot they reuse firefox os?

~~~
em-bee
because firefoxOS is no longer under development. /e/ probably doesn't want to
take over development of the whole operating system.

also, there is no easy way to collect all FOSS apps available for firefoxOS,
because firefox didn't track that information. that is, if the market is even
still running.

the goal of /e/ was to start with a fully functional system, and remove the
bad bits one by one. lineageOS and f-droid make that easy.

developing firefoxOS would be more like starting empty, and having to develop
or port any apps needed to make it good.

~~~
ChrisSD
Successors to Firefox OS, like B2G and KaiOS are still being developed. The
app situation is more of a problem. Web apps are a partial, if imperfect,
answer to that.

~~~
jrochkind1
There's a KaiOS flip phone being sold in the US. As Alcatel Go/Alcatel
Quickflip.

It's really really bad. I have one. Like, the basic experience is just bad.
Even for a flip phone. There is also no supported way to install apps or
anything, even though KaiOS theoretically supports this. I had intended to see
if I could find a back channel way to even write my own apps and install them,
but the basic experience is so bad I lost interest.

~~~
em-bee
well, if it's not possible to install apps, at least it doesn't suffer from a
disappointing app market. maybe that's by design ;-)

------
O_H_E
This is my first time to not find a Wikipedia entry for a topic.

The only mention that I found was in the founder's wiki[0] page.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABl_Duval](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABl_Duval)

Edit: Well I think I might create one when I have some free time. As it look
like a nice project

~~~
Fnoord
Gael Duval is the founder of Mandrake which is the predecessor of Mandriva.
Mandrake was a user-friendly, newbie-friendly, RPM-compatible Linux
distribution which was cheaper than RedHat Linux back in the days.

------
devxpy
I think my phone is not just about apps, but also services, tightly integrated
with those apps, like chrome's browser history, password manager, Google docs
synchronisation etc.

Perhaps the only reason why I cannot shift to other apps is due to the serious
is the lack of cohesion across all platforms. Google has It's paws on every
device, every platform. Which is a huge selling point.

Half my work is handled by this single Google account. I haven't seen any
product lineup that lets me have this kind of one-ness across my devices.

~~~
remir
This is what they're trying to achieve: phones are heavily tied to services,
so if you want people to break free from Google, Apple, MS, you need strong
alternatives. The /e/ Foundation is working on services that will go with
their fork of Android. You'll also have the option to self-host those services
if you prefer.

This will not be easy to achieve, but I believe it's a great idea.

~~~
devxpy
I didn't know you could self host these services with /e/

If they could support desktop devices, that would be great. It would one more
step in the right direction.

------
surgeisworking
A flipped and mirrored iteration of google's G as their logo doesn't really
help to serve the cause.

~~~
GuB-42
I think that's the point. They want to offer the same things as Google (search
engine, apps, ...) but in a way that respects privacy.

So a logo with the same shape as the Google logo but with a different
orientation makes a lot of sense.

~~~
markstos
Having your logo be not-Google doesn't clarify what you are, just want you
aren't.

What you would you expect out of the not-Nike brand?

As Google evolves and changes, the meaning of not-Google branding becomes
ambiguous. Does it mean the not-Google-from-2015 or the not-Google-from-2020?

The definition of the "same things as Google" is involving constantly.

~~~
Apocryphon
Interestingly enough, New Balance positioned itself to be the anti-Nike,
touting its shoes as U.S.-made and not benefiting from exploited foreign
labor. I read somewhere that the way their N logo is put on their shoes is
meant to echo the Nike swoosh. And people have criticized that branding as
insufficient, as well.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/new-balance-needs-to-
redesig...](https://www.businessinsider.com/new-balance-needs-to-
redesign-2015-9)

------
Nux
Interesting, Gael Duval of Mandrake Linux fame I assume.

~~~
em-bee
yes, the very same

------
tinkr
I degoogled my phone by installing LingageOS and by not installing any Google
app (no play services etc). Everything is great, except one major annoyance: I
do not receive any notifications of chat apps, because I am not connected to
GCM /Firebase. Does /e/ somehow fix this, e.g. by providing their own cloud
messaging services?

