The pinephone could be an answer. The Libremphone too.
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I don’t understand the goal of this topic.
I have the feeling we all should be responsible consumer and look for information before buying a product. In this case, it is written on the Fairphone 3 that it works on Android. Point! There is nothing else to discuss. People who don’t want Google should try a Pinephone, buy a FP2 and use /e/, Ubuntu Touch or something else on it but not shout loudly about a clear statement from Fairphone about its new product.
I think this topic should be closed since it brings no useful information. There is a much more interested one for people who are constructive like FP3 custom rom development based on released source code.
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I don’t think iPhones are relevant here. They are Apple exclusive. Even if Fairphone would want to build a fair phone based on iOS, Apple wouldn’t allow it.
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exactly. Personal opinion:
buying a fairphone is far better than buying any other new phone available. but it is just a little bit better than buying a second hand Samsung Galaxy S5. It’s almost equal in performance (for a normal user at least), there are millions of them out on the second hand market and no one wants them anymore because they are all slobbering for the Galaxy S20 that is announced these days.
And, a big plus for the S5: it is supported by actual, developed google-free OSes.
the problem on this thing is: the most people don’t know, what they need. you try to figure what they want, but if they knew that this free OS officially contains spyware (well, google isn’t a non-profit organisation), and if they knew what this means, they’d maybe change their mind. So you’d maybe better not try to find out what they want, but what they need and answer them to this question.
I have to disagree with you here, as my previous phone was an S5. S5 has a much older version of Android, which makes the FP3 much easier in use. FP3 / Android 9 has several features that you can’t use on the S5. An obvious examples is fingerprint recognition, but there are lots of other neat little surprises going over to Android 9, like being able to use Spotify in your alarm app, or shooting slowmotion/timelapse videos. These are just little things, but if you take all of these little things together, it just makes the user experience so much better. Also, the S5 has only 16 GB of storage, meaning even for regular use, you end up having to erase apps and files just to be able to keep using it. I had to do it at least every 6 months just to keep using apps I really needed on a daily basis.
Instead, you get Samsung Bloatware chucked in for free, I can’t even begin to describe how many apps I put in the ‘Samsung Default Sh*t’ folder when I got my S5 and never looked at again for the entire four years I had the phone. Still, there they were, eating up precious storage while I kept on having to erase stuff just to be able to use my phone.
I’m sorry, but this just sounds as if you think you know better than other people. Just because this is an important issue for you (and I get why you think it’s important), that does not mean other people share that opinion. That they have different priorities, however, does not mean they’re ignorant. When I talk to my friends and colleagues about companies like Google, they definitely seem to be aware of privacy issues. You can be aware of them and still choose to use Google services. That doesn’t mean you should conclude they didn’t think it through. Although, I must admit, I would definitely enjoy watching you tell people they don’t know what’s good for them.
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Ok.
But you are aware, that the post in the xda-developers forum is from August 2019, while the Galaxy S10 was released 6 months before, in February 2019. So this is hardly a google-free alternative on entering the market.
Is it maybe possible, that much more people worked on Lineage for the Galaxy S10, since it sold in the first 3 days much more pieces than the FP3 willl sell in 5 years (just wild guessing of course, but you get the picture, do you?). Plus it was sold worldwide, thus making geeks worldwide work on Lineage for this phone.
You are right here of course.
I meant Google-free OS and used this term, because the FP2 had the “Fairphone Open OS” as a Google-free alternative. My bad.
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well, then you used the wrong OS, I guess. And who told you there is no Android 9 available for the S5? → here ← you go. I’m pretty sure, there’s no Samsung bloatware preinstalled, even though I didn’t check it on my own.
once more, not what I wanted to tell. IF they know about the fact and know who they are dealing with, that’s ok to me (my brother is one of this group of people). But if they use their phone without any background knowledge and still trust it blindly, I tend to inform them about what can happen with their data. I personally think, I am doing this on a good basis and let them their choice after all. and yes, even if they say: I know but I don’t want to bother about my privacy (like another member of my family) and goes on exposing my private data to the spyware that is very likely already installed on his computer (due to an anti virus issue he doesn’t care about).
OT Example: Our midwife (who cared about our baby when it got born) once decided to start a whatsapp group and added all her friends and even added all her customers (medical pledge of secrecy, damned hell!).
There are people who don’t care only because they don’t know and I think it’s ignorant not to give them the chance to know.
you’re right, it isn’t. and I didn’t want to say that. (even though it was 5 months, since shipping started in March)
And it’s still possible to get it done faster for the FP3, by the way.
[OT again]: side fact. no, Since S7 there is no single Samsung flagship sold worldwide in the recent years (afaik). they always produced an I-don’t-care-USA-China-Version (Snapdragon chipset) and a rest-of-the-World-Verison (exynos chipset). this isn’t so obvious, since they look the same and the specs are pretty much the same, but it’s a fact and only the international version is supported by alternative roms because they locked up the snapdragon bootloader really badly.
Oh that’s mighty big of you. I’m sure these people are glad you OK’ed their purchasing decisions. I know this might sound a bit sharp, but you might want to think about how you phrase things, because it really does sound as if you think your reasons for buying a product outweigh everybody else’s reasons, and you seem to assume a lack of general knowledge or awareness in others. I’m not saying that’s what you mean, it is, however, how you come across in writing.
