Mit der Version 10.x der Google-Kamera-App (Pixel Camera) hat Google offenbar eine harte Abhängigkeit von den Play Services eingeführt.

  • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    13 hours ago

    Android is not your friend. If your camera needs to spy on you, then it’s not your camera.

    I use iPhone myself — though I was an Android user longer, and I enjoy both mobile platforms for their various strengths — but we really do need a third option. So Android is kind of like Windows now, it leans heavy into AI (especially on the Pixel side), and it’s on everything (except the iPhone), and iPhone has always just been a pocket Mac, but with the walled app garden. Apple says you can trust them with your personal data, but you don’t know that and Apple is big enough that they can basically do whatever they want — and they’ve been cosying up to fascists in the US. So that’s unsettling. Mobiles need a Linux option. A totally open source option that serves the user exclusively, or can be made to do so. GrapheneOS is a fine choice, but it’s limited to Pixels. If you have anything else, you’re out of luck, and if you have a Pixel, you or someone else has paid Google iPhone money for a device that’s at least a few generations behind performance-wise. So not ideal.

    Of course, most Android users and certainly most Android fans won’t care about this — I’m coming from the privacy perspective. And Google’s always been pretty clear that they are not there for your privacy.

    • 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 hours ago

      Android is actually your friend, Google is not. You can take Google out of Android but not Android out of Google.

      There’s a decade of custom ROMs to prove it, unlike an iPhone where someone else dictates every aspect for you. There’s way ahead in performance, but that’s all gone to waste for power users. Even their browser is like the the ones you used to have on flip phones.

      I was hoping the recent monopoly suit to be anything other than a wrist slap for google, but that’s too much to expect from US.

      • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 hours ago

        I’ve been through the best years of custom firmware. Back in the Jellybean/Kitkat days. My favourite was a fork of AOKP called LiquidSmooth.

        Custom firmware comes at your own risk though. If something goes wrong, maybe you can find some help… but maybe you can’t.

        Then you have guys who say “I’ll make custom firmware for your phone if the community buys me one.” The community buys them one from donations, and dude flips it on eBay the next day. I’ve seen that happen too.

        There needs to be a commercial interest in private and available custom firmware for Android. Because otherwise it’s just a hobby.

      • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 hours ago

        For customisation? No. For privacy? Yes.

        One’s made by a computer company and the other is made by an advertising company. These are not the same things at all.

        • flatbield@beehaw.org
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          1 hour ago

          I use to think so. There have been things more recently that makes me unsure if the distinction is as large as we would like to think. Apple is clearly less transprent too so it makes it realy hard to judge.

      • CerebralHawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 hours ago

        CM was okay. It’s the one custom firmware I got my wife to install… on something called a Samsung Acclaim back in 2010. Absolute dogshit phone, made tolerable by CM. I actually kinda miss that phone sometimes. Later, it was a little square… nice for an AOSP-like, but then we had AOKP and Paranoid Android doing way cooler shit. I did respect CM for keeping it simple though.