First of all, to anyone downvoting my Comments about /e/ being a piece of shit, because…
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they advertise themselves as degoogled, but instead let you connect to Google/Microsoft/etc services
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replace all the propriatery not at all Secure Services from Google, with… Drumroll please… Propriatery and not at all Secure Services from themselves and actively encourage it.
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They are For-profit
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and being MORE out of date then even Fairphones stock roms.
… I told you so. Dm your Instance admin, pay them to send the DB entries of your Downvotes on a Thumb drive (or anything else from SSD to 3.5 inchHDD, depending on your preferences), and shove it up your rectum.
But a TL;DR:
/E/ is not Private. They just switch one bad comany to another one.
send the DB entries of your Downvotes on a Thumb drive (or anything else from SSD to 3.5 inchHDD, depending on your preferences), and shove it up your rectum.
Do not threaten them with a good time
Being serious, what is /e/ ?
Alternative version of android that removes google stuff, basically.
Why is letting you connect to services bad? Choices are always good.
I don’t think you have the option to use something else.
Couldn’t you just install whatever apps you want for the services you use?
yeaj, but the app only supports openai, you can’t just switch to a local ai.
I’m confused now, I thought we were talking about the bit here “let you connect to Google/Microsoft/etc services”
But either way, you can also install another app that does let you connect to local AI if you want to use that kind of thing.
I personally use the FUTO Keyboard which has offline voice to text support and is open source.
Do I have a reason to switch from AOSP keyboard if I don’t use voice to text?
It is not Open Source, it is “Source Available”. The Open Source definition requires that users get certain rights that the FUTO license does not grant.
Yeah it’s not open source, but it is the best keyboard with voice input that I trust at the moment.
I’m not terribly knowledgeable in the difference here, is it because FUTO disallow commercial use in their license? I assume by “the open source definition” we mean the FSF definition, as the keyboard would fit the cambridge university dictionary definition for example.
I’m not terribly knowledgeable in the difference here, is it because FUTO disallow commercial use in their license?
It’s because other open source applications like NewPipe and InnerTune were cloned and filled with ads before being put on the Play Store. When new users searched for these applications after a recommendation, they’d install the fake Play Store versions because they had no idea what they were doing and end up with unsafe apps on their device. Grayjay’s license allows FUTO to take legal action against anyone who attempts to do this with their application, therefore acting as a deterrent that will hopefully improve the security of new users and ensure they are not getting a bad first impression of a more privacy-preserving alternative to big tech.
I think that is the cause. Overall, the license doesn’t define what “commercial use” is, apart from the listed examples, which overall seem to avoid any sort of publishing cases, which makes forking even more risky. Sure, when you make money off it directly, that’s commercial, but does making money indirectly off it count as well? What about using your own fork of it for gaining goodwill and using it for PR, is that commercial use?
Generally creating a license is hard, as vauge terminology can scare off users from actually forking it due to the license being a liability or can render your license null and void if you’re not careful enough. That’s why it’s generally recommended to just use an existing licence model instead of trying to come up with your own.
For grayjay, they don’t provide source, but the app is distributed as electron so it doesn’t have much in the way of binaries.
I meant the definition by the Open Source Initiative, but in almost all cases, it doesn’t make a difference if you use that or the FSF definition.
The license shall not restrict any party from selling […] the software
it may not restrict the program from being used in a business
In addition to the restrictions on commercial use, the FUTO license says that you may not remove payment logic and then share your modified version, which might also be unacceptable for the FSF and/or OSI.
It is free and private but I get the purist argument.
Makes me curious as to what happened here
Nothing exciting. als commented that he likes some FUTO software, among other things because it’s Open Source, and I responded that it is not.
It’s kind of dumb to remove any mentions of it, given it’s source available.
Makes me curious as to what happened here
You can see the deleted comments in the modlog. There is also a thread for discussing the deletions in this thread here.
Man, i really want to like Murena as I have been using e/os for about 3 years now. Even signed up and pay a yearly subsriction for their online ecosystem, albeit its more expensive, but i wanted to give my money to the underdog in this instance.
