I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
Continue using a custom ROM.
If more brands start locking down their devices I’ll have a conundrum, and it’ll start being about antique hunting. More apps requiring an “approved” OS would also do it, but geopolitics will stop that from going too far in the near future.
DeGoogled Custom ROMs
Cry, -as it would seem my carrier only supports Android & Apple phones and I am stuck with my carrier.
Keep waiting for a Linux phone that actually works as a daily driver.
At that point I’d rather use a half functioning Linux phone than a locked down one. Hopefully stuff like Framework and Fairphone will follow through on making parts available for real old devices.
Already can’t find a phone with the hardware I want. Might as well get an iphone since I won’t be able to do half the shit I want to either way.
Will this effect distros like eos?
I don’t have to do anything. I use GrapheneOS btw.
The problem for all these things is proprietary firmware.
What problem? Firmware for my phone works fine.
I’ve been using GrapheneOS for a while, which should minimise disruptions, but I’m also hoping the Linux phone ecosystem improves before Google locks down Android completely.
Same. I have to imagine there are some devs out there who will start working on Linux ports of their apps.
Is SailfishOS good?
It… works. barely. I tried it and kinda liked it but if you’re looking for comfort custom ROMs are way better. (this was almost a decade ago so I don’t know what it’s like now)
I’m going full dumbphone with a flip phone and using single purpose devices like mp3 players for music and handhelds for gaming and emulation.
Use Droidify with Shizuku
Droidify is just a wrapper for f-droid and various repos… it’s affected in the same way
Get a pocket pc, probably. And only use the phone for what strictly requires it.
It’ll likely end up being more comfortable from a usability standpoint than it is now anyway.
What are good pocket PCs running linux?
I had a Nokia N900 and now own a Gemini PDA running Sailfish and it is quite nice to have a programmable device wit a physical keyboard (it runs Python, Guile, and cross-compiled Rust CLI programs). A small PC running waydroid would be fantastic.
I was thinking of something like the Piccolo. But I admit I absolutely haven’t researched that market. So I don’t really know what’s available.
Not many good options out there but will likely change as Google destroys android and creates a market space for these types of devices.
If it really interferes, same thing as when YouTube started enshittifying: use it less and likely be better off.
I feel embarassed to say this as someone who is fairly techy, but I’m a little confused by the whole brouhaha.
Is Google making changes to Android, or to AOSP?
If Google is making changes to the Android fork they put on their own phones, then fuck 'em. Use Graphene. Use e/OS/, use Lineage…use something that forks their own branch of AOSP and Google can pound sand because those forks are in no way obligated to make the same changes as Google. AOSP is open source for that very reason.
If Google is making those changes to AOSP itself, which means that anyone who uses AOSP as a base have those changes by default, then isn’t Google obligated to keep those changes as Open Source, in which case anyone else who uses AOSP can just remove them from their own fork?
Someone explain like I’m a particularly dim five-year-old, please.
If you want to keep using google playstore and services, you no longer will be able to use f-droid, whether google or any aosp rom. grapheneOS claims it won’t be affected given their sandboxed google play and services. Though I’m not sure if eventually google would come up with a counter measure or it won’t ever care. They want to enforce that if anyone uses their proprietary stuff the apps interacting with it must be from register developers, which automatically exclude any libre/free app storage on which developers don’t want to register to google. GrepheneOS being the exception.
If you use microG with any custom rom, I guess that might work through fake registrations, but can’t be sure. But any custom rom without google play and services is supposed to be ok with f-droid. The thing is that google knows most if not all users need one app that depends on their stuff, perhaps bank apps, payment apps, and so on…
iirc they are enforcing this on the play services level, using the play protect system. so if you use a custom rom with google play, you are likely cooked too.
that is if the roms don’t implement a system to circumvent it.
I’ve also been confused about this, but this is my take on it.
You’re correct that they are making these changes to Android and not AOSP. This means that an OS like Graphene or e/OS/ will still be able to use sideloaded apps and other appstores like F-Droid.
I think the reason everyone is freaking out about this, is that it hurts appstores like F-Droid. It has a chilling effect on apps that are released to alternative app stores and may cause those stores to fail over time, thus killing FOSS apps at the point of distribution.
That said, this is also over my head technically, so I would love if someone more knowledgable could weigh in.
Yes, this is an important point overlooked by the ‘But I have root’ crowd.
Also: https://f-droid.org/en/2025/09/29/google-developer-registration-decree.html
Build a time machine and go back in time to stop WebOS from being sold to HP.
You mean convince more people to not buy android phones. Man we used to be able to run custom kernel code on the palm pre to try and get more performance out
