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Well I was sort of focused on one part, but it was like half of the post so I thought it was fair enough. I think I’m one of the few people here that uses iodéOS and has been involved in that community (forums, Matrix, etc) so I thought that might offer something different to the discussion as well. The first half about the French state is probably true though, they have been conflating privacy with criminal activities recently and using it as justification to encroach on civil liberties (see their attempts to backdoor Signal).
Yet another mention of iodéOS by GrapheneOS without any evidence/explanation provided. They lump them in with CalyxOS and /e/OS every time yet never actually go into detail. It’s quite funny from my perspective, because I have been following the iodéOS project for several years and no one there gives a fuck about GrapheneOS. Other than LineageOS, they barely talk about other ROMs at all. It’s a completely one-sided, fake drama that the people behind GrapheneOS just seem to have invented in their heads overnight.
This sentence buried in Gmail’s settings seems to imply it’s what is happening by default:
Even if you turn off smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet, some smart features with individual on and off settings are still available. These features don’t use opted-out user data to improve the models that power them.
You can use this list to get a basic idea how chipsets compare to each other.
Location and search history are particularly troubling especially when a user is not even using Google to search.
I dont think that’s what is happening. You said “no precautions”, so they gave you a list of what is collected by default. Google is the default search browser used by the default Google Assistant and the default browser (Chrome, Samsung Internet, etc all use Google Search).
Trinity College in Dublin has done a few studies in this area over the years. Here’s a Forbes article about them (apologies in advance if it is paywalled).
Switching to open source, privacy-respecting apps is the most important part of obtaining privacy on Android and it sounds like you’ve done that. Whether you need to have the absolute highest level of protection against Google is really something only you can determine. For me, “stock” Android with as many FOSS replacements as possible is good enough.
Based on the images it looks really good! My grandpa recently got a new phone and I’ve been wondering whether he should use something like this. He can easily get overwhelmed and lost in the interface, and struggles with misinputs/inputs not registering. Giant, easy to read buttons on the home screen would make it so much easier for him I think.
It hasn’t changed much.
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There are 5 or 6 new maps (making 9 total now), 2 are smaller and limited to certain game modes. None of the new maps are great, a couple are quite bad.
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Some new game modes added like Ecalation.
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Visibility is still appalling.
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Inconsistent footstep audio hasn’t been fixed.
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Shotgun secondary on Assault wasn’t removed, so there are still loads of OHK shotguns in every match.
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The movement penalties that existed in the beta are heavier (bigger weapon sway when landing from a jump, etc).
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Physics engine is kinda fucked. Infantry movement feels floaty and you can bounce off objects and fly in the air like there’s low gravity.
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Spread was increased and gunplay feels worse. Sometimes the recoil feels inconsistent, like there’s a bug and the game is not registering your input (like in 2042). I’ve also found the hitreg a bit inconsistent. I switch off targets that should be dead but one of my bullets hasn’t registered damage so they are left alive with very low HP.
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They added a ladder as a default gadget to the Assault class. There are head glitches everywhere now, it’s very annoying to attack into on game modes like Breakthrough.
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Not sure if this was the case in beta, but smoke is locked to Support so you basically have to play that class on game modes like attack Breakthrough if you want to reach the objective.
If you liked it in the beta, you will probably still like it. If you disliked it, you will probably still dislike it. If you were on the fence like me, you will be glad that you only paid for a month of EA Play Pro and not the full game.
I use Grayay. I’ve found it more consistent/reliable than NewPipe and, like you, I don’t want the YouTube app on my phone (even if it has been modded). Also, I just don’t believe using cracked/modded versions of official applications is a good long-term solution to problems. ReVanced works really well but it is basically the last choice I would make, for that reason.
Probably the most direct equivalent would be one of the base Galaxy S phones, they are usually around 4 - 5 mm longer than the S10e. The older S24 still has 5 years of security updates left and you could probably pick a secondhand one up for quite a good price now. If you can wait until the end of the year/early next year, there is a proper small phone being released, the iKKO Mind One, although that may be too small for you.
Here’s a comparison chart with some more information, although it does have some inaccuracies so its always best to check anything important with the respective project.
