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Advocating for Android as a free, open platform for everyone to build apps on.

Google should be stalled as long as possible, and they should be held to account whenever the pull a hardware bait and software switch, but Google will always enshittify every thing they have influence over. They can’t not do it, maximizing the extraction money from assets is the company’s entire raison d’etre. For software and platforms to become and remain free they must be taken away from for-profit companies entirely. You cannot fix Google, because it was made broken on purpose, to take money from you and deliver it to its shareholders. It will always do that. If you give them an ounce of trust or a modicum of faith, those become assets on a balance sheet that will be monetized to your detriment because that is what companies must do to survive. If they don’t, or can’t, they will be replaced with one that can.

Fully free software and fully open hardware is the only winning strategy.

If they don’t get stopped, how long might I be able to last on an old-ish GrapheneOS Pixel? I really didn’t wanna replace it soon, and the open hardware stuff out there is a bit too expensive for me right now. Like, it should keep at least working right? Are fdroid/obtainium/etc all gonna close up shop instantly? I don’t really need Play store for anything at all, if that’s all that goes down

GOS will likely continue to patch/update Pixel devices until the hard is EOL. With the Motorola partnership announcement and new hardware due to arrive either later this year or next, so long as you keep your GOS device for ~18 months, you should be good and without impact. I’m not sure how Google can Nerf devices not running Play Services as root.

Can you ELI5?

That’s super lucky for me at least… Hopefully the alternatives to Google and Apple survive all this

tl;dr - Google Play Services aren’t installed by default on GrapheneOS and since they don’t have root permissions sideloading can’t be disabled.

GrapheneOS sandboxes Google Play Services, vs on stock the Google Play Services have root access, meaning they have full control and access to the system. This is likely how security settings could be changed without your permission, specifically a software update via OTA that just toggles the developer attestation requirement leveraging something in Google Play to “validate” the package.

In GrapheneOS (GOS) Play Services are sandboxed, which means they only have the permissions you grant them, and since you’re (ostensibly) not root on your device, you can’t give the services root. This means that Play Services can’t block side loading on your device because they don’t have the access/permissions to, and I can’t imagine a world where GrapheneOS kills it just because Google says it’s a good idea.

Further, GrapheneOS has committed to supporting current Pixels until their EOL (End of Life) as prescribed by Google (5 years for some, 7 years for others, from date of release, so YMMV). This means that so long as the device is still supported by Google, you should still receive updates from GOS, meaning it’s still a viable device so long as the hardware doesn’t fail.

GOS recently announced that they’re in partnership with Motorola to release a first party phone with them (Motorola Hardware, GrapheneOS installed) and the first units are expected to be announced or available (don’t quote me on this one as I don’t remember which it was and whether it was speculation or commitment) either later in 2026 or early 2027.

Happy to clarify further if I’m still not making sense (I do that sometimes)

I have faith that FOSS will endure. PinePhone is still making inroads as a viable option, mobile Linux is coming along (though I can’t point to a device I’d hold up as a poster model), and Europe’s push for digital sovereignty is likely to accelerate offerings that are neither Google nor Apple based. It’s still early days though, so likely to be a year or two until something viable is on market, and even then the big fight will probably be with banking/financial apps not wanting to support additional platform standards, but if Europe digs in and demands native born OS’s free from the Silicon Valley shackles, there’s a financial incentive to support those alternatives in some way, lest a third party fill the gap/need and eat legacy banking’s lunch.

Nope, I got it with that, thank you. I used to be on top of my game with tech. I repaired radios and technical systems in the army but as soon as I got out , I let it lax and fell behind. But you dumbed it down enough for me to get, thank you.

I’m really hopeful too! If mobile banking/mobile pay are the only sticking points, I’ll be completely happy to abandon those! The mobile Linux stuff is all super enticing, the only thing that’s held me back is how the GOS team keeps saying they’re not secure enough yet for daily driving

For now i use eOS, but i’m affraid that their update will be locked. I think i will have to move to sailfish.

Be careful when you change your rom : remove your google account first.

Some guide badly written on eOS omit that Lock system from google : FRP. Factory Reset Protection, mainly used against thieves but it also make changing rom harder…it wasn’t here before 😒

Not the place to be talking about this. I swear Lemmy is 99.99999% tech talk. This is probably like 1 of 3 places where this is usually not the case.