I've been trying to degoogle my life as much as possible lately, but there are 2 main holdouts: youtube, and Android. While I still haven't found a competent enough youtube alternative, apart maybe from LBRY, I might just have found the Android replacement I was looking for! Let's take a look at the /e/ operating system !

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What is /e/

"e" is a nonprofit project, backed by the /e/ foundation. Its goal is to provide a compeltely de-googled version of Android. This is in the strictest sense, as anything that might call to Google has been plucked out of the operating system: the google services, app store, default applications, even the time server and DNS have been changed.

The /e/ operating system is the result: it can be installed on a lot of Android smartphones, from a fairly wide selection of manufacturers, or you can order a refurbished smartphone from the /e/ website More recently, /e/ has become available on the Fairphone 3 as well, which you can buy preinstalled with /e/ from their online store.

Gael also told me that the PinePhone might be a target at some point, and they already had a port for the PineBook.

/e/ account

As you won't be using any Google services, the /e/ project feels that you also need a few services for day to day use, that's why they provide you with a free /e/ account. This is basically your own user account on the /e/ project's Nextcloud, with an email address that ends in e.email, as well as contacts, a calendar, some file storage, photos, and tasks.

In term of features, the /e/ team is also working on End to End encryption, which is proving tricky to implement, as well as the ability to self host the /e/ online services if you want to have as much storage space as you'd like and control your data 100%.

They also have an SMS to cloud feature that allows you to keep your messages when you change phones, and are working on the ability to let users log their geolocation in the cloud if they want to, to be able to find their device if it gets lost or stolen.

The /e/ OS experience

The /e/ OS is very inspired by iOS in terms of look and feel, out of the box. You get a default grid of icons, some widgets when you swipe left, no standard Android app drawer, and a global search if you swipe from the top.

The OS ships with default apps for everything you might need out of the box, and all of these apps are open source, just like the OS itself.

Most of these are forks of other open source applications, for example, the web browser is a de-googled fork of Chromium, the mail client is a fork of K-9, the camera is a fork of OpenCamera...

Some apps are the default Android applications, like the contact, clock, calculator, keyboard, or gallery, and some are just preinstalled apps available anywhere alse, like MagicEarth for maps, PDFViewer Plus for PDFs, or OpenTasks for the todo list.

Using these applications, you also won't help but notice the Android roots behind them: older tab bars, three dot menus and pop-ups abound, and look like the stuff you'd have been using on an Android Kit Kat smartphone. This doesn't mean they're bad, but it does look a bit dated compared to the smooth interfaces of today. Some might prefer this older style, but I know I don't.

But why would you prefer /e/ over another Android custom ROM ? Well, as Gael Duval puts it, they are not targeting tech savvy users, or geeks. They want to offer a simple option that even beginners can get to grips with, without jumping through too many hoops and sacrificing convenience.

/e/ offers integrated services out of the box so you don't have to look for them intially, they put a lot of effort in the launcher user experience, and they are 100% Google Free. They are probably the only one to address the low level stuff as well, like the connectivity checks, or the NTP server, while most other custom ROMs still send information to Google.

Installing apps

/e/ doesn't try to reinvent the wheel here: they provide their own app store, that is basically a mirror of the applications available on the play store. Not all of them will be as up to date as the ones available on Googl's markeplace, and some of them won't be available, but the selection is pretty large here.

You also get some nice touches that you won't find on competing stores, like a privacy score. This is determined by scanning the apks and identifying the permissions they require, as well as the trackers they include, so you know, when you install an app on the /e/ store, what it will collect, and if you can reliably use it or not.

DOwnload Safing's Portmaster here: safing.io/portmaster/
Every company is talking about building their ecosystem. Apple, Samsung, Google, Microsoft, even Amazon, they all want to have the full experience, with hardware, software, services, all designed to lock the users in and keep them coming for more products, more data, all at the price of convenience. I don't like these walled gardens, but I still think we need a full open source ecosystem where the desktop works well with mobile, smartwatches, iot devices, and services. Let's see how that could work.

