Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Fnoord | Hacker News Reader

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There's like three major options if you want to run a FOSS smartphone, and I'll sum them up.

Pinephone: Cheap. The device isn't very powerful. With people coming from an Apple device, that's a problem.

Fairphone 3: Fair. The hardware isn't very powerful either, and the device is more expensive, but the product is better for the people who assembled it and the environment.

Librem 5: Open. Even more expensive than Fairphone, but the hardware features killswitches, and there's no binary blobs. Lacks the fair advantages Fairphone has.

Each of these can run a myriad of FOSS OSes from a deGoogled Android (ASOP-based fork) such as /e/ or Ubuntu or Debian/Arch/Ubuntu mobile versions or SFOS (Sailfish) community version (without Android emulation layer!), and each hardware and software has their pros/cons. I use a Fairphone 3 with stock firmware with a Pinephone as back-up phone (and have to use a Samsung flagship device for work). Previously I used a Fairphone 2 with LineageOS + microG (kind of like predecessor of /e/ before that took off).

PS: On the gaming side, I'm getting a Steam Deck. Its a bang for the buck compared to Aya Neo/Nintendo Switch/gaming smartphones). No, it isn't open hardware, but the device runs Linux and you get root on it, plus all the reviews (including Linus Tech Tips) are positive.

"Fairphone"

It is nice the the fairphone trys to be nice and fair, but I would rather have a focus of a actual open phone under my control and they do not deliver this (not to blame them, the issue is hard). Fixing the global exploitive economy is a different issue and trying to solve everything at once is not working usually.

"Librem 5"

How useful is a microphone killswitch, if there is no killswitch for the speakers, that can be used as a microphone, too? And it would be news to me, that it is now completely free of binary blobs and their claims always felt a little bit dishonest to me. I recently read a interview by the former CTO that confirms it

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zlatan-T...

I would go with the Pinephone. For now I have a stupid samsung phone with facebook app preinstalled and unremovable, but have not yet found the time to try lineage with it.

> if there is no killswitch for the speakers, that can be used as a microphone, too?

I know that physically / electronically, a speaker is a microphone, but is there any way for someone to actually record sound through the speakers on the librem? There is a lot more to a microphone than just the diaphragm...

Not easy probably, but likely doable, when someone think it is worth the effort. When the goal is security, because you feel (rightfully or not) targeted by state level intelligence, false sense of security can be dangerous:

https://www.hackread.com/hackers-steal-data-air-gapped-pcs-m...

The work in that link has some pretty far-reaching requirements to claim that, that do not generalize to random phone hardware.

It was just a random link. There are plenty of other articles in that area I read about, because I do care about privacy. I do not have them at hand - but the point stands - it is possible. So if there are speakers connected - I assume someone could listen.

Maybe not at all likely (in my case) but when we talk about real security and for some people this is indeed a question of live and death, then I don't want to promote half solutions.

edit: to clarify. , yes a microphone killswitch is probabyl useful in the way that it eliminates most common attack vectors to silently listening to people, but it is potential harmful if people would rely on it for 100% - but do get listened to and send to gulag because the local KGB did in fact took the effort to implement such spyware

Pinephone is a certainly a good bang for the buck, but the hardware is nothing special, and the killswitches are DIP (better than nothing, like Fairphone's current iterations). If you want a cheap solution, this one's the one to opt for. Especially a good option for people who live in (relatively) poorer countries/regions than US or North/West-Europe.

A lot of people in our world simply cannot afford a Fairphone. I can, and I applaud the project, so I went for it. I also applaud the other projects, and remember that perfect is the enemy of good. That a Librem 5 isn't going to be perfect in terms of security, is OK. Its their first iteration (and they had various iterations of it, which lead to considerable delays).

There's also some keyboard smartphones such as Planet Cosmo Communicator and Planet Astro Slide. And some other ones as well such as F(x)tec (which is a good successor to Nokia N900). These are also niche, specific, with their hardware keyboard (which include custom layout such as Dvorak). But they can run alternative OSes, by default. I believe that, for me, this (hardware keyboard smartphone) is going to be the ultimate usability dream, if the keys are large enough. I previously owned a Nokia E71 and Nokia N900, before touch typing became the status quo.

> [...] I recently read a interview by the former CTO that confirms it [...]

I also backed Astro Slide (and own a Cosmo Communicator), and am disappointed with their hardware downgrade from Dimensity 1000 to 800. I hate it when promises are not kept. But it happens. As mentioned I owned a Nokia N900 previously, but I wasn't fond of the keyboard, so I hope Astro Slide's going to be better. And, given its like the Cosmo Communicator (which I am used to), I am confident it will be. The big disadvantage of Planet devices is their slow updates, and being reliant on Mediatek (MTK) which means EOL soon.

With regards to hardware keyboard I read Pinephone is planning such as well, which is great news because its otherwise such an affordable smartphone. Pine64 sells a lot of other cool FOSS stuff such as Pinecil and Pine Camera.

