WARNING:

I have NOT done any research in any of the info provided ij this post, only info that I just so happened to sumble upon, so please take this post with a grain of salt

What happened?

With the Motorola Signiture 27, GrapheneOS finally broke free from being Pixel-exclusive. However, a good question meeds to be asked for me: How slim are the chances that next year's Fairphone could support GrapheneOS?

Why I even considered it as a possibility

I've seen some people saying Fairphone will support GrapheneOS, but there's lots of evidence against it, saying that the bare minimum requirements

Why I think it's unlikely:

Fairphone has historically lacked in terms of specs. While I don't have a shoot out of the camera or ANY specs like most people (my bare minimum res quality is 240p lol), as long as the technology used for the hardware stays modern, however I heard GrapheneOS had specific requirements in order to gain support for a device model. Idk what those are other than a relockable bootloader. While this year's hardware improvements have been much bettet than the past, I don't think it will be enough even if 5he pace is kept or even improved next year

Comment down what you found or correct what I've missed or done wrong in the comments

Hi everyone! I want to degoogle my TV box (Mi TV Stick, running Android TV 9), so I'm looking for an alternative OS.

Is there any custom ROM or alternative OS I can flash on it? If not, what's the best way to get as close as possible to a degoogled TV experience (debloating with ADB, alternative launchers, open source apps, etc.)?

I'd also appreciate any hardware recommendations if a different device is a better starting point for this.

Thanks in advance!

Pretty cool project I stumbled across, was a bit of a pain to get to work with head unit. The GitHub tells you how to extract keys but when I tried to import I got errors. Had to run "openssl pkc12 -export -out carservice.pfx -inkey carservice_key.pem -in carservice_cert.pem" and set a password to use

Hi everyone! I’m looking for a simple FOSS Android app to manage a small market stall’s inventory and sales. I don’t need barcode scanning, but I’d like to enter each product’s name, quantity, and price.

Most importantly, when I sell something, I want to record how many units were sold so the stock goes down, and have the app keep a sales history and show how much money I’ve taken in. For example, if I sell 3 items at 5 each, I’d like to see the remaining stock and the 15 in sales.

I tried Personal Stuff from F-Droid and liked that it shows prices, but I couldn’t find a way to record sales and have them deducted from stock. Is there a setting or workflow I’m missing, or can you recommend an app that handles this?

I recently came across Morphe, which seems to let users patch some apps to reduce ads and create separate app clones. Has anyone tried it? What are the benefits and security trade-offs? Which official sources do you recommend for learning about it?

Hello,

I took the degoogle boat in 2024 when I saw shit like gulf of murika.

So far I have no regrets, and if I have to do it again, I'll do it again.

My actual setup : Phone : Pixel with GrapheneOS.

Mail : Proton Drive : Proton VPN : Proton Password Vault : Proton

Calendars/Contacts : radicale (selfhosted) Photo : Immich (selfhosted) Home : Home Assistant (selfhosted)

Notes : Standard notes YouTube : Newpipe/Grayjay/SmartTube Maps : CoMaps Authenticator : Aegis Wallet : Catima & (Mybank app)

---

Now with the last declarations from CEO of Proton, I'm seriously thinking to change some of my setup.

Did someone have recommandations for mail provider, with a private domain name? I want to be more resilient in case my mail provider turn on the dark side.

Actually I'm thinking about mailo services. 1,5€/months for 20Go with drive. If someone have some experience with them and coule advise me.

Also I need a solution for my aliases. I was thinking of Addy.io or duck.

VPN, I need a solution for Android with split tunneling, and also for linux. Maybe Amnezia, but there website don't inspire me confidence.

And also I need a new password vault, easy to sync between my devices. Lots of articles talk about BitWarden and VaultWarden, but from US, and I don't wan't to feed the beast even if it's a geniune editor focused on privacy.

Why people don't wanna switch from Gmaps (maybe at best a client app):

• Gmaps has a monopoly on the navigation industry because of one thing: Bussness hours and reviews. It has been that way for years, and the only real alternative for this is Vela Maps, which is vibe-coded (or AI-made), until now

Competition arrives

• A new project, called "Mangrove Reviews", has been quietly growing on the scenes and has been doing revoews for the FOSS industry, giving Google Maps SOME sort of competition, even if it's not to the level of straight rivalry
• This service, tho, isn't enough to turn the tides. However, navigation services like MapComplete and CoMaps have been slowly working with them to finally bring convenience for navigation for the more newer or unfamiliar de-googlers

Is this real competition yet?

