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I'm probably going to spam this around a bit, since most people don't seem to know about it, but a reminder that FuriLabs has a (GNU+)Linux phone with decent spec.s and the ability to run Android app.s (from what I've heard) pretty decently: https://furilabs.com/

Biggest drawback is it's based on Halium. Usual growing pains of a new product/company apply but apparently the company is pretty responsive and their dev.s have worked with customers to get things like calling working with the carrier and bands of their country where it hasn't worked before so improvements move pretty quickly.

Collection of different experiences I've variously seen online over the last year or so:

I don't own one, myself, so I can't give any personal experience but I've seen it around for a few years now but most people don't seem to even know about it. Maybe there's a reason for that? But none I've ever seen anyone say.

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Anyone that makes this argumrnt needs to work in a public IT support role for at least a year.

Then you will understsnd why your average user should not be given unrestricted freedom on their device.

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Sure. I don't disagree with that. In fact, that's how it currently works on Android, more or less. It's actually looser now than it has been in the past.

But "informed choice without technical ability" is not a thing. You can't be informed if you don't understand what you're doing. People online that more or less understand computers but don't necessarily understand how other people interact with computers tend to miss how this works. My mom doesn't choose to take risks or not, she won't read what's on the screen and if she reads it she won't understand it, and if she understands it she won't trust it, because she doesn't have the knowledge to distinguish a genuine message from the OS trying to ask for confirmation from a janky physhing request.

My mom thinks Whatsapp messages can hack her bank account and freaks out every time her phone asks her to reboot for an update. She doesn't have the time or interest to get to a place where she can change that, and more to the point she shouldn't have to. It's prefectly fine to buy a device that will only let you do the things you want to do and won't let you do the rest.

As you say, that device just needs some process by which someone who cares and knows how to do more stuff can reclaim full access.

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Even people who are not being supported by any IT department at all? For example, home users. If they break their device they will learn how to not break their next one and therefore become more technologically proficient.

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Yep. I don't need Google to let me install apks freely and I don't need them to host everything on the Play store with zero supervision.

But I do need F-Droid to keep working and to be able to install software that Google has zero visibility on, or a way to unlock my device to be able to sideload stuff. There is zero reasonable argument to say that Google is the only valid arbiter of signed software on the planet.

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Can't IT lock things down if they so desire? That is the owner of the device using it as they see fit: Locking it down so the non technical users of the device can't break it. That you keep suggesting that devices should come out of the box restricted would make your IT job obsolete and in fact impossible to perform.

Edit: And before you ask yes I have worked in IT support, although I currently do not.

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Let me answer your question with a question: How many things do you do with your phone that aren't also able to be accomplished with a website already? I'd be willing to bet that the answer is in the single digits. And for most of those, that limitation is likely to be entirely arbitrary, instituted by a developer as an anti-consumer form of lock-in.

Delivering application-like experiences via the web allows users to make accessibility changes to that experience without the developer needing to support it explicitly. It also allows users to implement plugins that extend and improve their experience, by removing undesirable content or adding functionality that you haven't provided. And because browsers are built on open standards, there's no longer any device ecosystem lock-in; I should be able to access all of the websites I want to from any browser on any device. Users could even build their own bespoke applications, without the need to enable a developer mode on their phone or get a certification from a megacorp.

And because downloadable and cacheable progressive web apps are a thing, as well as local storage options for browsers, the experience for an end-user of a browser-only phone wouldn't need to be any different in low-signal or high-latency situations.

The web is a mature and proven platform for delivering arbitrary code and data, plugins make the web more accessible and easier to use, and web standards make the world more open. It's not a perfect platform, of course, but it's the one we've got; I think making it the default rather than the fallback for the devices most people use more than any other would be a great boon for the world at large.

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Yes, the problem is that Android is talking about requiring developer verification at install time; as I understand it, without allowing an override.

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oh yea I agree I was just venting further; prefer less hand holding

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If I ever go insane and write a manifesto this will be on it.

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Why should I suffer because of you lot?

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As for KaiOS, I don't think that's really a good successor of Boot2Gecko; from what I've seen they went the app route, which kind of fundamentally violates the spirit of what B2G was supposed to be.

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I can’t decide if that name is amazing or very unfortunate.

Is it pronounced “Furry Phone” or “Fury Phone?”

Because one of those is much better than the other. I’ll let my fellow Lemmings guess which I prefer.

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I, too, hate web dev being the standard. It's inevitable though. Mostly OS agnostic, easy to learn, etc.

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But we subsidised the cost of your phone so we could make sweet sweet recurring revenue off your usage habits and targeted advertising!

You wouldn't want to take that away from us would you? Won't SOMEBODY think of the shareholders?!

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Intriguing! I'm concerned about the "advanced power management algorithms" they're putting up front and center without clarifying. My current phone (OnePlus) is very aggressive about that and just kills my alarm clock in the middle of the night once in a while and breaks other apps, even with optimizations disabled and the phone plugged in. Furiphone isn't listed on DontKillMyApp and I didn't see anything with a quick search, have you heard anything about how it does on that?

Also that size, oof. Mine is already too big and this is noticeably bigger in all 3 dimensions.

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I think that just falls under "make it a bit harder to navigate to certain things so I'm less likely to fuck shit up."

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I argue that would be even more of a use case for the device owner to have such control.

Then you'd have rights to control which software your mom can install on the phone.

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Ooof; yeah: that'd be a dealbreaker for me, too. I've got a OnePlus, as well (Nord N20), and, while I can definitely tell there's some battery optimization going on, it's never killed my alarms; it's the only alarm clock I use so somewhat vital.

Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything (yet). Most of anything I've heard about them has been from "static" sources (like the above); I don't hang out in any chatrooms or the like they may have. I do know they have an account on the Fediverse, though (@[email protected]), so you may be able to ask them directly?

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And yet on Linux the advice seems to be never ever download directly from the developer

That's just advice for making life easy for new people, because distro-packaged software is more likely to work well with the operating system. I run packages from devs, even nightly automated builds of stuff, all the time.

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