The e Foundation '/e/' Rolls Out A Privacy-Focused Android Smartphone Line That Isn’t All Googled Up

guest · May 12, 2019

/e/ Rolls Out A Privacy-Focused Android Smartphone Line That Isn’t All Googled Up
May 11, 2019
https://hothardware.com/news/e-rolls-out-a-privacy-focused-android-smartphone

Smart devices are necessary and ubiquitous in 2019, but it can be difficult to find a operating system or service that fully respects your privacy.
The e Foundation or /e/ will soon offer refurbished smartphones with its own /e/ operating system.

Interested users can register for a device and they will be notified when it is available. Customers will not need to make any payments until the devices are available. At the moment, there is not a release date.

The /e/OS only includes trusted apps that encourage a “privacy-enabled internal environment for mobile phones”. The OS is essentially a fork of Android and includes features like the default Android contact apps, clock, file manager, calculator, and keyboard. Other features include an “ungoogled fork of Chromium” and a “fork of K9 mail”.
Most of the pre-installed apps are open-source with a few exceptions like the Map and Weather apps. All of the apps are unrelated to Google or other major data-sharing companies.
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For more information, you can check out their site here.
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trott3r · May 12, 2019

Question is will i be able to put the play store on it?
I am still going to need google calendar etc so i want to have the choice whether i install a clean app or not.

guest · Sep 25, 2019

The /e/ Google-free, pro-privacy Android clone is now available
Linux pioneer Gaël Duval's /e/ OS is still in beta but it's available for your smartphone or on refurbished Samsung smartphones
September 25, 2019
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-e-google-free-pro-privacy-android-clone-is-now-available/

Gaël Duval, creator of the popular early Linux distribution, Mandrake Linux, wanted a smartphone, which was open source, would run a wide variety of popular software, and protect your privacy. His answer was the Android-based /e/ operating system and smartphones. While it's still in beta, both its code and refurbished Samsung phones running it are now available.

According to Duval, the /e/ operating system is a Lineage OS fork. It also blends in features from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) 7, 8, and 9 source-code trees.
In the /e/ OS all Google services have been removed and replaced with MicroG services. MicroG replaces Google's libraries with purely open-source implementations without hooks to Google's services. This includes libraries and apps which provide Google Play, Maps, Geolocation, and Messaging services for the Android applications when they need them.
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You can download and install /e/ on 85 different smartphone models. This includes phones from Google, HTC, Motorola, OnePlus, Samsung, and Xiaomi. It is not available from any phone OEM or carrier at this time. Duval said though that he is in talks with Huawei, Samsung, and several global telecoms.
You can also buy an /e/ phone today if you're in the EU.
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mirimir · Sep 25, 2019

Nice

guest · Nov 12, 2020

Android without Google – and yes it has apps: The Reg talks to founder about the /e/ smartphone
How the de-Googled phone works
November 12, 2020
https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/12/android_without_google_e_smartphone/

The /e/ Foundation has brought a de-Googled phone to market - we got one to try, and spoke to founder Gaël Duval for all the details behind this brave effort.

There are two surprises when you unwrap a /e/ smartphone, insert a SIM and turn it on for the first time. One is what a pleasant experience it is, with no demands for accounts and passwords or pre-installed crapware wanting sundry permissions for opaque reasons.
The other is that when you tap the icon called App Store, it is full of familiar names.

Marketing a smartphone that does not run either iOS (if you are Apple) or Google Android has a high barrier to entry. Designing and manufacturing the hardware is expensive, and when that is done there is still the app factor: attracting developers to a new platform is challenging.
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Applications

“We are doing a mirror [of the Play Store] for all the most demanding applications,” Duval told us. “We are using a service called Cleanapk.”
As a bonus, Cleanapk rates the privacy implications of each package using a tool called Exodus Privacy Analysis – [...]
How does /e/OS, the operating system, get round the absence of Google Play Services, depended on by many applications for basic services such as location? The OS is a fork of Lineage OS which uses the open source part of Android, AOSP.

“The funny thing is that AOSP, the core Android project, the leader of the development [at Google] contacted me to tell me, “That’s very cool, what you are doing, if we find a way of cooperation, we are very open to it.”
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On the hardware side, the /e/ phone we were sent is actually an eco-friendly Fairphone 3, though a Fairphone 3+ with upgraded camera is also available, at €499.90 - a little more than it would cost direct from Fairphone.
Is an /e/ Foundation mobile a good buy?
For those who want the best specification and the richest applications for their money, probably not.
There are the Fairphone benefits of sustainability, replaceable battery, repairability and so on. Do enough people care? That is the question – but having this kind of alternative is welcome.
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