> I believe that, for me, this (hardware keyboard smartphone) is going to be the ultimate usability dream, if the keys are large enough.

https://xnux.eu/log/#043

>phone with facebook app preinstalled and unremovable

I've never used a phone like this, but are you also forced to provide FB credentials during initial setup? If not, then is the FB app just being installed a privacy threat if it is never used? Is it still accessing information on the phone without being tied directly to you?

I have had a phone that had a Facebook application preinstalled, and prevented removal of said application. Setting up the phone did not require FB credentials.

I would be worried that even without logging into Facebook or giving it my credentials, my FB-ized phone would help FB's efforts in creating and maintaining shadow profiles. As far as I'm concerned, since the FB app is tied into the OS so tightly that it cannot be removed, it poisons the phone and makes it an adversarial surveillance device.

This type of poison, of course, is not limited to Facebook.

Deactivating the app is usually possible and is equivalent to uninstalling it on Android. It still takes some room in the system partition but you cannot use it anyway. Unless you root your phone, in which case you can also remove the app entirely.

These preinstalled apps are still crap though, I'd rather have a smaller system partition and a bigger user data partition, should I own such a phone.

This phone was paid for and controlled by the company for whom I worked at the time, so I didn't want to cross the IT overlords and their policies by rooting the phone.

Good to know about deactivating apps on Android, though; thank you! I do not remember if I had that option.

" Is it still accessing information on the phone without being tied directly to you? "

I don't know. I do not have FB. But the fact, that I still have to have the app no matter what I want, illustrates my point, that I really do not own or controll this phone. But it works reliable, was affordable - AND I can remove the batterie.

And I do it regulary, because then I can be sure, it is really turned off.

Otherwise I kind of assume everything I do with it or around it, is potentially recorded.

So yes, I really, really want a phone that I can trust, even if it is turned on.

I can assure you I'm not asking as an advocate for accepting FB to be pre-installed. I'm asking to know truly how vile it really is. At this point, I assume FB knows enough about everyone to be able to ID them without confirmation via logged in FB app.

> if there is no killswitch for the speakers, that can be used as a microphone, too?

Speakers can be wired to do that, but this is not something you can change with software.

> And it would be news to me, that it is now completely free of binary blobs and their claims always felt a little bit dishonest to me.

It's the only phone running FSF-endorsed OS without binary blobs, PureOS. It's recommended by the FSF [0]. More details here [1].

[0] https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/

[1] https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/community-wiki/-/wikis/Freque...

Note that the FSF takes the position that binary blobs that are in non-writable memory and executed by secondary processors are part of the hardware and thus not relevant for judging the openness under RYF criteria. Which is how the Librem5 achieves that status, by deliberately picking components that do not use firmware upload from the host CPU but rather ship with the firmware in non-writable memory, and by adding read-only memory that is only used in the pre-boot environment. The OS is blob-free because the thing is engineered to make the blobs inaccessible to the OS. Which is a valid choice, since entirely blob-free would be impossible to make and ship, but I also see why people disagree that "blob-free" is a good description for the device.

A slight correction about Sailfish OS - the official/commercial Android emulation layer is only available for officially supported Sony Xperia devices, as can be seen in the table on Jolla Shop:

https://shop.jolla.com/

I do have Xperia X & Xperia 10 II and can confirm Android emulation layern works very well.

You can run Sailfish OS on many other devices thanks to community porting work, but without support for the Jolla provide Android emulation layer. The devices will still run all the many native Sailfish OS apps + ARM compiled flatpaks just fine & the is community work in getting Anbox to run to provide Android emulation on the community ports as well. :)

If one is okay with less-open hardware, the F(x)tec Pro 1 X seems to be a good higher-end smartphone that has a decent camera sensor, slide-out keyboard, AMOLED display, and can be ordered with either Ubuntu Touch or Lineage preinstalled.

It's at the top of my if-I-ever-jump-ship-from-Apple list of phones.

That sounds quite good too. I like pragmatic approaches.

Yeah, I'm going for Astro Slide instead. I have used a keyboard similar to F(x)tec in past (the Pro 1 X is just a rebrand, btw) with Nokia N900 and Nokia E71. It simply does not type comfortably on such a keyboard, the keys are too small (there's always a learning curve with regards to layout as it is never 100% standard qwerty). If the Astro wouldn't be available I'm better off with touch type with a second screen as keyboard. Though, do see the Pinephone hardware keyboard link posted elsewhere in this thread. It seems to be akin to the Astro Slide. At least in spirit.

> Astro Slide

Oh wow, that's a very interesting option - I like the way that hinge works, but I fear that a mechanical part that complex in a smartphone is likely to become worn out quickly (source: I had both a Moto RAZR and a T-Mobile Sidekick back in the day and both would barely stay closed by the time I upgraded).

> the Pro 1 X is just a rebrand

This is very interesting to me, would you mind filling me in on what it's a rebrand of?

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