@CandyDumDub

How do you handle apps that need google play services?

I never quite understood/bought the argument that running native unprivileged google play is somehow better than MicroG, even if MicroG does run a little stub of google code. %)

But I'm open to it. I've liked #CalyxOS a lot, but I'm interested in trying another ROM that maybe has better sandboxing, or some built-in tracker control like /e/OS

@CandyDumDub @jwestall_com

I thought it was an objective truth that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife?

Sorry, that's Jane Austen. ;)

@sirber

Never tried it (30+ years of taking the piss out of Microsoft doesn't go away in a day), but I know that a lot of people were *very* fond of it, more so than windows desktop.

@benjamin @CandyDumDub @jwestall_com

Derailed? Nah. Just a detour through sillyspace.

It's kind of like subspace and hyperspace, but with puns. ;)

@benjamin

We'll fix that yet.

I can send you my backup phone, but it's honestly pretty useless at this point, and has a locked bootloader.

That's a joke I'll never be the punchline of again.

Never buy a phone with a locked bootloader, people. That's like buying a house but not being allowed to paint it.

@sotolf

Not sure which that would be. I'm guessing Graphene is the quickest on security updates.

@jungleben

Just curious, how do you handle bad apps like google maps or (eww) WhatsApp?

What's the best way to make sure they don't get any more privileges than they absolutely have to in order to run, and that they can't talk to any other apps on the system to leak info?

I wouldn't be surprised if all the google apps don't collude a whole lot.

@sotolf

You should try a degoogled ROM some time.

My Pixel 7 is only $450 right now, the same price as the 7a (they're clearing out old stock).
You can get a couple year old pixel for around $300, and it'll still have three years of support. Maybe one extra year if you use the right ROM.

@sirber

I know. And I'm in too much of a good mood, so I had to flip the tables on you. ;)

@benjamin @sirber

Jokus goofaroundi.

huh I can't vote from the phone app lol... but anyways

I use GrapheneOS, I think everything works & there is sandboxed Google Play if I need it. This is a very subjective opinion but this is the only custom OS I have successfully used so... 😂

@sotolf

Well, that's fair. If it's still working well for you and you only paid $100 for it, I'd say you've won in every category but privacy, and even there, there's always little things you can do to make things better or worse.
All-or-nothing thinking doesn't help anyone.

You might look at something like the Pocophone for your next purchase. They're usually quite affordable, and supported by at least LineageOS.

...

@sotolf

...

If you want help finding some good options when you're shopping for another phone (whenever that might be), hit me up.

Also, if you're not using a VPN, look up Tracker Control on F-Droid. It pretends to be a VPN (basically just a loopback tunnel) and can filter out a lot of crap and trackers.

That's what I have right now on my little Nokia.

@sirber @benjamin

Man, I remember that music video.

I remember my uncle thought the father in that video was hilarious.

Why did you have to take me all the way back to the 80s?!? XD

@benjamin @sirber

lol, am I behind? I thought I was all caught up!

I try to go through :tl mentions one by one. :tl notifications if I have time.

But sometimes I don't make it down all the way through all of them, and then I just restart from the most recent later.

@sirber @benjamin

Ummm... Nes. Yo. Umm..

I guess he's saying you're immature, which... if the shoe fits, fill it with shaving cream before you give it to someone to wear.

@sirber @benjamin

You'd prefer Kermit?

Wait, wait, still reading the first word of your toot.

Ok, done reading the first word.

Now I'm reading the second word.

STOP, still reading the second word.

ok, I'm ready for the third word.

@sirber @benjamin

kermit was

S...
...L...
...O...
...W

BUT, it worked well over very poor lines.

It's still around:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_(protocol)
https://kermitproject.org

@sirber @benjamin

Although, a more faithful description would be like:

while (( data_remaining > 0 )); do
send( pop(data_remaining, a_few_bytes) )
wait_for_ack
done

In contrast ZMODEM would just keep sending data without waiting, but if it didn't receive an ACK within a certain time frame, it would stop and go back.

ZMODEM was very exciting. It meant you could get a lot more done with a mere 1200 baud modem than with Kermit or XMODEM.

@benjamin @sirber

Ha, no. very old modem transfer protocol.

Because in the olden days, modems had no error detection, so that had to be done in software, otherwise your transfers could get corrupted.

@jungleben

How do you handle other apps that require GSF?
Can you install MicroG on Graphene?
I know even a lot of FOSS apps prefer to have some kind of GSF for push notifications, otherwise they have to keep a listener running (like Signal or Element)

It would be nice if you could have more than one work profile. 😁

@CandyDumDub

Then you're handling it by running GSF, it sounds like.

@CandyDumDub @jungleben

The storage scopes are pretty neat.

@CandyDumDub

I think my hesitation with that is that I just don't know what I don't know about what GSF actually does, and the sneaky things it's capable of, even when running unprivileged.

Is it possible to run it only in the work profile?

@benjamin

Well, you didn't really lose out on that much 😛 just everything being very slow, and nobody in your house being able to use the phone while you were surfing on the net 😛

@RL_Dane @sirber

@sotolf @benjamin
Progressive GIF loading... that's something younger folks will never understand.

There was a certain look to that which you just don't see anymore.

Technically, many JPEGs are loaded progressively, but it doesn't have the same pixelated look, and it usually happens so fast on modern internet speeds that you don't notice.

@sotolf @benjamin
True, but everything is expecting you to have at least 30mbps nowadays.

I actually tried to use the web on a 2G uplink a few years back.

It wasn't slow... it was unusable. Even command-line stuff just timed out.

@benjamin @sotolf

Almost every kind of modern development is a bit of a joke.

When everything written is huge and sloppy, a couple kilobytes of well-written code can turn the world upside down.

Malware is going to get *HEINOUS* in the coming years.

@sotolf
I'm a web dev and I have to agree. 😀

's why I made readable.css. https://readable-css.freedomtowrite.org.

@CandyDumDub

Cool beans. Thanks for the info. 😀

BTW, what happened to the always-on display? I rather liked that.

@CandyDumDub

Ahh, thank you!