Approximately 75% of smartphones use the Android operating system, which was originally based on Linux.
Android is an open source project created and managed by Google. So far, so good.
But then Google added ‘Google Mobile Services (GMS)’, which includes most of Google's proprietary apps, such as Google Play Store, Gmail, YouTube, etc.
In fact, most of these apps cannot be deleted by the user...
And so smartphones have become the biggest spy that we voluntarily carry around with us at all times. Google knows where we are, which restaurants we go to, what we buy, what our hobbies are, who our friends are and who is with us at any given moment...
Is that what we want? Is that what you want?
The alternative: deGoogled Android
So-called deGoogled Androids have been around for a long time. They do not send any data back to Google, but of course they also do not include Google Play Store or other Google apps!
Apps are installed using F-Droid and the Aurora Store.
Examples of such deGoogled Androids are:
- lineageOs
- /e/OS
- iodéOS
- GrapheneOS unfortunately only for Google Pixel phones.
- CalyxOS
And there are even real Linux distributions, i.e. no Android derivatives 😉:
- postmarketOS is based on Alpine Linux.
- ubuntu touch is based on Ubuntu.
- Droidian is based on Debian.
Smartphones that can be operated with deGoogled Android:
And by the way, the battery can also be easily replaced:
- SHIFTphone 8 with ShiftOS-Light or /e/OS
- Volla Phone with VollaOS or Ubuntu Touch
- Purism Librem 5 with PureOS
- Fairphone 5 with /e/OS
- BraX 3 with iodéOS or ubuntu touch (crowdfunding project)
- Liberux Nexx with LiberuxOS (not yet available, crowdfunding project)
- PinePhone (mainly intended for developers)
Further information
Behind deGoogelt e/OS is the e Foundation, a foundation founded by Murena. Murena is a French company that sells some of the above-mentioned smartphones with e/OS pre-installed.
This link from e Foundation impressively shows what happens to our data...
So far, I have only mentioned Google, but to be fair, we should not be under any illusions: Apple, Samsung and Co. are of course doing the same thing, but Google surpasses them all.