• We can't know for sure. As stated in the latest CoMaps article (as of Oct 30th 2026), this is very niche. Competition for certain monoloplies have varying levels of success. Godot has succeeded on rivaling other game engines like Unreal or Unity, while attempts at YouTube altermatives like PeerTube only moderately succeeded. Mangrove Reviews, as far as I can tell, seems to be a very new project, so we can't know for sure. We just gptta hope they succeed

Links and sources:

Info source:

• LemmyPost: https://vger.to/sopuli.xyz/post/53882964
• Article: https://www.comaps.app/news/2026-10-27/place-reviews/

CoMaps download:

• F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/app.comaps.fdroid/
• IzzyOnDroid: https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/app.comaps
• Source code: https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps
• Website: https://www.comaps.app/

MapComplete:

• F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mapcomplete/
• Website: https://mapcomplete.org/

Mangrove:

• Website: https://mangrove.reviews/

Sorry, not with the Linux movement yet due to being poor and can't afford a hard drive at the moment 😞

Anyway.

Recently ran into a thing with Waterfox where I needed it to load & refresh pages in a time-sensitive application for an event I was participating in, but Waterfox was just struggling. Ended up missing slots for said event, and I'm really annoyed.

I really don't want to use Brave, but it's the only browser not in beta that is considered "Private" (would love to go back to Cromite if it wasn't MIA).

Any suggestions?

For those of you who use an email address with a custom domain name, like first@firstlast.com, do you use that email address for every online account you create? It seems weird to me to do that if the email address is also my professional address and the domain is used for my professional/portfolio website, but maybe I'm overthinking it.

I've searching a lot and I don't know why but there doesn't seem to be any chores app. No generic tasks App seems to have the ability to assign it to people or cycle chores.

I found one called Donetick but it is so bad that nothing works when self hosting it and it's asking for a subscription to be able to send notifications?? From my own server to my own app?

I'm at my wit's end because this seems like such a small addition to any of the hundred tasks apps out there but somehow it doesn't seem to exist

Just watching some YouTube on my tablet and this is the second time AI has appeared by default. I hate Google

The Problem with Centralized Social Media

For two decades, social media has been dominated by a small handful of corporations. Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and their peers built walled gardens that captured billions of users and then monetized them through surveillance advertising, algorithmic manipulation, and data extraction. These platforms don’t just host conversations — they shape them. They decide what you see, what reaches an audience, and who gets silenced.

The consequences are now well understood. Centralized platforms are vulnerable to a single point of failure: one CEO’s whim, one policy change, one acquisition, and the rules of engagement for millions of people change overnight. When Elon Musk bought Twitter, he didn’t just change the logo — he altered the fundamental dynamics of a global communication network. When Reddit changed its API pricing, third-party apps died overnight. This is not a bug of centralized systems; it is their defining feature.

The decentralized social stack offers an alternative. It is not a single platform or a single company. It is a set of open protocols and software that allow anyone to run a server, connect with others, and participate in a global conversation without asking permission from a central authority. No CEO can change the rules for everyone. No algorithm decides what you see. No corporation owns your data.

--feel free to share this article with your normie friends, perhaps they can benefit from this

I have a long list I made a while ago of things I need to do to divorce myself from Google. It's super daunting and I've been procrastinating. Last night Google requested a video of my face when logging in. It didn't require it but it's only a matter of time before that or something else awful gets added as a condition of using their service. I'm now ready to start my email transition elsewhere. It's probably one of the bigger steps so it may give me momentum to do the other steps also.

I have seen a million guides and gmail replacement options, but I'm curious what the latest opinions on email services are. I currently lean toward proton and I'm willing to pay, but again, there are so many options and pro/cons to different companies and services it is overwhelming. Any info I can get will be helpful in choosing an email service. Thanks everyone.

Update: I've taken the very first step and started forwarding my Gmail to a proton email account. One thing I just thought of is that my android phone currently uses contacts synced from my Google account automatically. Does anyone know a way to replicate that with proton?

Crossposted from https://thebrainbin.org/m/enshittification@lemmy.world/t/1996619

Crossposted from https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1480679/google-is-testing-the-hiding-of-youtube-s-dislike-button-entirely-from-all-forms-of-vide

Source: User reports, reported on by couple of news outlets:

• Reddit: 1, 2;
• X/Twitter.

