Action is still urgently needed to address the highly anti-competitive Google Mobiles Services licensing system and the Play Integrity API which are a major part of Google maintaining their monopolies over search and many parts of the mobile market.
We recently published a detailed thread about this here:
https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/112878067304840664
We're in contact with the regulators in MULTIPLE countries about this. Don't fall for Google pretending Play Integrity API is security related or that their licensing system is about compatibility.
Android and Chromium would massively benefit from proper collaboration between stakeholders without Google's business model getting in the way. Should be forced to deal with both following the model of the LLVM Foundation and also spin off Google Play into an independent company.
Google is actively cracking down on competition in the mobile space by convincing app developers to use their Play Integrity API. Play Integrity API bans using operating systems not licensing Google's apps/services and agreeing to highly restrictive and anti-competitive terms.
Google's licensing agreement directly bans OEMs from working with GrapheneOS and producing phones with it. Google sabotages their own products such as the Play Store to boost core monopolies. If it was a competitive market, they'd want their apps and services available to any OS.
GrapheneOS has demonstrated Google Play works well as regular sandboxed apps without any special integration into the OS via our sandboxed Google Play feature. Google should be forced to spin off Google Play into an independent company competing with other app stores / services.
@GrapheneOS I'm actually looking at going back to a flip phone... Fucking tired of the app-centric world.
@ShredderFeeder You won't have privacy/security using carrier-based calls rather than end-to-end encrypted messaging. Decent smartphones are also much more secure than desktops or laptops.
@GrapheneOS Good, maybe people will stop calling and texting me.
I don't give a fuck about privacy in my conversations, given that it's the apps themselves that are spying on you, not to mention forcing advertising down my throat.
@ShredderFeeder Do you think apps like Signal/Molly or Organic Maps are spying on you? You choose which apps you use.
@GrapheneOS carriers install apps on their own.. Cellphones aren't pure, the carriers maintain the ability to force apps on it..
I think there is nothing more expensive than anything that's free. If the service is provided for free, you're what they're selling. 100% of the time.
@ShredderFeeder Only if you choose to use a phone which integrates carrier apps that way... Carriers do not have any control over the OS if you're bringing your own device without that kind of nonsense, and nearly every carrier supports doing that. You lose almost nothing not going with either carrier devices or OEMs partnering with carriers that way.
GrapheneOS is an open source project that's free and developed by a non-profit funded solely by no strings attached donations.
@GrapheneOS an example of a phone that it supports? I'm all for open-source, even though I am still convinced that data-harvesting is happening...
https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices has our list of hardware requirements, which is focused on security requirements due to the focus of the project on defending users from exploitation, such as https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/112826067364945164.
https://grapheneos.org/faq#recommended-devices has current devices recommendations. It's a replacement for the stock OS on the supported devices. Needs to be a phone not sold by a carrier and locked by them since they often sell phones with OEM unlocking disabled to prevent replacing the OS.
Our focus is on security and we're explicitly not aiming for broad device support. We're working towards eventually having our own devices but so far our attempted partnerships with OEMs have fallen through largely because they weren't able or willing to deliver the expected level of security.
>maybe people will stop calling and texting me
Maybe you don't actually want a phone full stop.
@Hyolobrika @GrapheneOS I really don't... But work demands I have one, and my family insists they be able to reach me.
I've worked with technology for near 30 years now, 40 if you count my high-school programming jobs... and all working with technology has taught me is to appreciate a car with a carbuerator and no computer in it...
don't trust your life to anything with a chip in it.
@Hyolobrika @ShredderFeeder It's not GrapheneOS despite being marketed that way. They forked from an old GrapheneOS release and didn't keep up with the newer releases. They ended up with lots of issues because of this. The devices also don't meet our security requirements. They aren't actually contributing back to the project either.
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@Hyolobrika @ShredderFeeder They say the MC02 runs an OS based on GrapheneOS but it's still based on Android 13 since it's forked from an old release with a bunch of unclear changes made to it and hasn't kept up at all. They've had a lot of issues with sandboxed Google Play, etc. from not even keeping up with our ESR 13 branch, and we won't have those ESR devices anymore after the Pixel 5a is gone. Unclear about this but there's a high chance it's still based on AOSP.
@GrapheneOS @ShredderFeeder I accidentally linked to the MP01 when I meant to link to the MP02. But neither of those are the MC02, which seems to be an actual smartphone.
@Hyolobrika
Android phones don't necessary have to use touchscreen, you can even use Android on a desktop computer. One of the early ARM NetBooks — Toshiba AC100 came with Android pre-installed.
I knew that it runs some Android, but I didn't know it's a fork of Graphene.
@GrapheneOS @ShredderFeeder
@Hyolobrika @ShredderFeeder We're pretty sure they all run a variant of AOSP but it's only the MC02 where they clearly claim it's based on a variant of GrapheneOS, which we find problematic when it's a year out-of-date and they changed a whole lot of things in strange ways.
@GrapheneOS Yeah. I hope you guys can revert this push for Play Integrity for the sake of us all. Unfortunately for me I have to go back to stock because one core app that I need daily at my job stopped working on GrapheneOS coulple of months ago. It doesn't even show in Play Store and sideloading apk throws an error upon login.
@dukevonleo Which app? Did you contact the app developers and show them https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide?
Can't vouch for either of them.
@Hyolobrika Only reason i carry a phone is because my work requires it, and so my family can get hold of me in an emergency. I've found that if I can get email on my phone, people expect me to be accessable 24x7...
@GrapheneOS Have you considered the obvious though likely unsuccessful approach of reporting this anticompetitive behaviour to the European Commission?
@elricofmelnibone We're already actively in contact with them about it. We need to follow up and express the urgency of what's currently happening with Google pushing adoption of the Google Play Integrity API.