I know the generall guidance for private phones was Pixel with graphene OS. I was financially planing on buying a 10th gen pixel when they come out later this year to only put gos on it. However with the recent news, I am wondering if this is still the recommended best practice from this community.

I am worried that if the gos team needs to spend tonnes of ressources on maintaining basic drivers and stuff then they won’t have any time to work on the privacy and security features they are best known for.

What is your oppinion?

Also does anyone have a way to dpam feedback to google? I couldn’t finf a generall feedback form, but if they know that people aren’t buying their hardware because of this decision, they might back down. (I really fell in love with gos researching it lately so I would hate to have to switch to something like /e/ os or calyx or something)

  • irotsoma@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    4·
    4 days ago

    I’ve decided not to invest in any more Pixels, personally. Even if they reverse the decision this time, it just means it will happen later, so then future versions of the OS will be out of reach or at least not as good as they could have been. I probably will keep my Pixel 7 Pro with Graphene until the battery is too bad for daily use.

  • Anna@lemmy.ml
    4·
    5 days ago

    OK First thing GOS team is currently assuming that Pixel 10+ won’t meet their requirements. But for older Pixels it’s tough. Google just stopped sharing vendor blob, device tree, and instead of openly developing AOSP now it is fully behind close doors only releasing source later with full update. But I have hope. I’ve been daily driving custom ROMs for 10+ years and before I could afford Pixel I had cheap phones which also didn’t share any of these things but custom ROMs were very much thriving and they will always. Yes there may be a little more delay for new devices. All the new features may take longer but GOS already has a lot of security and privacy stuff figured out.

    I think we should all support however we can to not just GOS but also other Custom ROMs. Because there will always be those who’ll stop society from progressing and all we can do is fight back with donations, our time, and resources.

  • sunth1ef@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    6 days ago

    Just bought a 9 for Graphene. Up and running - works like a charm. Devs are not announcing end of the line for Graphene development- they are making daily updates on their way to bringing out Android 16. At this point I’d grab a 9 rather than wait for the 10. Get yourself up and running before Google tries to lock us out of more apps - right now everything I need runs fine without any play services whatsoever. The OS is solid, Vanadium is really good - I could go on and on. If you are onboard and interested in the project its 100% worth it from where I sit.

    Nothing is ever perfectly future proof

  • mctoasterson@reddthat.com
    1·
    6 days ago

    Yeah I would also like a crystal ball here. I am somewhat interested in the 10 if I can run GrapheneOS. Otherwise I’m going to explore other custom ROMs with broader device support.

  • mohab@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    Looks like you’ll to need to wait and see what the GrapheneOS team will recommend until they come out with their own phone. Maybe Pinephone for now? Or older Pixel, perhaps.

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    01·
    5 days ago

    Bought /e/OS running CMF https://murena.com/shop/smartphones/brand-new/murena-cmf-phone-1/ few months ago, no frill, no tinkering, just works. Daily driver since I received it.

    I do have more… specific phones, e.g. PinePhone and PinePhone Pro, but I never managed to use they as daily drivers.

    That said, I’m only sharing this because it is “good enough” for me but you probably have different concerns than me. I’m not a political dissident, not a journalist, not a security researcher, just a random dude living in Western Europe.

    I tend to find that identifying precisely what your threat model is facilitate pinpointing pragmatic options.

    • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
      0·
      5 days ago

      How does it work to get banking apps and similar on /e/os? Do you have to sideload?

      • utopiah@lemmy.ml
        0·
        5 days ago

        Ah, glad you asked because this is precisely what I highlighted to a friend yesterday : it works, even that!

        I make online purchases, like train tickets here in Belgium on the go, with the phone, via the website of SNCB (the national railroad) or any most other commercial website basically. So yes at least some banking apps do work, as I can’t obviously confirm for ALL of them.

        In practice you get App Lounge in anonymous mode, letting you download and install apps from the (proxied AFAICT) Play Store. So you do not need to login to any store yet can install apps beyond solely F-Droid. That being said the vast majority of Apps I use come from F-Droid or directly install the .apk via adb.

        • pmk@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          5 days ago

          Aha! Thank you :) My next phone will definitely be /e/os then. I can’t really justify buying a new phone now when my old phone works, but maybe a refurbished one wouldn’t add to e-waste I guess.

          • utopiah@lemmy.ml
            1·
            5 days ago

            Please don’t hesitate to ask questions as they come. I’m not /e/OS expert but this was the last piece in my transition from proprietary tech and walled gardens, so I admit very glad I tried and happy with the result!

            PS: maybe /eOS work with a phone you or a friend has, see https://doc.e.foundation/devices