Bloomberg cannot be trusted anymore.
A while ago I got my partner to switch to a FOSS one (available in F-Droid) but she finds it confusing… 
2 Likes
Truly I must say - is there anyone out there still not believing in the fact that the majority of apps share quite more data than they admit to do?
Now let’s see if anyone wakes up when it’s official that many pay & banking apps are not as secure as advertised.
3 Likes
Erm, well - actually considering that this story is going on for several years already and since there were plenty of suicides in the past related to Foxconn, I’m sorry to say I cannot see the excellence of the China Labour Watch.
I still remember the scandals from 2015 or so. That’s when I first heard about it anyway. I have tried on numerous occasions to follow up on progress specifically on factories working for Apple, but apart from one undercover video, I got nothing. There may have been a lot more going on than I knew about of course. This is the first time I have heard about China Labour Watch, but they may well have been the ones that revealed every story until now for all I know.
1 Like
2 Likes
This TEDx video takes its time to illustrate a circular economy model that would be a step further than Fairphone achievements:
Thomas Rau, Turn too, circular economy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrb2v_f0ZYY
It gets to new stuff from 13".
If we would buy light instead of light-bulbs, the light-bulb producers (and leasers) would be directly interested in saving electricity, and making recyclable light-bulbs.
[I took the URL from a previous @JeroenH post, kept it until I forget where it came from, and finally watch it and decided it back that here was a good place to talk about… So many thanks to @JeroenH]
2 Likes
Yeah, I already linked it. It is an interesting concept however it also has some twists:
-
You never know exactly what a second hand device has experienced throughout its life. What did the owner do to it? It has a led a unique life, compared to the dozens of new devices. I can see how this conflicts with Apple, Right To Repair movement, etc. I don’t have a simple solution at hand.
-
This is how ISPs work. They give you a modem (read: router) and you borrow this. Do you think they’re patching it regularly? Do you think you’re getting a newer one when it is deemed out of date? No! That is why I bought my own router and WLAN AP. Just the other day I had a teambuilding day with work and we borrowed bicycles. I took one from the Dutch Railways station cause it is cheaper than Rent A Bike. After a few km I notice my back tire is half flat. We bicycled 21 km through the dunes etc. I come back to check out, tell the servicemen “I think you should take a look at the tires” he does and says “just put it back”
. I feel sorry for the next person who grabs that bike and is going to drive more than a few km with it.
In short, I believe it could very well work for some devices if there is a form of accountability and written agreement on the quality.
Looking forward to what Fairphone is going to do with this idea as they’re going to rent FP3 as well IIRC.
@siltaar glad you liked it 
3 Likes
The Guardian includes the Fairphone 3 as “the ethical alternative” in a list of “Five of the best mobile phones – whatever your budget” …
6 Likes
Yet another modular “phone” :
1 Like
For those who need a dumbphone, I can recommend a CAT25. It is rugged, and you can remove the battery (later CAT dumbphones don’t have the latter feature and run some “smart” OS like KaiOS or w/e it is).
I just don’t get the point of adding GSM to such. I would not put a SIM in it anyway. I’ll be buying a Pocketsprite for the family. That’s the kind of device I would on my keychain if my kid is bored in the train 
1 Like
European Commission produces new rules to make household appliances more sustainable:
3 Likes
The article claims:
The Fairphone 3 has been launched. That is no more than a step in the right direction, because smartphones are almost impossible to make sustainable.
2 Likes
Local though not fair.
6 Likes
You bet me to it
I first learned about it on notebookcheck.net. The company website is very slow and glitchy, but the product specifications are very thorough. If only some other manufacturers were this open about their products. The only information missing is input/output ports. I can see from pictures that it uses a single micro USB port though, which is probably a good choice for compatibility with other chargers in Rwanda. Only the cheaper ‘X’ model has a removable battery. The other one is glued shut. The X uses the lighter ‘Go’ Android 9.0 with its 1GB of dynamic memory, which I’m sure would work just fine.
True. Rwanda is a nice country though. I can not say that work practices there are fairer than in China, but I’ll wager that they are. I want to learn more about Rwanda now.
Correction: How wrong I was! Rwanda is still most certainly not a nice country. A simple look on Wikipedia about the leader, Paul Kagame was sufficient.
2 Likes
Your smartphone does quite a bit of damage: can’t that be fairer and more sustainable?
The smartphone that you carelessly let disappear into a drawer after a few years of use, comes about in rather problematic circumstances. Can’t that be fairer?
And of course Fairphone is mentioned in the article:
We asked experts from the field, viewed reports from telephone brands themselves and spoke with Fairphone, a Dutch telephone brand founded in 2013 that recently released its latest model; the Fairphone 3. Precisely because of the great effort it has to make to make its devices “fair”, this company illustrates better than anyone how deeply rooted the problems of the telephone industry are.
2 Likes
WireGuard removed from Google Play Store, rectification in progress
Google appears to be cracking down on software asking for donations, despite such software being FOSS. The software is still available on F-Droid.
One more reason to be not relying on Google Play Store.
3 Likes