For video playback it’s more than fast enough. I don’t have any stutters or hangs in the UI either, iodéOS is a lot lighter than the One UI version it came with. To be honest, aside from the 60Hz refresh rate, I can’t really tell that it’s a 6-year-old tablet. It is very thin, even by today’s standards, which makes it feel quite modern.
If you wanted to use it for gaming I’m sure you would run into issues, but I’m guessing you’re like me and just want it for watching stuff on.
A cheaper option is the Galaxy Tab 5e, a mid-range tablet from 2019. It has a very nice 1600p Super AMOLED panel and it is supported by both LineageOS and iodéOS. I own one myself and it can do HEVC fine, but I’m not sure about those other codecs as I haven’t tried them. I don’t know what the availability is like where you’re from, but here in Australia they are very easy to pick up secondhand in great condition for ~AU$200 which I think is a great price considering the quality of the display and their ongoing monthly updates.
people are talking about having to pick between privacy (GrapheneOS) and ethical manufacturing (Fairphone)
GrapheneOS is far from the only ROM that can improve the user’s privacy. Many other projects support Fairphone, and whilst they may not pass the Lemmy purity tests, they are objectively better in many ways than the default operating system. It frustrates me that people in the privacy space constantly frame decisions as binary trade-offs when in reality you can always take smaller steps to improve your privacy without giving up everything else you care about.
I responded to it
Unfortunately you don’t seem to understand the meaning of the words “compared to”. If, as you admit:
Slow security updates are a problem, plaguing basically all of Android.
Then it is impossible for there to be something wrong with Fairphone security compared to the majority of competitors.
I mean the point was: “there is nothing actually wrong with Fairphone devices from a security perspective compared to the majority of its competitors”
You really struggle with reading, don’t you?
Who is doing strawmen now? 🤡 How in the world did you get to that idea from “together they could create a fantastic device”.
There are no issues but those that exist are not important?
I’m not sure if you just didn’t read my reply properly or if you’re engaging in bad faith here but you’ve just stitched the first sentence of a paragraph and half of the last sentence of a paragraph together as if they’re related when they clearly aren’t. One is referring to the non-existent issue (from Fairphone’s perspective as clearly stated) of lack of GrapheneOS support, in direct response to you. The other is referring to the perceived security issues with Fairphone devices referenced in the article, and this is clearly stated in the first half of the same sentence which you decided to cut for some reason.
Update speed is a major issue and Fairphone is not great at it either. Yeah, it is not the worst offender, but that does not mean that it is good.
Nice strawman but I never said it was good. Again, respond in full instead of cherrypicking half a sentence. “Slow” updates compared to a Pixel is obviously not a problem considering Google has a minority market share and many people do not even bother to update their phone regularly. It is a fringe issue that is irrelevant to most.
That being said, which other rom is on equal footing with Graphene?
It doesn’t matter whether they’re equal to GrapheneOS. Like I said, if you are new to this space and don’t know anything then you think you need GrapheneOS because an influencer told you “iTs tHe bEsT oNe” and you looked at a comparison chart where it had the most green rows in its column. In reality many of its unique features and differences are well beyond the requirements of most people simply looking to reduce the amount of information big tech holds on them. Threat modelling exists for a reason but unfortunately many people burn out and return to big tech because they listen to bad advice from morons instead of thinking for themselves.
These projects don’t need to be identical to each other, and in fact it’s actually very healthy for the ecosystem and movement if they have differing feature sets and goals. Your utopian dream of GrapheneOS having a market monopoly is a terrible idea because it assumes the people in control are mentally stable and that nothing will ever go wrong, which we already know is a completely unrealistic assumption to have because Micay exists and Google just made custom ROM development much harder for Pixels.
So? I’m aware that my hypothetical idea is not the reality. But what hinders it from becoming the reality? As far as I am aware the humans behind each organization have mouths and ears, no?
Fairphone has zero interest in GrapheneOS and vice versa. Pretending that the only hindrance to this fictional collaboration is a lack of communication is delusional.
Personally I also hope that Graphene and Fairphone talk with each other instead about each other, because together they could create a fantastic device.
This isn’t even an issue from Fairphone’s perspective. It’s devices are supported by every other privacy-based ROM out there and its primary focus is on shipping and supporting devices with “stock” Android. As I said above, there is nothing actually wrong with Fairphone devices from a security perspective compared to the majority of its competitors, and even those issues that do exist are fringe cases that consumers do not care about.