Brax Technologies, the company behind the BraX3 smartphone and the open_slate tablet, opened pre-orders for the Wink last week with plans to ship it in two batches next year.

Rob Braxman, a co-founder of the company and known on the web as The Internet Privacy Guy, had presented the Wink at a roadmap event last month.

The Wink runs BraxOS, an Android-based operating system that does not include Google services, and the device comes with a physical switch located on top that can be configured to shut off the camera, microphones, location, sensors, or mobile network.

During setup, you can pick between Omni, a full Android experience, and Zero, a stripped-down mode limited to encrypted messaging, calls, messages, and optional navigation.

BraxOS does not support Google account sign-ins or Google Play Services, but Brax says most Android apps still run without issues. The exceptions are apps that check for Google's integrity services before starting, which includes a few banking apps.

The Wink can also wipe itself on triggers you set in advance, namely every restart, a long stretch powered off state, repeated failed unlock attempts, and a duress password.

Brax promises updates until 2032 and says anyone can build BraxOS from source, with files available in its BraX3 repositories.

Key specifications

Coming back to the hardware that powers all that, we have:

SoC: MediaTek MT8875 with an octa-core CPU (4x Arm C1-Pro and 4x Arm C1-Nano cores, 4 nm) and an Arm Mali-G625 MC2 GPU.
RAM & Storage: 8 GB, alongside 128 GB of built-in storage.
Display: 4-inch OLED touchscreen
Camera: 50 MP rear camera, sensor not disclosed.
Keyboard: Physical QWERTY keys that are touch-sensitive and support swipe scrolling.
Networking: Global LTE and 5G bands, plus physical SIM and eSIM support.
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.4.
Ports: USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a microSD slot for cards up to 1 TB.

Getting the device

Pre-orders come in two batches, each capped at the number of units being built:

Batch 1 is for buyers who pay in full at $449, a price Brax guarantees, and those units go out first in July 2027.
Batch 2 starts with a $30 deposit toward a $550 total. The remaining $520 would be charged around July 2027, with these units shipping in September 2027.

The deposit amount is refundable until the balance is paid, and orders can be changed or cancelled while they are still reservations. Shipping dates can also change, and reservation holders will be emailed about any change before the remaining amount is due.

Each unit is set to ship with the keyboard, a USB-C cable, and a translucent case.

If such phones interest you, you can also explore the MAKERphone 2.0.

Very very well, actually. Much easier than I thought. I got my hands on a phone that was suitable for LineageOS, installed it (smooth experience - so nice to be able to install your own OS, gives you the sensation to really own the phone, and not the other way around) and only installed degoogled apps. On the personal space there is no Google Play Services nor MicroG. Only apps that if I lose my phone and someone access it it wouldn't be a problem. On the private space, the apps that have sensitive data or need Google Play Services (MicroG, actually)

So far, I hadn't much problems. There is only one banking app that did not work (so I changed bank :D). There is an alternative for nearly anything you want. The one and only app that I miss is Maps, I'm using CoMaps, and although the navigation works fine and i like the feeling of it, it doesn't have traffic info (which makes me lose so much time), takes you to a random number of the street you searched and you can't find most stores and places only by the name. Anyway, I'm adapting, searching for the places somewhere else, leaving with spare time and trying to have a healthier life in which I'm not in a hurry.

My setup:

• Tuta Mail
• Proton Drive
• Signal
• Aurora Store
• F-Droid (included Izzy on Droid repo)
• FUTO Keyboard
• Vivaldi Browser
• CoMaps
• Kagi Search
• NewPipe (youtube)
• Tidal
• LibreOffice
• Summit (for Lemmy)

Hope it helps those who are considering taking the leap. Once you do it, it's hard to imagine going back and being monitored 24/7 by the big tech companies

I'm quite a few years into this de-Googling thing. It's also pretty much an extension of the de-Microsofting I started when I first tried Linux around 2005 or so. I was one of the original users of whatever Google Workspace was called back when they were still offering it free to Organizations and Families who wanted to use their own domain name with their Gmail accounts. I started de-googling in earnest around the time they first tried to take away this free-forever perk. Lately, I've been working hard to get ready for the era of identity verification and the pending Android lockdown. I consider large companies and surveillance-advertisers as my primary adversaries.

I'm down to my last few google dependencies and I'd appreciate your help in trying to overcome them as that lockdown date gets closer and the whole ecosystem will be thrown into chaos. I'd like to have essential services self-hosted and backups of essential APKs and such prior to that date. There are a few items not on this list that are occasional installs (and immediate uninstalls). These are usually hardware companion apps for stuff like my little wireless hotspot.