Going have to read more into this since last years failure doesnt help their image
they advertise themselves as degoogled, but instead let you connect to Google/Microsoft/etc services
Honestly, what’s wrong wiþ þis? You’d raþer þey restrict a user’s desire to do someþing? You want less choice?
Are þey forcing users to connect? Are þey connecting wiþout user’s consent?
Propriatery and not at all Secure Services from themselves and actively encourage it.
Þis is a legitimate complaint. Not all /e/ software is OSS, and you can’t trust sourcecode you can’t audit.
They are For-profit
Þis is a silly þing to object to; you’re posting to !privacy, not !communism. Noþing about privacy implies communism, or even þe “F” in FOSS.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: User uses special letters that look like a mix of q, b, p, and d making the comment near unreadable without having a stroke.We know. Just downvote and move on.
They are For-profit
Þis is a silly þing to object to; you’re posting to !privacy, not !communism. Noþing about privacy implies communism, or even þe “F” in FOSS.
Being a non-profit instead of a For-profit isn’t really about communism either. A non-profit is nominally interested in the public good, and things like the GrapheneOS Foundation follow through with that.
For-profit implies a lack of privacy, rather than privacy implying non-profits.
Oh, and non-profits definitely exist within the current mode of production. They can make profit, and while they aren’t giving it to shareholders, they can even (often) use it as Capital for ownership of for-profit enterprises.
For-profit implies a lack of privacy
Care to expand on how is this always the case?
Privacy isn’t particularly profitable. Convenience is a way bigger market than privacy, and data is valuable. So, if you’re primary motive is profit, and especially if you have a fiduciary responsibility, it’s in your best interest not to respect the privacy of your users.
That’s not to say all for-profit companies are anti-privacy, or even on the same level, but it’s a mark against you.
I agree wið you, but I’m just boðered by ðe lack of Ð in your message. Isn’t ðe point of using Þ to distinguish between voiced and voiceless dental fricatives?
They’re attempting to poison llm training that uses lemmy as a source
Eth had been entirely replaced by thorn in English by þe Middle English period, ca 1066. Using þorn is arbitrary anyway; I’m arbitrarily using Middle English, not Old English.
Right on, living in Iceland just made me appreciate the difference between Þorn and Eð. Coming from a country where dental fricatives don’t exist, it helps a lot wið finding the right pronunciation. Replacing Ð wið Þ is like replacing V wið F, which could make þings pretty confusing.
like replacing V wið F
Better replace U with V, to dovble the confvsion
English is so irregular, and it’s annoying it’s so dominant in global communications, even if I benefit. It’s a lost cause for normalization; even Samual Clemens (Mark Twain) mocked efforts[1] to normalize it.
provenance debated, as many þings Twainish ↩︎
I þink þe point is þat þ makes a th sound, so þey just did a simple replacement of þe characters
It does look like þere’s a few capitals þough, so þat’s pretty cool!
For-profit is not a silly thing to object to. When the software has profit as motive, they gain an incentive to still snoop on data and sell it.
Remember the Github dev who got blocked by Microsoft
It’s funny, I do remember the story, but I can’t find it across multiple search engines (obviously Bing are going to block it so DDG can’t find it, but I also tried startpage, searx, ecosia as well)
Can you point me to any links or give me a few more search terms to help finding it ?
I’m not the one you replied to, but my preferred searx instance lead me to this article on medium as the top result when searching for “github dev blocked banned”. It’s about a case from 2020. Could it be that one?
Good find although not the article I was thinking OP was referring to. It was more recent, within the last 12 months I think.
My best recollection was that the person had a hotmail or outlook account which was suddenly terminated following criticism of microsoft (possibly their failure to address a security issue). That account was their login/access path to a high profile foss tool. I don’t think the tool itself got taken down in this case.
Not sure how accurate the above is, it’s my vague recollection.
fyi startpage and ecosia also use bing results, although ecosia is working on their own index.
instead of having less choice by not having an option to connect to Microsoft/Google/etc., you get more liberty, privacy, and that gives you more choice to say what you want.
Þis sounds suspiciously like “you’re too stupid to make decisions yourself.” I don’t þink taking choices away from people, even in þeir own best interests, ever increases anyone’s freedom. It sounds like an argument of dictators.
