Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source capacity over the last decade.

Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.

Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.

  • youmaynotknow@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    17 hours ago

    2 days ago I moved from GrapheneOS back to Stock Pixel in my 8 Pro, just to see what all the hype about the new android 16 in Pixel is about. Jesus, this is way worse than I remember. i tried it for 2 whole days, and that shit just won’t allow me to have ANY control over my phone. It’s fucking ridiculous. On Android 15 I was able to uninstall Google Drive, Meet, Youtube, and many other Google apps, this time around all it would allow was “disable”. What’s next, removing the ability to disable (which I don’t trust anyway)?

    Fast forward to today, I’m back on GOS, and my anxiety levels are down again. This shit is insane, and I honestly can’t understand why anyone would put up with this crap.

    • redhat421@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 hours ago

      Those apps are installed in the squashfs image. Such images are write once, read many and thus they can’t be mutated at runtime.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 hours ago

      this time around all it would allow was “disable”.

      This has been par for other OEM-flavored Android phones for years, unfortunately.

      Disable is alright, not that the phone itself isn’t a privacy nightmare in other ways.