I wasn't sure if it was safe to publicly post a spreadsheet from my machine, so please see the image for the bad stuff I have left (the red rows), mildly questionable stuff (yellow), and the good stuff I have installed (green), it's not necessarily Google itself, but the red and sometimes yellow stuff chains me back to the Play ecosystem. I genericized any financial or health apps, except UHC because it's super common and fuck them, I want to call out how shitty their app is and point out that their approach to attestation and verifying device integrity must be out of desperation because they themselves have no integrity.

Feel free to call anything out by name in the left column if you:

A. Have a better alternative that maintains good functionality.

B. Commiserate with my plight replacing a particular piece of software.

C. Think that I've mis-catagorized something as an undesirable when it's actually good, or vice versa.

D. Anything else.

I would love to hear from you all.

Hello from my new GrapheneOS phone! I'm working on getting things set up and have come to the notification issue. I've heard this brought up tangentially but haven't put enough together to be actionable, and my initial searches mostly turn up info for app developers rather than end users.

Is there a way to get reliable and timely push notifications without Google Play Services? What does that look like?

For my threat model I'm not really concerned with people gaining physical access to my phone, it's more the surveillance capitalism I've got a problem with. So I'd like to be able to keep showing notification contents to myself without showing them to Google.

I haven't picked a cell provider yet, and I'm in the US, in case that affects my options. Wanted to make sure the new setup was viable before cutting the cord on the old one.

From what I understand, this is a per-app situation, so here are my important sources:

• Email: currently use the Proton app. I'm open to switching to a separate client, but the feature to mark read directly from the notification has been a game changer for my notification fatigue, especially with the decryption lag and getting two copies of things as I switch everything off my gmail. I do still want the notification for a lot of things (e.g. credit card payment is due) but I get what I need out of the subject and have no further value to actually opening the whole thing.
• Calendar: also Proton, also open to other clients. Reliability here is important for obvious reasons.
• Messaging: I live where service is bad, so I rely on internet messaging to communicate with family. This can get time sensitive sometimes. I'll have to talk everyone into a new app since we're currently on Facebook Messenger (🤢) so I'm not married to a specific app yet. It needs to be able to talk to both Android and iOS. From what I've heard, it sounds like Molly is the go-to? That talks to regular Signal, correct?
• Emergency/weather alerts: this is push notifications, right? Currently I'm using Breezy Weather from F-Droid because I like the widget but I'm also not dead set on this one (or can have two apps if necessary).
• Microsoft Authenticator: this is for work. I might just leave it on my old phone though, I expect it will be an ordeal.
• Smart home degoogling is Coming Soon™, if there's anything I need to keep in mind there. Can home assistant consolidate everything or does it work through vendor apps? (Schlage deadbolts, ecobee thermostat, WiZ lightbulbs, Kasa switches if it matters.)
• I'm guessing call, SMS, and MMS are a dedicated channel with the cell service and are not push notifications, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
• It seems like scheduled notifications e.g. alarms and timers are also not push notifications. I tried a test timer and it worked.

Any guidance from my fellow degooglers would be much appreciated. Thanks!

UPDATE 1: Thanks for all the info everyone! I've had work and junk to do the last few days but I'm slowly trying these out.

• Molly is super easy, WebSocket works right out of the box. And I managed to get my family and a couple friends on board without too much fuss.
• Surprised to hear Proton is so Google dependent, that request to support unified push has people complaining that it hasn't been done for 3 years. You Have Mail seems to do what I hoped for, but if the polling becomes too battery hungry, good news! I've been using aliases for everything so switching my backend should be pretty easy.
• Calendar works for ones I add on the phone itself, but if I add one elsewhere (on the computer while I'm talking on the phone for example), I have to be sure to open the calendar at least once before it happens or it won't register. But apparently that's also how it works when you do have play services running, and I didn't notice, so it should be fine.

