this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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DeGoogle Yourself
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I made two honest attempts to move completely away from the three Big Tech mobile monopolies (only two now, the dystopia keeps consolidating...): once with Symbian a long time ago, once with Ubuntu Touch.
Yeah, the phones do phone things. And if you squint hard enough at the Linux phone, the look and feel is almost as polished an experience as Android's.
But here's the thing: as soon as you need to make a payment with your bank's app or you need to connect to your company's Teams, you're shit out of luck and you need a backup monopoly phone. That happens very fast and it gets tiring very quickly.
So I'm still on Android. DeGoogled Android (CalyxOS) but still code from the Google dystopia ultimately, because however much I hate Google, I'm also a practical man who would like to live his life somewhat normally.
That's how entrenched the monopolies are: even when you're as dedicated as I am to avoiding them, you can't.
what does CarlyxOS do for you, and could a fairly inept end user use it?
Yes, an inept user can install it. I know because I am a fairly inept user 🙂
The key to a successful deGoogled OS installation is picking the most compatible phone possible for the AOSP flavor you want to run. If the phone is well supported and everything is reported to work, you're unlikely to run into issues.
I chose a Fairphone 4 to run CalyxOS. Or rather, it went the other way in my case: CalyxOS was kind of imposed on me because my requirements for the phone was first and foremost not be Google Pixel phone (i.e. GrapheneOS was not an option) and good repairability second. CalyxOS is the only deGoogled AOSP distribution that runs on the Fairphone.
If you look at the instructions to install CalyxOS on the Fairphone 4, it's nicely detailed and really simple. It went without a hitch for me. You can also install it on the Fairphone 5 and it looks simple enough too, but I haven't tried it myself.
As to why I like it:
It emphasizes privacy over security (like GrapheneOS). Yeah it might not be quite as secure as GrapheneOS, but it's more practical.
Enable MicroG and you basically have a normally-working phone. Yes, you still hit the Google server and that's not great. But sadly that's part of the compromises you have to make with your principles if you want to have a somewhat normal digital life in this day and age.
System-level integration with F-Droid and Aurora. The GrapheneOS people think it's a liability. I think it's a plus.
Comes with a work profile manager that works fine out of the box. You don't need to install a third party manager like Shelter.
I know I'm gonna be shouted at for saying this, but... The Calyx Institute is always a little behind with Android updates unless they're critical, and I find that to be a plus regardless of the OS you use - desktop or mobile: when your OS pulls updates as soon as they come out, it pulls screw-ups as soon as they come out too. CalyxOS' delay in pushing updates means you let others play guinea pigs for you, and you only get updates after they've been thoroughly tested by a large number of users.
CalyxOS comes preinstalled with a nice set of apps. I especially like the Datura firewall: it lets you use sketchy app and deny them access to the internet. For instance, I use it to configure my TP-Link smartplugs with the TP-Link Tapo app without letting this hateful turd of a spyware app call the mothership. I don't quite like how the SeedVault backup software follows the Android security model, because it prevents you from doing a true, full backup. But it does backups nicely and securely and that's better than nothing. And the Calyx institute offers a free VPN: I only tried it once and it was kind of slow, but hey... it's free.
Like I said, it runs on a non-Google phone. I hate Google with a passion and there was no way I was going to give them money to get a Pixel phone for the privilege of not being subjected to the Google surveillance. So most other deGoogled OSes weren't even an option for me.