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As of today, there is no syncing between your Linux desktop, and a potential Linux phone. No interaction between your pinetime and your desktop or phone either. We have no "open source service suite" that a user can just start using on every device. And that's what I mean by ecosystem: a one stop shop, with a single account, that lets you access cloud storage, photo syncing, browser bookmarks and passwords, an email account and calendar, an office suite, text message syncing, basically an open source icloud or Microsoft account.

Ok, now, I think ecosystems are terrible. That's pretty paradoxical, I know, but that's because current ecosystems, that encompass hardware, software and services, are all proprietary, and designed as walled gardens, to lock you in and prevent you from switching.

Once you've bought a Mac, an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and iPad, and AirPods, the cost of switching to anything else becomes way too high. You've bought your apps, you're using Apple services, your hardware works beautifully together. If you just replace one piece of all of that, it all breaks down and the simplicity and ease of use is gone.

Because, yes, these ecosystems bring a lot to the table: everything tends to sync together super easily, you get your files, photos, settings, applications on every device, seamlessly. Stuff just connects together in the most simple way. That's appealing. But the cost is your freedom to decide that a superior product might be worth your money. Instead, you'll buy the product from the company you're beholden to, because anything else will just not work as well. It's a trap, but I think an open source ecosystem would solve that issue.

An open source Linux ecosystem would solve that

Open source, is, by definition, open. This means that building a walled garden with purely open source software is impossible, anyone could decide to fork and make sure that their device worked with the existing ecosystem.

In terms of hardware, we already have plenty of options: the Pine64 has the mobile devices, with the PineTAb, PinePhone, and PineTime. Any laptop or desktop can basically run Linux, so hardware doesn't matter that much for us. It's already pretty open, and we can switch to another manufacturer without any lock in.

In terms of software, the very philosophy of free software would allow anyone to plug in, or extract their own data from the ecosystem, to reuse it somewhere else. There would be no lockdown, no walled garden, only the simplicity, and seamless connectivity would remain.

How would that work

We already have a lot of the building blocks available to us. Nextcloud, for example, is a fantastic starting point. It does cloud storage, photo syncing, it offers a calendar and email application, it integrates with an open source office suite easily, and can be extended with apps. That would do for a backend and web interface.

What's missing is an open source email service, not too tricky to deploy, some bookmark and password storage, which Firefox already does with Lockwise and the Firefox account, so there's another building block.

The other missing piece is how to integrate that with our various distros, and that's the trickier part. For that idea to be successful, every desktop environment would have to work to make sure that just entering your credentials would allow you to use your cloud storage as a network drive, syncing your pictures and videos inside the right folder, automatically configure your email account and calendat with their default applications, open access to the integrated office suite, and sync the bookmarks and passwords with whatever browser they ship by default.

I can imagine a provider in the Online Accounts, like in GNOME or elementary OS, that just lets you set all of that up by just entering an email, and a password, obviously with 2 step verification.

The full review is available here

English review at BudgetLightForum
German review on my website

With this little review I wish you a merry Christmas! Have fun, but don’t overdo it with the lights. The tree should not start to burn at any time! 😉

Summary

When the Wurkkos TS10 was released in mid-2022, only few might have imagined what a great success this flashlight would become. Compact, playful, great light and also affordable. Over time, different colors and materials such as titanium, brass and copper were added.

The Wurkkos TS10 SG is a successful update of the classic TS10. With the new optics and the Luminus SFT-25R, the throw has been significantly increased. Otherwise everything has remained the same. There’s a reason the TS10 has enjoyed great popularity for years.

Original question by @Turd_Ferg@sh.itjust.works

Firefox is messing around with AI, changed their TOS on user data and now the google monopoly case. Basically Im wondering if there is a good firefox alternative?