IMPORTANT CONTEXT:

This is just my PLANNED setup, so not everything will be garenteed to be my final setup

The reason why I use multiple services for each use case:

1. I'm taking decentralization to the local level, which means NO connection between smartphone, Laptop, PC and TV
2. Fallbacks if the service or app doesn't work

Google Search

1. Mojeek
2. Margnialia (self-hostable)
3. YaCy (self-hostable)

• Fallbacks:

1. DuckDuckGo
2. Qwant
3. Ecosia

Google Chrome

1. FREE Browser
2. LibreWolf
3. Tor Browser

Google Mail

1. FairEmail
2. TutaNota
3. Proton

Google Maps

1. CoMaps

• Fallbacks:

1. Gmaps WV

YouTube

1. Peertube (Platform) (Self-hostable)
2. Invidious (Frontend) (Self-hostable)
3. FreeTube (Client) (Self-hostable)
4. PlasmaTube (Client)
5. Flow (Client)

Android

1. GrapheneOS

Google Workspace

1. MA Office
2. LibreOffice
3. OnlyOffice

Google Keep

1. Notally
2. Loqsec
3. Notesook

Gboard

1. Iris Keyboard
2. Xime IME (for Chinese input)

Google Translate

1. Offline Translator
2. LibreTranslate
3. Lingva Translate

Google My Files

1. Fossify File Manager (Idk any Linux file managers)

Google Photos

1. Prism Gallery (Idk any Linux gallery apps)

Google Play

1. F-Droid (Platform)
2. Flathub (Platform)
3. Appteka (Platform)
4. Aurora Store (Client)
5. Droid-ify (Client)
6. ObtainX (Client)

Google Earth

1. GeoLibre
2. Marble

Google Messages

1. Fossify Messages (SMS)
2. SimpleX (Platform) (Idk any Linux SMS apps)

Android System Webview

1. Vanadium

Bilibili

1. Bilimiao

Video editor

1. LibreCuts
2. Kdenlive
3. Cutwire Drift

Photo editor

1. PocketvPaint
2. GIMP
3. Pinta

Reddit (also also kinda Twitter too)

1. Lemmy (Platform)
2. Voyager (Client)
3. Redlib (Frontend)

Windows

1. CachyOS with Shelly
2. Nobara

VPN

1. Windscribe VPN
2. Proton VPN
3. Tor VPN

DNS

1. Adguard DNS
2. Quad9 DNS
3. NextDNS

Minecraft

1. Luanti (game)
2. Prism (launcher)

Wordle

1. Code Word

Convenience tools

1. LibreFind
2. sustysubs.net
3. DNS toggle
4. Privacy Flip
5. SponsorBlock
6. DeArrow
7. ReturnYouTubeDislike

Tools that probably no one had heard of but are extremely helpful for Degoogling:

Sustysubs.net - A list of alternative services

• A very useful tool that you can find privacy-friendly altermatives to proprietary services. You can suggest a service via Codeberg and/or Email

Link:

• https://www.sustysubs.net/alternatives/

Wizestream - A better NewPipe

• A NewPipe fork that intergrates Material Design 3 into the UI and includes things like ReturnYouTubeDislike, SponsorBlock, Dearrow, Learning tools, Invidious, subcription syncronization,

Repository:

• https://github.com/wizdom13/WizeStream

IzzyOnDroid:

• https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/org.wisso.newpipematerial

LibreCuts - The only FOSS Android video editor for the professionals

• A video editor for Android that supports overlays and keyframes, which in my opinion, is the minimum requirment for a video editor to be "professional"

Repository:

• https://github.com/tharunbirla/LibreCuts

F-Droid:

• https://f-droid.org/packages/com.tharunbirla.librecuts/

LibreFind - Community-driven app for finding alternative apps for Android

• LibreFind is probably the most well-known project listed here, but basically, you submit a FOSS alternative to a proprietary app, then wait for it to be approved. It also lists how many of your local apps are FOSS or not

Repository:

• https://github.com/jksalcedo/librefind

F-Droid:

• https://fdroid/packages/com.jksalcedo.librefind

IzzyOnDroid:

• https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.jksalcedo.librefind

(TURNS OUT IT IS NOT OPEN-SOURCE MY BAD) Pur.ili - Kagi if it was free

• Pur.ili is a private search engine that does not have big tech spy on you by secret. Unlike most "privacy friendly" search engines, like DuckDuckGo or Brave Search, this one has a completely independent index, meaning no contracts to big tech to let them spy on you by secret. The difference between this and Kagi? It doesn't require a paid subscription, so you can use it for free

Link:

• https://puri.li/

Search query:

• https://puri.li/search?q

Mullvad donated some money to a Neo-N@zi party. To me, umless if they keep doing this, it doesn't feel too important, as long as they keep their products up and going. What does it mean to you? Your opinion could change my mind