~~~
Fnoord
/e/ is right now just a fork of LineageOS 14.1 with a bunch of degooglization
and microG. microG isn't currently compatible with the latest version of
GCM/Firebase. WhatsApp, for example, works around that but that might not be
what you want; it is quite the battery drain that way. Although such push
messages are as well (like IMAP IDLE is). Depending on your phone, you got
LineageOS 15.1 already. Though you might not find the differences between 15
and 14 major. Though the news here seems to be that there's a new version of
/e/ based on LineageOS 15.x

~~~
Markoff
WhatsApp and signal both work fine without gapps, using them daily without any
issues and any battery drain

------
ssivark
Every passing year makes me yearn more for the missed possibilities of the
Firefox OS for the phone. It was visionary of Mozilla folks to anticipate the
need for it — I wonder whether the project might have been mismanaged due to
unrealistic expectations (expecting too much too soon).

~~~
djsumdog
It was just difficult to get a FirefoxOS device back then. I had a friend pick
one up for free at a trade show at a conference.

I personally want to try going down the KDE Plasma route myself. Device
support is still problematic though.

~~~
hawski
When I was thinking about buying my first smartphone I wanted a Firefox OS
device. However devices were underpowered and the OS was too young and heavy
on resources. So I bought the original Moto G.

But still if there would be a Moto G of Firefox OS it probably would all end-
up the same. But maybe it could at least retain a niche.

My Moto G with current Lineage OS is better than when it was still getting
updates, but sadly I broke SIM holder. Maybe I will try to fix it someday with
someone's help.

Now I use Nexus 5X and as it will soon receive its last update I'm thinking
about alternatives. LineageOS is an obvious choice, maybe with MicroG. But I
also am thinking a bit about Plasma Mobile as it is a supported device. If it
will not bootloop maybe I will be able to try it.

But I put my hopes in PostmarketOS and when there will be a single device with
enough hardware support (I can close an eye on Bluetooth, NFC, accelerometer
and gyro) I will buy two such devices even and maybe especially used.

------
codedokode
It is going to be a difficult task. Developers won't bother to write or update
their apps for a niche OS. But if it at least can run apps from F-droid (and
has root access) then it is good enough for me. And if there were a
replacement for apps depending on Google Services then it would be perfect.

> office: a set of online office applications (including word processor,
> spreadsheet and presentation) that you can use for collaborative work also.

Is it really necessary? It might work for a tablet but for example I cannot
type anything on small on-screen keyboard. And I don't understand why do that
if you have a laptop with a normal keyboard. So I think a document viewer
would be more than enough.

------
zandorg
I just want to buy a phone with this on. Is this possible? I don't want the
hassle of finding a phone on Ebay and installing some bundle of software. I
just want to plug and play.

------
amelius
Naming your product "/e/" is a good way to de-Google as it ensures your
product will never be found in a Google search!

------
rkagerer
Will it support anything that runs LineageOS? I was going to buy a Xiaomi
Pocophone F1, wondering if this is worth trying out.

------
incompatible
What are the privacy and security considerations of running an open source
operating system with Android 8 (Oreo)? I believe this (as Project Treble)
would generally leave the lowest layer of the vendor-supplied Android still in
place, potentially giving them some responsibility and control.

------
spuz
How is the /e/ Foundation and the /e/ OS different from Mozilla and the
Firefox phone?

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
Android compatibility and it runs on phones that people actually have.

~~~
mjhagen
And it's (so far) not discontinued.

------
wnscooke
I’m surprised by the number of Chinese phones on the supported list. Does this
mean a simple OS reinstall overwrites any backdoors these phones may have,
which suggests any backdoor is software related? What about hardware? Dos the
new OS inhibit hardware backdoor communications?

~~~
timbit42
In theory but are other things in the phone backdoored? What if the WiFi
device is backdoored?

------
afandian
In case it's bugging anyone else: the logo is the reverse of the Ableton Live
ligo.

------
dleslie
I'm disappointed that this has nothing to do with Enlightenment.

[https://www.enlightenment.org/](https://www.enlightenment.org/)

------
kcirtap-hs
/e/ has a dedicated discussion and support forum at
[https://community.e.foundation](https://community.e.foundation)

------
nwellnhof
If they really support Android 8 (Oreo) on the Nexus 5 (Hammerhead), I might
give it a try. LineageOS doesn't support this combination yet, at least not
officially.

