Replicant As A Truly Free, Blob-Less Android OS Is Still Facing A Huge Uphill Battle

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Replicant As A Truly Free, Blob-Less Android OS Is Still Facing A Huge Uphill Battle

While Replicant OS is promoted by the FSF as a binary-free Android distribution and a truly open alternative to Apple products, the state of Replicant OS in terms of end-user readiness or being as a viable alternative to iOS and Android leaves much to be desired...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Android-Replicant-OS-2015

[Sonadow]

Doesn't support GPU acceleration and the cellular modems?

Then it's more useless than useless.

[Kano]

If you don't like Google why do you buy Android in first place? You could use CM without GAPPS, but that's not really useful. Maybe better try something else, like Firefox OS based devices... That project is for ppl who have got enough other devices and one to hack...

[Sonadow]

If you don't like Google why do you buy Android in first place? You could use CM without GAPPS, but that's not really useful. Maybe better try something else, like Firefox OS based devices... That project is for ppl who have got enough other devices and one to hack...

I use Windows Phone.

[FireBurn]

Android 5.1 hasn't been released yet. It's only been mentioned on the Android One information page - and is possibly an error - i.e. should've been android 5.0.1

[Benjamin_L]

If you don't like Google why do you buy Android in first place? You could use CM without GAPPS, but that's not really useful. Maybe better try something else, like Firefox OS based devices... That project is for ppl who have got enough other devices and one to hack...

There's also jolla

[droidhacker]

I use Windows Phone.

So.... CM with msapps instead of gapps.?

Worse than useless.

[Benjamin_L]

So.... CM with msapps instead of gapps.?

Worse than useless.

Windows Phone has a github repo?

[gotwig]

I use Windows Phone.

Saying this in a linux forum is almost like asking to get killed.

[stevenc]

my own experiences, YMMV:

android, cyanogen:

• the new users' privacy opt-in: [x] may we track you? (and then, hidden off the screen with no visible scrollbar: ) [x] may we track you? (and in the terms: ) we're going to track you anyway
• hello, today we upgraded your generic XMPP client to a Google Hangouts-only one
• hello, today we uninstalled your generic SMTP/IMAP client and replaced it with a GMail app
• hello, today we replaced the standalone multimedia players with links to Picasa/Youtube

many devices by Samsung:

• hello GSM network, this is the backdoor in the vendor-supplied Android build. let me know if you want to read/write any files on this device

firefox OS:

• hello http://-only website, please give me the source code to build parts of our trustworthy OS, we trust you, so let's not bother with any crypographic verification of the downloaded sources
• hello Google, please give me your trustworthy pre-compiled kernel to run our trustworthy OS on top of
• hello vendor-supplied Android build, please give us any extra bits, like Samsung backdoors etc. that should be retained in our trustworthy OS images other than what we built from source

replicant:

• none of the above
• there could be more important issues at stake than the graphics framerate or having every available hardware feature
• you *may* be able to repair some functionality by using firmware blobs but ask someone else how to do that, and don't say we didn't warn you