The only reason this discussion about “GrapheneOS on Fairphone” keeps resurfacing is because of the cult-like behaviour I described elsewhere in this thread, where GrapheneOS is so widely recommended without context that people new to this space think it is the only solution to stock Android’s privacy issues. So they keep pestering the GrapheneOS team, asking for something that has been resolutely denied on multiple occasions previously, provoking a response that inevitably gets recirculated on social media and run as content on “news” sites. And then we get comments lile yours that frame GrapheneOS on Fairphone as an achievable and realistic thing that could happen with better communication, even though neither party is interested in pursuing that.
I don’t really mind that GrapheneOS excludes other manufacturers/devices based on their extremely strict requirements, it’s good to have a tighter option for those who want it. Their team has always been unnecessarily antagonistic/hostile towards other projects in this space, though. The way they communicate publicly is always so extreme and deliberately lacking in context so that everything is framed as “GrapheneOS = good, competitors = bad”. They won’t acknowledge differing threat models to their own and treat everyone else as a bad actor or a clueless moron, which has led to this very weird cult mentality among the userbase. So many people shill the absolute fuck out of this project online yet have never put any thought into what their personal threat model is or what features they actually want in a custom OS. They don’t even know why they installed GrapheneOS, they just read comments from other people on social media or watched a YouTube video and blindly followed along.
No different to any previous Fairphone, or indeed the majority of Android phones on the market from any manufacturer other than Google. Fairphone is in an unfortunate situation in a way, because its devices have (in recent history) been more open than that of any other manufacturer other than Google, which means there is a thriving custom ROM scene that includes privacy-focused competitors to GrapheneOS, yet its devices have also never met the requirements for the GrapheneOS team and so routinely get “slammed” by its developers who have to respond to requests/questions every time a new Fairphone releases. Clickbait Android “news” sites then run these developer replies taken from social media or forums as “news” and people who don’t bother to read beyond the headline/don’t know anything about the topic (AKA the majority) come away with the completely misguided impression that Fairphone is not just “not as private and secure as a Pixel with GrapheneOS” but is actually “bAd fOr pRiVaCy aNd sEcUriTy” compared to all devices on the market. Devices from most manufacturers lag well behind Pixel update times, most don’t even maintain a monthly update schedule, yet you will never see negative news articles about how these other devices are insecure/lacking in privacy. Only Fairphone gets hit with this comparison because only Fairphone has even attempted to compete in that space.
You can get LineageOS 21.0 (Android 14) here.
Here is a comparison of all the various privacy ROMs (and “stock” Android), last updated on June 9 this year.
The person in that other thread who said “iodéOS is a carbon copy of LineageOS” is incorrect. iodéOS comes with a suite of FOSS apps (picked by the community) as optional installs, which is designed to make the transition easier for someone who is brand new to deGoogled Android (similar philosophy to CalyxOS). iodéOS also removes more of the Google services left in LineageOS, such as those associated with the Trust feature, and replaces them with more private alternatives. Additionally, iodéOS has developed a GSI version alongside its officially supported custom device ROMs, which means you can theoretically install and run iodéOS on any currently unsupported device that supports Project Treble.
I have an XZ1 Compact myself and was using it as my primary phone with LineageOS (+microG) and later iodéOS until 3G was shutdown in Australia. Nowadays I use it as a portable music player, although I don’t listen to music away from my desktop that often so it doesn’t see much use. It sounds fine to me, certainly good enough for the overwhelming majority of people I would say.
I can’t really tell you whether it’s a good idea to buy one for this specific purpose, that’s quite a subjective question. It is very easy to install custom ROMs on that phone, though, and those that exist are well maintained. Some of the answers here are overcomplicating or fearmongering; installing custom ROMs is just about reading carefully and following basic instructions. The overwhelming majority of issues people run into come from impatience/inability to read. Bricking the phone is not a realistic possibility unless you are braindead.
Say what you want about crowd funding but it does seem to be one of the only ways we get interesting/fun design ideas these days. E-ink phones, mini phones, keyboard phones, slider phones, Linux phones, etc.