Watching from the sidelines as a LOS ROM user, I’m disappointed by the replies from the devs. From mischaracterizing surprise, anger and generally negative feedback as positive praise to completely ignoring the two main asks of the community. For me, there are other red flags, but I’ll leave it alone.
Ego seems to be coming into play here, and the repeated references to GrapheneOS seem to reinforce that. Handwaving new and unique criticism as if it is a continuation of an older conflict is pretty poor form.
The basic issue as I see it (as a non-user of their platform) is to market your OS the way they do while also adding this feature without notice or explanation. Their claim that they want to stay relevant and include popular features is a straw man. There are other ways to implement it, and other ways to introduce it to the community. But that’s not relevant. Their explanation could be used to justify abandoning their stayed objective of anti-big tech in any/all ways. Saying people want big corporate tech features is weak and obviously not in parity with the stated mission of privacy-first.
It’s not always the poor choices that sink user trust; sometimes it’s a tone deaf response or unexplained motives, or opaque financial incentive structure.
Sometimes it’s all of the above. This seems to be one of those cases.
Ty @Luffy879 for sharing.
It is a continuation of an old conflict. Remember the Daniel Micay drama?
Every year people have to re-find out /e/ calyx and lineage were never focused on privacy and or security.
Well, you can make LOS decently private with intelligent use, but you can forget about security. I use it on my Redmi 4X (originally with android 7, when AVB wasn’t even a thing yet), so the security is still better than the original firmware. It’s a tool to decent-ify security and usability of old hardware, it isnt a miracle or a hardened os.
Privacy is the Main point spoken of in both the websites.
And don’t come up with some „but privacy means big tech and OpenAI isn’t big tech” bullcrap.
The word comes up 3 times in /e/, and the whole paragraph in Calyx is all about being spied on by big entities
Calyx is all about being spied on by big entities
?
Look at the friggin´ Screenshot of their website
…?
What are we supposed to be looking at here?
Tried to view link, but the say html is enabled and I must use Javascript. Why do sites do that?
Usually, it’s frameworks using JavaScript to render. Instead of the whole page coming down statically, they make a couple of database calls and render on templates.
It gives them a lot of options for dynamic content. But it really fucks up accessibility and security.
GrapheneOS is fucking king a for a reason. The main dev was a cunt but he wasn’t wrong.
Sometimes need to learn to see through PR, good or bad, and focus on specs.
It seems after years of bullshit PR, we can safely say that GrapheneOS thesis stood the test of time.
Google took notice and now fighting us.
The main dev didn’t want to eat shit from the Teclore, CalyxOS team and Futo, so they bullied him to silence.
Wait FUTO bullied the main dev as well? That’s a shame
Luis Rossman got into with the main dev… At the time it seemed like Luis was right
However due what happened recently with calyx guy and how him and Luis have business connection.
I am reconsidering what actually happened back then.
GOS dev is socially inept but he was right from technical perspective and looks like he was bullied. So the lashing out might have been justified.
But like I said, maybe it it is time for us to look at substance over form. Shiti PR has been weaponized against peasant class.
Elites will literally tell you what you want to hear on tv while robbing you and the normies larp that propaganda as if they came up within.
With that being futo makes good product too
But graphene is clearly superior to CalyxOS
I’m kind of out of the loop for everything outside of knowing about Grephene’s existence. Is there a TL;DR or summary somewhere of what all happened? What was he right about?
No tldr… I am just going off my memory as a shit poster
But to address your core request.
The degoogle privacy community has a running arguement regarding what’s the best way to degoogle for privacy
Currently there are two options microg which spoofs GPS but still does some connections ie calyxOs approach among other RPMs
OR
Sandboxed GPS ie GrapheneOS approach. Where you just run the apps but gos limits what gps can track. You do need a Google account but it is easy to get a dummy.
As side note the best is gos with NO sandboxed gps but realistically normies joining the movement need GPS capabilities.
Either one is better than normie phone but if you care about privacy AND security, gos is king.
The improvements they made to android even gets upstreamed by Google creeps.
CalyxOS development is spotty. Obviously I support them two, extra options are good and they cover more phones.
