🇬🇧 Interesting links / news articles somehow related to Fairphone

[Roboe]

IzzyOnDroid ✅ (@IzzyOnDroid@mastodon.technology)

The article, “F-Droid: The privacy-friendly alternative to Google Play Store”: https://android.izzysoft.de/articles/named/fdroid-intro-1

This is a pretty good introductory article about F-Droid for non-techie, regular hoomans. I’d wish I had this post at hand when I started to tinker with alternative appstores; fortunately, now other people have. Share the love!

[JeroenH]

Recently featured on 35C3. Vids and PDF and wiki (for more info) here:

Getting rid of Facebook

How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook (even if you don’t have a Facebook account) https://privacyinternational.org/appdata (Feel free to edit this post to make it more accurate.)

[chrisse]

This video is already 3 months old, but I haven’t seen anything on the Forum yet (sorry if someone already posted it).
This is a video by TechAltar about European phone brands making a comeback:

The presentation of Fairphone is at 4’36

[paulakreuzer]

Afghan gold mine collapse kills 30

[paulakreuzer]

Did you know that G%§$e are the good guys?
I was so wrong trying #livingwogoogle.

I was wrong about Google and Facebook: there’s nothing wrong with them (so say...

[Louisa_Radice]

There’s a piece in the latest issue of Positive News about millennials changing society for the better which includes one Josh Babarinde, founder of Cracked It.

“It’s London’s social enterprise smartphone repair service, staffed by young ex-offenders and youth at risk of offending.”

Cracked It – London's best iPhone fixers

I asked them if they had heard of Fairphone and got a reply in the affirmative. However they did not elaborate as to whether they’d actually repaired any.

[paulakreuzer]

I just published an article on #livingwogoogle&co on my WriteFreely blog. Fairphone Open OS is mentioned in the Mobile Operating Systems section.

How to Live Without Google and Other Evil Tech Giants

Any feedback is welcome.

[Ingo]

Some comments

• “Let me here mention other AOSP-based browsers in general.”
  • I guess ist should be “OSes”?
• the indentation of the item about OpenGAPPS seems to be wrong; it looks like it’s specific to a parent item (/e/ in this case), but I assume it should be on the same level as " Android based OSes"?
• in the item about Telegram you probably should mention that - as far as I know - chats are not encrypted by default and the user has to specifically enable encryption
• maybe you can add a reference to general ad blocking software, e.g. for Android
  • https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/org.adaway/ (needs root)
  • https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.blokada.alarm/ (no root required)

[paulakreuzer]

Thanks. Fixed browsers -> OSes and the OpenGAPPS bullet point.
I also updated the text about Telegram (e.g. to make more clear that I’m not talking about the official client), which was suggesten by quite a few readers.
General blocking software will be added at a later date.
Thanks for the feedback.

[Volker]

Thanks for the article! I think it’s really a great and comprehensive reference!

[Louisa_Radice]

The April issue of Which? has a feature “The hidden cost of your smartphone” which mentions Fairphone … but this is all they have to say:

“Fairphone is the first smartphone brand to integrate conflict-free sourcing for all four minerals. We tested a Fairphone phone, but unfortunately it doesn’t compare well with other brands on performance.”

And that’s it.

[BertG]

Thanks for this information.
I just moved your posting to this thread, as I guess it fits here well.

The article is available online:
https://www.which.co.uk/news/2019/03/the-hidden-cost-of-your-smartphone/
And there is a video on this article:

The hidden cost of your smartphone - Which? investigates

The article online offers a tad bit more than those two lines cited by you.
E.g. Fairphone is leading the ranking on conflict free minerals and they state:

Unfortunately, it’s not likely to be a Best Buy any time soon. But if its ethical credentials are appealing and you’re willing to sacrifice functionality, head to our full to find out how it fared in our test lab.

The review of the Fairphone 2 on the other hand is available for paying readers only.

[Ingo]

“In this guide we investigate, score and rank the ethical and environmental record of 18 tablets and e-reader brands.”
Spoiler: best score is 9 out of 20 for Asus, Bookeen and Kurio.

Tablets and e-readers | Ethical Consumer

[Patrick1]

Nice finding.
Interesting that “Pocketbook” isn’t even listed here being the 3rd biggest manufacturer.
But considering that “Foxxconn” is the final manufacturer it probably would not score too well.

[JeroenH]

When I click on a link, it says ‘access denied’. It is subscriber only. So it isn’t possible for me to verify the report. Sorry, but that makes it not very useful.

I like the Kobo series because it doesn’t use a large company like Amazon (who utilize DRM), and it allows for non-DRM stuff (I only read non-DRM books anyway).

[JeroenH]

Security Checklist

[Ingo]

@JeroenH

When I click on a link, it says ‘access denied’. It is subscriber only. So it isn’t possible for me to verify the report. Sorry, but that makes it not very useful.

Just to make sure, with “a link” you mean this link Guide to Tablets and E-Readers | Ethical Consumer or a link on that page?

I’m not a subscriber but I didn’t get any “access denied” message, just checked again.

Maybe it has to do with my ad and script blocker extensions in Firefox (uBlock Origin and NoScript).

[JeroenH]

Yes, that link. On the bottom, the score table. You cannot watch the details how they came to their conclusion; you can only see their conclusion. It is akin to a demo.