Oh so I said I like to advise people based on their needs. You somehow felt that was a bad idea, because you bluntly assumed both I and the people I advised did not consider privacy an important need, but now you are saying you also advise people based on their needs? The only difference between our comments is that I talked about needs in general and you singled out privacy. It seems to me you have the exact same opinion I do on this matter, but you still chose to go into a rather lengthy argument based on an assumption about how I might ignore the privacy issue. So when you assume I don’t discuss privacy matters, and then go on to state that people who don’t discuss these matters are ignorant, can you see how that might be perceived as insulting?
I can totally relate to your Whatsapp story, by the way. It’s a good example of how people might not consider privacy issues when using the app. I don’t, however, see how it fits in a thread that is about whether or not to recommend the FP3.
tldr; I feel that this thread consists of many assumptions on your part about both the people responding here and Fairphone, and that the discussion is driven both by people trying to correct/nuance these assumptions and you pointing out that you didn’t quite mean what you said earlier. I’m going to kindly take myself out of this dicussion now. I think you might be wise to carefully read your posts before publishing them, as you seem to overgeneralise occasionally, make assumptions, or phrase things in such a way that you have to explain them again later.
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With out of date binary blobs (which is precisely the thing you’re campaigning against).
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wtf? what did I do wrong now? I definitely never campaigned against “out of date binary blobs”, I even had to google what you possibly could mean.
And I never campaigned pro LineageOS either, I just googled “Galaxy S5” and “LineageOS 16” (because I accidentially know LOS 16 is based on Android 9) and this was the result.
I read your post again, and I agree: I somehow read “want” instead of “need” in your post, what leaded me to my answer. sorry for that intermezzo. actually I think we are acting about the same when we give recommendations to people.
this was too much. again such an accusation against me that lacks any factual basis: All this guys trying to obviously misinterpret my posts in any ways possible or just start posting bullshit without being able to prove it. Me, proving that they talk bullshit. and now, I’m the one “pointing out that I didn’t quite mean what I said earlier”. Thanks.
[I wanted to list this shit again, but I decided to delete it again before publishing this post]
I got tired of this tread, it’s consuming too much time and energy. I muted this thread and I don’t plan to answer here again.
I beg to differ, sir:
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Yes, please differ - there is a very, very big difference between what Apple (afaik) does and what Google does. I don’t like Apple because of several reasons, and of course I don’t like that they don’t provide secure cloud encryption. But what Google does is some orders of magnitude worse! An Android phone is a multipurpose-sensor that you voluntarily carry with you to measure and report all activity and all aspects of your daily life. There is only one goal: knowing enough about you to predict your behavior in every detail. I very much recommend Shoshana Zuboff’s Age of Surveillance Capitalism for an understanding of whats going on.
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That is a great read indeed, very much recommended.
Thank you for bringing this up. I had come across a Dutch source with this news just after posting my reply, and it had me doubting to bring it up here. Glad you did it for me 
It raises interesting questions about privacy, that makes me poised to reason about it the same way we reason about security. The first question to ask would be: what is the threat you worry about? Is it government surveillance and their implications for citizen’s freedoms? Or is it (third-party) propaganda - Cambridge Analytica style - effectively manipulating people to take decisions against their own good? The difference between Google (/Facebook) and Apple is that the former possess data sets, provide tools and have a financial incentive to facilitate both, whereas Apple “only” to some degree facilitates the former.
I’ll have people more experienced with Apple products reply on whether iCloud is a mandatory back-up service, and/or whether it can replaced wholesale with a third party back-up solution. If the latter is true, there might be a market for secure, encrypted back-up solutions not covered by e.g. the Patriot Act.
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With iOS you can make an encrypted backup locally on your computer using iTunes and double back up to a USB flash drive. And it works very good. It is not mandatory to use iCloud. Also the iPhone itself is encrypted.
I agree that an iOS has many advantages over Android in terms of privacy. With Android it is part of Googles business model to collect and use user data on a large scale. And this is also the case with stock android. A privacy friendly Android would be a unique selling point.
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Something like that exists already: /e/ (formerly Eelo) first beta is here and it supports FP2!
At least that’s their goal.
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I know, and I’m waiting for it. I now have an iPhoneSE (my FP2 was constantly broken) and in the summer the software support is running out. Then I need a new one, either an iPhone or even better a privacy friendly Android. I will probably buy a Samsung from /e/ if a Fairphone is not able to do so.
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It’s fair to assume that Apple doesn’t have a reason to sell your data because is not their business model, however not only you cannot verify that is actually the case, but there’s also no reason why they shouldn’t start right now. It’s an incredibly profitable market and they have a tight controlled ecosystem with a significant number of users in it. Doesn’t it look really familiar to what Google does with Android to you?
Speaking of similarities, this move looks a heck lot like what Facebook is doing with Whatsapp: end-to-end encrypted messages… but stored unencrypted in Google Drive.
So even if Apple is not making any money out of it (which I doubt), this is by far the biggest evidence we have that they are willing to give out your data one way or another. Privacy-minded folks should consider this, the end goal here is to have companies respect your data whether it’s been sold or given away for free.
Saying that iOS is a better alternative than Android (privacy-wise) is like comparing different light tones of the the same color. They’re technically different but in practice they’re not.
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Apple could do it, but they don’t do it, because that’s a selling point for Apple.
If it’s all the same, please give me the link to Google’s completely offline encryptable backup program for Android smartphones.
but apple is (also) happy to help with government censorship