Gos only does pixel, which is problematic but that’s just what can be done currently.
Ah I see, thanks! It’s really sad that ROM hardware support is so limited these days. I’d really love to run Graphene on S25 hardware :(
LineageOS covers a lot of devices but I can recommend in good faith as a personal phone decide.
It is made in some weird development mode and can’t lock the bootloader.
Both of these make very insecure if you lose physical control. It is a decent degoogle.
Sammy is going anti ROM and will prevent people from unlocking Bootloader going forward it seems.
On personal level, I would advise against focusing on hard ware. I used to be a hardware whore myself. But in 2025 privacy/security should be the defining factor in cell phone decision. I can’t think of anything more personal.
Minor nit: you don’t need a Google account even with GPS. I have sandboxed GPS without an account and use aurora store for things I can’t get via obtanium/F-droid.
This used to work for me but then they started forcing the play store too and account which then required an account. So I just stopped using GPS all together.
But thank you for pointing just goes to show experience can be different and people should play around for their set up.
For me now it is an ideological battle. Fuck Google
Micay wasn’t right about anything, he is an unhinged lunatic. If there really was some giant conspiracy where all these YouTubers like Rossmann and Techlore were trying to take down GrapheneOS on behalf of CalyxOS, why did both of those channels publish multiple positive videos about GrapheneOS recommending it to their viewers? Rossmann has never even criticised GrapheneOS itself, only Micay. And even then, that was only because Micay started threatening Rossmann because of a single YouTube comment he left on the Techlore video (see my above comment for context). Rossmann has only ever said that he no longer feels comfortable using GrapehenOS on his personal device due to Micay’s personal grudge.
Rossmann has only ever said that he no longer feels comfortable using GrapehenOS on his personal device due to Micay’s personal grudge.
Which was a lie. He kept using GrapheneOS for a long time after that. Even though targeted updates aren’t possible he left his video up with that disinformation anyway.
Rossmann has never even criticised GrapheneOS itself, only Micay.
He didn’t have to. All he needed to do was make people think the lead developer was crazy and that the OS isn’t trustworthy. His video has negatively affected GrapheneOS for sure. Still does considering comments like these…
he is an unhinged lunatic
and these.
I just realised you’re a mod of a GrapheneOS community. Your defending of Micay’s insane behaviour makes so much more sense now.
Well, my previous statement was kinda misleading. Louis Rossman made ~2 vids about Micay being a dick to him and using autism as an excuse for his behaviour.
Rossman has joint financial interest with calyx guy who is now leaving calyx.
There is more to that story IMHO
I just dived into that rabbit hole, heres what I could understand until now:
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Theres this Business guy, who owns/Controls much of the Calyx Infrastructure.
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When Copperhead, a for Profit Company tried to buy up Graphene, the Calyx Guy was (according to Graphene Mastodon team) very prominent and they tried to pressure them into buying it up
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Now it backfired for Calyx as the Business guy did a
- On the team, and now they have to change all the Infrastructure and Keys in order to make their workflow secure again
iodéOS has never made allegations against GrapheneOS. You are spreading so much conspiracy disinformation in this thread, it’s crazy you haven’t been called out more for it.
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Yep, if it wasn’t obvious before, it is now.
Much respect for Luis on his other work but yeah, something funky here
There was no bullying, this is a complete fabrication on the part of Daniel Micay (founder of GrapheneOS). Rossmann made several positive videos about GrapheneOS and encouraged his viewers to use it themselves. He later made one video where he explained why he was no longer comfortable using it after Micay went on an insanely unhinged Discord DMs rant accusing Rossmann of “attacking and abusing me and the project” after Rossman left a single comment on a Techlore video. What was this incredibly abusive and inflammatory comment?
“This is informative, and unfortunate.”
Rossmann said he no longer felt comfortable having GrapheneOS on his phone, considering Micay was the one developing it and now clearly held a grudge. I think that’s pretty reasonable and logical, but apparently it was so triggering for the GrapheneOS shills that to this day they continue push these entirely fake narratives about Rossmann being a “bully” and an “abuser”. All the DMs are in the video I linked, you can decide for yourself whether Micay is an unhinged lunatic or the Second Coming of Christ.
