Per one tech forum this week: “Google has quietly installed an app on all Android devices called ‘Android System SafetyCore’. It claims to be a ‘security’ application, but whilst running in the background, it collects call logs, contacts, location, your microphone, and much more making this application ‘spyware’ and a HUGE privacy concern. It is strongly advised to uninstall this program if you can. To do this, navigate to 'Settings’ > 'Apps’, then delete the application.”

    • @[email protected]OP
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      3718 days ago

      if there was something that could run android apps virtualized, I’d switch in a heartbeat

      • Refurbished Refurbisher
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        18 days ago

        There are two solutions for that. One is Waydroid, which is basically what you’re describing. Another is android_translation_layer, which is closer to WINE in that it translates API calls to more native Linux ones, although that project is still in the alpha stages.

        You can try both on desktop Linux if you’d like. Just don’t expect to run apps that require passing SafetyNet, like many banking apps.

        • @[email protected]OP
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          317 days ago

          I know about WayDroid, but never heard of ATL.

          So yeah, while we have the fundamentals, we still don’t have an OS that’s stable enough as a daily driver on phones.

          And this isn’t a Linux issue. It’s mostly because of proprietary drivers. GrapheneOS already has the issue that it only works on Pixel phones.

          I can imagine, bringing a Linux only mobile OS to life is even harder. I wish android phones were designed in a way, that there is a driver layer and an OS layer, with standerdized APIs to simply swap the OS layer for any unix-like system.

          • Refurbished Refurbisher
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            117 days ago

            Halium is basically what you’re talking about. It uses the Android HAL to run Linux.

            The thing is, that also uses the Android kernel, meaning that there will essentially never be a kernel update since the kernel patches by Qualcomm have a ton of technical debt. The people working on porting mainline Linux to SoCs are essentially rewriting everything from scratch.

      • @[email protected]
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        517 days ago

        Every one of them can, AFAIK. I have a second cheap used phone I picked up to play with Ubuntu Touch and it has a system called Waydroid for this. Not quite seamless and you’ll want to use native when possible but it does work.

        SailfishOS, PostmarketOS, Mobian, etc all also can use Waydroid or a similar thing

      • @[email protected]
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        117 days ago

        I have used Waydroid, mainly with FOSS apps, and although it has some rough edges, it does often work for just having one or two Android apps functionality.

        Linux on mobile as a whole isn’t daily driver ready yet in my opinion. I’ve only tried pmOS on a OP6, but that seems to be a leading project on a well-supported phone (compared to the rest).

        • @[email protected]OP
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          117 days ago

          not necessarily… I mean If they run under the same VM, I’d be fine with that as well…but having a sandboxed wrapper would for sure be nice.

    • @[email protected]
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      18 days ago

      The Firefox Phone should’ve been a real contender. I just want a browser in my pocket that takes good pictures and plays podcasts.

      • @[email protected]
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        1918 days ago

        Unfortunately Mozilla is going the enshittification route more and more. Or good in this case that the Firefox Phone did not take of.

      • @[email protected]
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        517 days ago

        too bad firefox is going through the way like google, they are updating thier privacy terms of usage.

        • @[email protected]
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          417 days ago

          Yep. I’m furious at Mozilla right now. But when the Firefox Phone was in development, they were one of the web’s heroes.

          • @[email protected]
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            217 days ago

            it says its only for LLM? as long as they dont try to expand the “privacy” in any case i download alternatives to the browsers anyways.

    • @[email protected]
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      117 days ago

      I just gave up and pre-ordered the Light Phone 3. Anytime I truly need a mobile app, I can just use an old iPhone and a WiFi connection.