The switching between one OS to another would only make sense for me if it could be done with both systems installed. Let’s say banking app on the original fairphone OS and the rest an independent OS. If it is necessary to start from scratch and reinstall the apps (even if the data could be transported with the SD card) I do not consider this as a viable option.
But I am not a developer and was just thinking out loud here. I thought maybe somebody had done something similar before.
Thank you guys anyhow! This conversation is clearing up some questions marks for me.
(1) microG is an Open Source reimplementation of Google Play Services. It will track you much less, but to work it will sometimes have to talk to Google servers. It therefore will give Google some ability to track you.
(2) While microG is pretty amazing at what it does, it is not a bug-for-bug-compatible reimplementation of Google Play Services and some Android apps depending on Google Play Services won’t work. Which apps those are, well, “it depends”.
(3) Paid apps are a no-go outside of the Google Play Store because of Google’s license verification system. You will have to sacrifice this (with the exception of a very small amount of apps having other ways to pay like FairEmail).
(4) Ubuntu Touch is not Android-based and cannot really run any Android apps (at least not easily, some may work under Anbox). As we speak I do not know of any paid apps for Ubuntu Touch.
(5) I have called “Compatible with important android apps like my banking app, paypal etc.” “Hostile app compat” as these applications tend to be much more strict as to where you are allowed to run them. You know, “for your safety”. I have been luckily with my banking apps (Rabobank Netherlands, ING Bank Netherlands and PayPal run fine) but not everyone is so lucky and they can break at any moment.
Sadly Microsoft and Huawei had plans to do a dual boot (both at the same time even?) but they gave up some 6 years ago. I’ve not heared of any other combination even two Androids.
While I understand compromises have to be made in summarising something complex, I think somebody has to mention that /e/ actively remove Google stuff from LineageOS, which is left in LineageOS because degoogling is not the priority or raison d’être of LineageOS.
Whether to live with microG in /e/ or with some basic Google stuff left in LineageOS may then be the choice of every interested user. But LineageOS “Google-free”? Hmmm … it’s not that simple, I’m afraid.
Fair point! /e/OS does talk even less to Google servers than Lineage. However, Lineage for microG has more frequent microG updates and thus likely slightly better compatibility with “hostile apps”. Pick your poison, I guess
great table! This is exactly what I was hoping for to find out.
Interesting to see that people have already been developing in this direction. I am interested to see if somebody will pick it up again. Sadly this means though “Pick your poison” remains.
Great answers by the way, I am positively surprised by the constructive discussion in this forum!
Quote:
(3) Paid apps are a no-go outside of the Google Play Store because of Google’s license verification system. You will have to sacrifice this (with the exception of a very small amount of apps having other ways to pay like FairEmail).
Its possible to use aurora store to buy paid apps using play.google.com and download them with aurora store. It use google servers, but its way better then default play store. Its without the google play store app
What would a fix typically look like? In my case I would not trust “home-made” fixes that let me use my banking apps, mainly because I would not understand the fix. I am not skilled enough to do so. I would trust using my banking apps on lineage let’s say, but not if i have to install or introduce code of unknown origin to bypass security mechanisms.
Interesting, would you mind explaining a bit how the aurora store works?
Thanks,
Hello. I am using /e/ for about two month now on my fairphone 3+. I tried out all my apps I use on my previous phone on googled android.
Working fine
Satispay
banking with my Banca Etica app and also the Symantec VIP app needed to authenticate.
PayPal fully working
Not (yet) working: mycicero which starts and shows only a black screen
Not working at all nexipay services which refuses to start on a custom ROM
Beside the appstore which /e/ created I use f-droid and aurora store.
As cloud I used initially the /e/ cloud which I saw that is was an adapted nextcloud. Now I use my own next cloud for syncing foto, passwordmanager, filemanager and next cloud notes. And office inside. Everything fine and fully controlled by myself.
Hi,
I continued a bit my research and one thing confused me.
It seems to me that /e/ receives a lot of negative feedback, however I have trouble finding an elaborate evaluation/ critique of the OS. I found a lot of negative comments but never a real argumentation.
Could anybody here give an objective perspective on the negative reviews of /e/ and /e/ itself and if this criticism is legit or not?
Thanks,
I’ve used /e/ for quite some months until recently switching to Lineage and am still active in the /e/ community so if you name anything specific I may know
Exactly this is my problem. I find bits and pieces like for example your problem regarding the NHS Covid app. If those things are simply bugs or honest mistakes it is a different story then if the philosophy and strategy of the foundation is the problem.
I often find the foundation being criticized for the use of closed libraries or comparing the foundation with google but I dont have the background knowledge to validate this.
Thanks
Well, I can’t read their mind so I can’t tell if silently deactivating COVID apps for the second time was another honest mistake (although I would hope they would try to prevent making the same mistake twice!) or not.
For closed libraries, I think you mean Magic Earth, the included (proprietary) GPS app in /e/OS. Well, included until recently, IIRC they removed it. They genuinely seemed to believe the developers may Open Source the app at some point in the future though, from what I can tell. Otherwise /e/OS doesn’t use anything proprietary (aside from drivers, but that is just required to make Android run on phones)
Be aware that the updates of LOS4microG for FP3have com very infrequently during the last months up to a point where I was not sure whether they removed FP3 from the list of supported devices
