NotPractical

Google did not compete in an anticompetitive matter (w.r.t. app stores) and a federal judge determining that they did means nothing because it will likely be appealed by another judge. They will probably win their appeal because the verdict is insane.

"Principles" as in arbitrary precedents set by bribed politically-motivated lawmakers and judges.

No, people are correctly pointing out the fact that this is blatantly unfair. You are claiming that 2+2=5 because a judge said so.

If you are concerned about the "consequences" maybe you should start thinking about how open platforms are now legally disadvantaged to closed platforms.

The review part is much more concerning IMO and completely exiles FOSS from the platform (free as in the GNU definition -- you should be able to make arbitrary changes to your copy of the app without some asshole from Apple telling you that they believe your changes constitute a joke or prank [1]). The review part also re-enforces the revenue part because it costs $100/year to submit apps for EU notarization.

[1] Section 1.1.6: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

It's not quite as convoluted as you describe, and I don't think Android ever changes that setting on your behalf. The fact of the matter is that it is dangerous. IMO it's a good thing that they provide you with appropriate warnings.

This comes up a lot but when did Google say their platform was "open"? Maybe a few times in the early days when Google was still considered "cool" in hacker circles, but probably not in consumer-facing advertising? Moreover, "open" can mean a lot of things. I don't think I ever signed an agreement with Google that promised me source code for Android or the ability to sideload on my Android phone?

That's not really a valid comparison because the Microsoft Store and the macOS App Store don't allow third party stores on them. You have to "sideload" any alternative stores/apps you want. To be clear I doubt the hellscape described by OP will come to fruition but still.

I was trying to make a case that when you add up everything the EU has done recently with regards to digital policy, you get a net loss for EU citizens. Their attempt at chat control decrements the score by a significant amount. Amending the DMA to have it not be completely useless would increment it by a significant amount, but it is unknown if that will happen yet.

So the EU attempts to invade your privacy using smartphones [1] and forces duopoly-brand smartphones upon its citizens, yet it fails to compel Apple to allow true sideloading, so you're stuck choosing between "no freedom but some privacy" or "no privacy but some freedom"? Their digital policy initiatives overall seem like a net loss for EU citizens as it stands.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/19/24181214/eu-chat-control

See also from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41754074

GrapheneOS is attempting to pursue the "legal" way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41119047

I think what these people are looking for, really, is an alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly that provides more control and less tracking, not necessarily Linux (yes, I know the title of the post is "we need GNU/Linux"). Companies like Framework prove that there's a nontrivial number of people looking for devices like this.

Windows Phone was around during the time that carrying a smartphone on your person at all times was optional, and we didn't have critical government and banking services being delivered exclusively through apps that only work on Google Android and Apple iOS. I suspect that if Windows Phone had survived, and managed to keep even a tiny fraction of the market share, these apps would nonetheless be forced to support it because they would have to account for at least some of their customers using it.

Sure, that follows and I agree that most people probably won't find it to be a dealbreaker. But your OP said it wasn't a problem in general. I would advise against ignoring it and treating it as a non-issue because more and more apps are adopting attestation. There is absolutely no guarantee that the apps you depend upon won't just suddenly start requiring attestation (and old versions likely will stop working, as forced updates have become very popular on Android).

If you're asking what the solution is, I'm not sure, but sticking your head in the sand isn't a great way to handle it. GrapheneOS thinks that suing Google might be the way to go: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41119047

"I personally haven't been affected by this, so it's not a problem" is not a compelling argument.

> you'll have to use Chrome

That isn't sufficient. You'll also need to use an OS which provides "acceptable" hardware attestation capabilities (as defined by Google) required to verify that the copy of Chrome is legitimate (otherwise this could be spoofed). In practice that most likely means your options are limited to: Windows 11, macOS with System Integrity Protection enabled, Chrome OS, stock Android with Google services installed as system apps, iOS.

Google's first attempt at bringing attestation to the web, WEI, was shot down by hackers, but it won't be the last. Please continue to fight against this.

> Your banking app is not going to work on Linux either.

I think the idea is that no amount of forking Android is going to produce something different enough to entice developers to port their apps to it, but maybe if an entirely new Linux-based mobile platform kicks off, there's a chance?

If you have to consult `developer.android.com` (a Google-owned domain) to develop for your "totally not Android" platform, it may be difficult to avoid the temptation to do as the documentation recommends and simply embrace proprietary Google services and hardware attestation and whatnot. After all, 99% of users have those things and it's just these several weird forks that don't?

Cellebrite has a separate category for GrapheneOS and the most recent leaks indicated up-to-date GrapheneOS was invulnerable to all attacks, whereas the latest iPhones were vulnerable to AFU attacks.

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/14344-cellebrite-premium-ju...

Which apps weren't working for you?

> GPS stuff breaks

I haven't experienced things breaking, but it is slightly slower (very slow if indoors) to get a GPS lock, because by default even location requests through Google's API are re-routed to the system service, which uses standard GPS/SUPL/PSDS rather than hoovered-up Wi-Fi SSIDs. You can optionally enable Google's location service if you want faster results.

Google routinely adds privacy features to Android and many of the GrapheneOS privacy features are inherited from or expanded upon Android. It doesn't matter to Google because they can still grant themselves any permissions they want by default on stock GMS Android ROMs, while limiting access to third party apps. (Most people don't know/care that you can deny certain permissions from certain system apps including GMS even on stock Android and this behavior isn't guaranteed anyway.) Contact Scopes is GrapheneOS exclusive for now but it's not unlikely that Google would add something like that, especially now that iOS has it. They have accepted several security patches from GrapheneOS already.

A settlement does not imply guilt or create legal precedent (AFAIK IAMNAL LOL).

There was some drama between the two communities unfortunately. I can't remember the exact details.

Even so, there is no difference between games from the 80s and games released last week from the perspective of copyright law, which usually works in Nintendo's favor.

Me too! I would've legitimately given iPhone a spin had Apple actually complied with the spirit of the law and not just the fine print.

The first source you linked is run by GrapheneOS community members so it's slightly biased: https://privsec.dev/about/

F-Droid already saved me from this: https://liliputing.com/android-app-maker-simple-mobile-tools...

I trust F-Droid more than $RANDOM_GITHUB_ACCOUNT.

> On iMessage, your keys are managed by Apple. You effectively fully trust them

Not really? You can choose whether to upload your recovery key to iCloud or not. The software abstracts over the details of course, but Signal does that too. Unless you're arguing that it's impossible for closed source software to have "true E2EE", which may have some merit, but Discord is proprietary, and something is better than nothing.

You probably should've switched to GrapheneOS instead.

iMessage.

It does lock you out of iOS apps, Apple Pay, and 4K streaming of DRM content [1]. But that's not so bad I suppose.

[1] https://github.com/cormiertyshawn895/RecordingIndicatorUtili...

That's Gatekeeper, not System Integrity Protection. You can disable SIP with `csrutil` by rebooting into the macOS recovery environment.

I agree, I think 4K should be enough of an investment to appease the Apple gods!