Caretaker of Sunhillow/DS8.ZONE. Free (Libre) Software enthusiast and promoter. Pronouns: any
Also /u/CaptainBeyondDS8 on reddit and CaptainBeyond on libera.chat.
AI Disclosure: No “generative AI tools” are used to produce any work attributed to “Captain Beyond of Sunhillow” (here or elsewhere).
It should be noted this is not any sort of actual anti-malware tool. By “lists the trackers” it just means it looks for strings in the compiled bytecode. This is prone to false positives (if the “tracker” classes are stubbed out, e.g. in Fennec F-Droid) and doesn’t actually tell you if or how these libraries are actually used.
/e/OS is just LineageOS with a bunch of cloud crap and a proprietary map app.
Their voice to text feature uses a cloud server that uses OpenAI on the backend. This is something that could and should run locally, but the local ones are apparently not good enough and instead of investing into developing them they are going to use a cloudy thing. But hey, I guess OpenAI is not google, so it is kosher.
https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using-open-ai/70509
Just use LineageOS
People should start doing so. This “android isn’t real linux” nonsense is actively harmful misinformation at this point
Free software is about freedom, not price. It is perfectly ok to sell free software. Even if Voyager cost money to download as long as it gives users the four freedoms it is free software.
As far as I know there are several non-free Lemmy apps as well as a handful of paid apps.
Is mobian still maintained? I had a quick look a couple days ago and their last blog post was 3+ years ago.
October 2025 by my reckoning.
https://blog.mobian.org/posts/2025/10/new-stable-rotating-keys/
Linux, the kernel, is the thing that containers run on top of. The container does not actually contain an instance of Linux, it shares it with the host.
If by Linux you mean “literally everything except Linux” though, then sure. But I prefer to say what I mean and mean what I say
You never needed a VM to run Linux apps on Android. Android can run Linux apps because it is already a Linux operating system. This is like referring to a docker container as “running Linux on Debian” or whatever.
Been a while since I used microG but I remember the Google registration specifically being opt-in. Then again, I also remember reading that /e/OS automatically enables it, so…
I do not have a high opinion of /e/OS or Murena. It is LineageOS but “degoogled” which is a meaningless buzzword considering LineageOS already does not contain Google services/apps (you have to install those yourself). Instead it’s connected to its own “Murena cloud” which itself uses OpenAI for a speech to text service. But hey, it’s not google so it must be okay, right…?
https://community.e.foundation/t/voice-to-text-feature-using-open-ai/70509
It might be opt in (or opt out? dunno) but this sort of thing should not be a cloud thing, it should be a local service.
It also comes with at least one proprietary app built into the OS and their app store offers proprietary apps with some sort of “tracker detection” thing. I do not trust any “app store” that purports to tell me which proprietary apps are “good.”
LineageOS comes with no google apps, no cloud apps, no proprietary apps, etc. It’s just a perfectly usable AOSP system. It doesn’t even have an “app store” but you can install F-Droid on it. I think GrapheneOS is the same (it supports “sandboxed Google services” but it doesn’t include them by default)
As far as I know the only options that exist are LineageOS, GrapheneOS, and maybe non-Android Linuxes if you’re brave enough. There used to be DivestOS which although based on LineageOS brought several security, privacy, and freedom improvements, but that project has been discontinued. None of these “degoogled privacy OS” LineageOS reskins impress me.
It’s a funny story but it’s worth noting that copyright does not apply to typefaces in the US (although maybe it does in other jurisdictions)
It does seem like a bug. I actually have a UnifiedPush distributor but have never configured Fennec to use it (I didn’t even know it was an option) but now Fennec shows me this warning and there is no way to actually enable it in settings anymore.
What makes Sailfish OS unique over competitors like GrapheneOS and e/OS is that it’s not based on the Android Open Source Project, but Linux.
Not only are AOSP and its derivatives also based on Linux, they are actually free software unlike Sailfish OS which contains some amount of proprietary code (I know at least the Android compatibility layer - which I’m told isn’t simply the AOSP runtime (as Waydroid uses) but some proprietary thing).
s/Linux/systemd/g
It’s much more correct to say that Lineage or Graphene are Android than saying that Android is Linux.
Both of these are correct. LineageOS and GrapheneOS are AOSP; AOSP is Linux.
Linux is a kernel. Other components must be added onto Linux to create a complete Linux operating system. Adding stuff onto Linux does not subtract any Linuxness from it. Any Linux OS is “real Linux.” Saying that some Linuxes are not real Linux is like saying if you add peanut butter to bread you no longer have “real bread.” It is nonsense.
They stole our brain? Wasn’t that a Star Trek episode?
Brain and brain, what is brain 🧠?
conspiracy theory time: “AI” is a psyop designed to manufacture consent for unpopular internet regulations such as this one. We used to take anonymity and privacy for granted and now every other website demands you to “prove you are human” (my instance is unfortunately no exception… its a necessary evil).
I would say not running Windows is itself a practical benefit. I would also say the four freedoms constitute a very practical benefit (even if the software you’re running on top of the OS is proprietary).
This is a web wrapper for several proprietary social apps. It is effectively a browser locked into a pre-approved set of URLs. Just use a real browser.
There are some things that can be described as philosophy of Linux (e.g. “don’t break userspace”, “I only care about the code”), but the idea that “Linux is about [freedom|choice|privacy|openness]” is entirely mythological. It’s just a neat free software operating system kernel that has been used to build operating systems, many of which are free software.
Of course, Linux is “too fragmented” because there isn’t a standard “linux desktop environment” (or package manager, or shell, etc) unless it’s systemd in which case it’s “about choice” and we need “init freedom.”