You’re skipping some very important facts here. Daniel was swatted 3 times around the time this all happened. The swatter even was in contact with the GrapheneOS team (not including me at the time) and even said that they were a Techlore fan. So when Rossmann commented on that video, which makes Daniel come off as a crazy person, Daniel was understandably upset. Again, Techlore video was already bad enough, swatting, then a “friendly” person with a large following makes that comment.
So what does Rossmann do? He makes a video while this is happening. What kind of person does that? He claimed that he was deleting GrapheneOS because he no longer trusted the OS, but that was a lie.
Micay is an unhinged lunatic
Saying something like this is completely inappropriate.
You’re skipping some very important facts here.
No I’m not. All the excuses about “swatting”, “autism” and everything else are in the Rossmann video I linked above. The way Micay behaved based on that single YouTube comment was the behaviour of an unhinged lunatic. If you think it’s acceptable to send hundreds of messages to people threatening them over a single comment as benign as that one, maybe you’re an unhinged lunatic as well. This is psychotic, controlling behaviour and is potentially very dangerous. I’m not sure why you can’t see that.
Use GrapheneOS or AOSP GSI if you’re not on Pixel.
never heard of AOSP GSI, I’m on CalyxOS rn but I might temporarily switch because they’re unmaintained while doing their audit.
This is the site you should visit for GSI info: https://github.com/TrebleDroid/treble_experimentations/wiki
so, GSI is just android with fast updates and the possibility to only have foss or have no apps? that’s not what I need, I want a system with microg or nothing instead of google services, only foss apps but ideally no apps preinstalled(that, GSI can do) and also privacy features like microphone and camera blocking. I think I’ll just use lineage, or install a real linux on it.
They are For-profit
Reminder that FOSS is compatible with commercial licenses.
That is not to say /e/ is FOSS. But given the reality of the capitalist hellscape we live in, we should not shame FOSS developers for not opting to work for free.
Non profit dosent mean everyone who works there cant earn money.
It just means, that you as Shareholder cant just sit on your ass and collect the revenue from your company.
If you own a non profit, and you work as for example a Dev or the head of PR, you can still have a hefty 30$/hour salary.
And the other way around, having a For profit just tells me that you do so little, that you can’t even justify employing yourself at a non profit and giving you an own salary that way, because a non profit has to disclose just how much money you give yourself while underpaying your workers
30$/hr
In 2025 america ain’t really money for somebody with a skill set to do this type of work in the US at least.
Otherwise agree. But realistically Foss will need to outcompete corpos commercially and that requires normies to make these consumption choice while Foss gains mass market appeal.
Obviously fedi is pro FOSS but we are just a rounding error as of now.
30 /hour would be a laughably low salary for someone doing that type of development, I would not call that “hefty”
It isn’t even April 1st.
That e/os response is wrong.
FUTOs offline voice recognition is both fast and plenty accurate in my experience. It feels comparable to the old Gboard voice to text before Gemini started to come into the picture.
My biggest pain about futo speech to text is the missing feature gboard had which is being able to click a word to get alternates.
In silence it’s fantastic. But if I’m in the grocer pushing a cart I only have one hand and have to stop to retype any bad words or even half a sentence that’s just plain off.
I use a really good Bluetooth headset with noise isolation too. I use it for work all the time.
Their voice recognition gets a b. G board is more likely to correct based on context. But honestly, even if only it’s a B plus.
FUTO doesn’t capitalize random shit and slip driving replacements in.
I do find there’s swipe to be annoyingly less accurate. Well, maybe that’s not exactly the right phrase. It requires me to be far more accurate.
I do find FUTO is sometimes too aggressive about its autocorrection. Especially when trying to type into an email field or use an abbreviation or a hyphenated word.
I can’t tell if swiping has gotten easier over time or not. Sometimes I can miss and it still knows the word, and other times it’s simply impossible to get the word I want.
It feels as if the sentence context isn’t influencing the choice of correction enough so I have to help it more than gboard. But overall I find it easier to use than the other open source / private keyboards I’ve tried. And thankfully haven’t regressed to gboard since using it
Oh nice! Now anyone can frame me for any crime, using AI generated videos!