~~~
mtarnovan
"The /e/ ROM is forked from LineageOS 14.1"

I guess that would be Android 7.1.2 then. [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LineageOS#Version_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LineageOS#Version_history)

~~~
nwellnhof
After more investigation: e-0.1 is forked from LOS 14.1 (based on Android 7),
e-0.2 from LOS 15.1 (Android 8). The Nexus 5 downloads have an e-0.1 filename,
so no Oreo. The website seems to imply that all 49 supported devices can run
Oreo which is misleading.

------
pndy
Damn, I wish one of such project could do something about my Nokia Lumia 1320
but iirc locked bootloader of Windows Phone is the problem here

~~~
Const-me
It’s not that locked: [https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/08/05/install-
android-on-...](https://www.windowslatest.com/2017/08/05/install-android-on-
lumia/)

The problem is device drivers: traditionally, Linux doesn’t have them.

------
oneplane
What is the point of this project (and most other Android-ish projects) if you
are still stuck with the same binary blobs, modem OS you can't see or change,
ROM loaders in the SoC, persistent code running with higher privs than your
kernel (which is often woefully outdated and full of holes).

If you simply don't want your phone to talk to google, connect to a WiFi AP
you control which also blocks all of Google's AS-numbers and thus the subnets
they contain.

~~~
Fnoord
Do you maintain such a dynamic blocklist?

~~~
oneplane
No need, IANA does that for you, and via that, ARIN etc. I don't block Google
like that myself, but some clients wanted such provisions (sometimes with
exclusions which makes it somewhat pointless), just like some do for Facebook
etc.

If you have a network that is specialised enough, it becomes a lot easier to
do this, you turn it into a whitelist instead of a blacklist.

------
donarb
How long before they get sued for their stylized 'e' which is a ripoff of
Google's logo? Essentially it's an upside down 'G'.

------
hasahmed
Any hope on the iPhone front?

~~~
O_H_E
Probably not. I don't think booting another OS on an iPhone is doable.

~~~
ndnxhs
I seem to remember old demos of booting android on old iphones but I doubt it
will ever be practical and probably next to impossible these days. Would
likely be easier to design and produce a whole new phone than crack the
multiple layers of DRM on iphones

------
gcb0
Do they _really_ support those devices? or do you still have to install binary
blobs (pried from Google/OEM images) for the kernel and/or drivers to have
even basic things like touchscreen, radio, etc working?

~~~
kop316
If it is a fork of LineageOS, I would think it needs the binary blobs you
mentioned in order to work.

------
charliebrownau
Gday

Platforms that censor speech:-

* Facebook

* Twitter

* Google

* Youtube

* Pateron

* Stripe

* Paypal

* Twitch

* Spotify

* Apple + apple podcast

* pin interest

* LinkedIn

* Mailchimp

* Wordpress

* mastodon

* azure cloud servers (microsoft)

* Mastercard

* Godaddy (removed alex jones+gab)

* MEDIUM (Banned GAB Oct-2018)

* Shopify (Banned AJ + GAB Oct-2018)

* Cloudflare

* pusher.com

* WIKI

Platforms that DONT censor speech

* Tutanota + Protonmail(email alt)

* Minds +mewe (FB alt)

* Gabai (Twitter alt)

* Bitchute (Youtube alt)

* Wire (skype alt)

* Librepay (Donation alt)

* Startengine (Kickstarter alt)

* peertube (DIY self host youtube stream style server)

Also look into:-

* searX.me or Duckduckgo (search alt)

* OpenStreetmap - instead of Google maps

* imgtc or tineye - free image upload site

* Linux - Win/MacOSX replacement

* f-droid.org - Google Play Store ALT

* Mumble - Discord ALT

Regards

Charliebrownau

------
blueboo
The downgrade in security isn't worth it. Too little, too late folks

~~~
giornogiovanna
It's obviously not a finished product yet. Let them try things out! It doesn't
seem to be much more than Lineage yet, but this could go some interesting
places.

~~~
kcirtap-hs
It comes with online services, not sure any other alternative OS does that.

