I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
install them with adb. its a crucial feature for developers, so they won’t easily get rid of it.
How do you get updates when installing via adb?
Install them via adb, probably
Is this manageable for the non-dev by chance? I can get by on a tutorial or too but if enough things break I’m feeling a dumbphone alt may be the only viable path
Depends on your comfort with CLI tools. Here’s the process (assumes Windows):
- Download and extract platform tools
- Add that location to your PATH
- Win + R, type “cmd”, enter
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\your\path\here\<- Temporary, just for the current sessionsetx /M path "%path%;C:\your\path\here\"<- Permanent
-
On your device, go to
Settings -> Aboutand look forBuild Numberit can sometimes be buried inSoftware Information -
Tap
Build Numberrepeatedly until a message appearsYou are now a developer -
You should now have a new
Developer optionsmenu item somewhere in your settings. Sometimes it’s top level, sometimes it’s buried underAdditional SettingsorAdvanced Settingsor the like -
Make sure
USB Debuggingis turned on -
Connect the device over USB
-
Back on WIndows type:
adb devices- You might get a popup on the device asking if you want to allow USB debugging. Select Yes, and run
adb devicesagain. You should see your device listed
- Download the APK of the app you want to install (AAB files are a PITA, but can be installed too. Try to get APK files though)
- Install with:
adb install C:/path/to/app.apk<- ifadb devicesonly returns one deviceadb -s <device_id> install C:/path/to/app.apk<- specific device
You can install updates the same way, just download the updated APK and add the
-rflagadb install -r C:/path/to/app.apkSo no
Most of that stuff is automatable - except the bit about activating Developer mode and USB Debugging on the device (steps 3 to 6) which only needs to be done once per device - so I expect we will soon see several nice GUI tools that automate the rest and eventually we might even just see stuff that talks directly to the phone over USB via libusb and using the same protocol as ADB, so installing the Android Platform Tools won’t at all be needed.
But yeah, at this point it requires people to at the very least be familiar with using the command line.
Someone suggested elsewhere (I can’t remember where) that Shizuku could be messed around with to allow installation without any computer’s involvement at all, to emulate
adbon the phone itself. Would you know anything about this workaround?A quick look through its documentation shows that it instructs the user how to go through a subset of the instructions the original user provided (or an alternative set of instructions if using Android 11+ as there it can use a different mechanism) plus a few more, in order to run a Shizuku service as user “adb”.
From then on, that Shizuku service can then be used by other apps to do everything the “adb” user can, including installing and updating applications.
So I guess it could be used by something like F-Droid to go around Google’s new mechanism to close down app installs.
For Android < 11 it’s is no more non-expert friendly than the instructions already provided by the original user, though it’s better in Android 11+ as there it’s all interacting with menus on the Android side (see here under Start Shizuku)
That’s why I posted it. So people can decide for themselves. Doesn’t seem that bad to me, but then I’m a dev, so it’s really hard to judge what a non dev would be comfortable with
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No it’s not. Not because of that it’s too difficult but it’s too much work on a weekly basis just to update your stuff.
I have no rooted phone because I have grapheneos but it should be possible to do it directly on your rooted phone with shizuku et al which wouldn’t be that bad.
How’s graphene been serving you? I’ve wanted to take the plunge for a while now and this no side loading bs has me looking into it again
Gos is good. It is a solid os. I like it a lot. I have a lot of freedom that I don’t have on other phones. But it is also just android. other brands like samsung added a lot of goodies to their os. It is a phone, it works, it’s alright. It took me a while to understand that graphene’s exploit protection slows down apps. I disable that for all important apps like osmand where speed is crucial. Osmand is still slower than on an iphone 6. Do I have to use it security wise? No, but I like supporting it. Will my next phone have gos as well? Yes. It has no annoyance on it. There is no unwanted app or anything. That’s amazing.
Can just confirm the other comment
GrapheneOS is serving me very well
No problems (currently) with banking apps eitherI’m very happy with it - although a real Linux phone would be really cool
There is also Shizuku that might be utilized in der Future to install apps (Im just speculating here)
Yes it is.
It will probably be something similar to ios altstore. You would have an app which has a list of your non-playstore apps and repo for their releases and would notify you for upgrades that you would manually have to install (for example I suppose obtainium will implement adb), the setup will be annoying but far far less cumbersome than apple where you have to reboot your device multiple times self sign ipas and refresh once a week otherwise the apps don’t load at all. This iOS experience is awful but still doable and non-dev. Android will have a better experience for sure.
Is this manageable for the non-dev by chance?
Not really.
I’ve not been following things super closely, but the idea would be that each user would get their own developer key and then locally compile and deploy whatever apps they want as though it were a project they themselves were working on. The first bit is not too dissimilar from how a lot of people with XBOXes made dev accounts to install emulators. But the latter is going to get real messy and REAL compromised REAL fast as people just use third party tools and binaries that will inevitably be compromised.
I’m feeling a dumbphone alt may be the only viable path
It really depends on what your use case is. If you actually just talk to people on phones? Uhm… I am not even sure where you would find a dumb phone at this point, but that will probably work for voice calls and SMS using just your carrier and MAYBE wifi. But anything that involves apps, which is a shockingly large part of the world, will be a mess. Some you can (and should) do workarounds (banking apps, for example) but others you are kind of up a creek since your options are to use a modern phone or not be able to (for example) see your kid’s daycare schedule.
where do you get that stuff with a dev key?
sideloading is completely fine, only requirements are the tools on the pc and a cable.
LADB can have a phone connect to itself over ADB and install apks which are stored on the phone. Maybe F-Droid can utilize this as an installation medium.
I’ve started donating to PostmarketOS this month, so hopefully I’ll be able to buy a device with decent support once my current phone needs replacing.
I already run LineageOS on my phone with microG instead of Gapps, so not much is going to change for me. There’ll also be an update to Android 16 for me soon, LineageOS just announced that last weekend.
I don’t like android 16. I already regret so much updating to Android 15 a few weeks ago: it’s onky feature was making notifications huge and replace the monochrome logos with rhe app icon (which is not the one I have on my themed launcher) so it takes more space and is uglier. Same for the new control center: I had to disable it. Horrible locked screen experience too with less icons on top left and ios inspired dynamic island gimmicks.
Android 16, will be some design choices which are even less customizable I feel (but at least way better than ios broken transparency)
I only use app from f-droid on lineage and I don’t have a google account anymore, if that stops being an option I guess I’ll use an old dumb phone and fuck all.
I hope there will be a good Linux phone in a few years that I can switch to. Would be great with it was compatible with the latest Fairphone by then, for a true FOSS and ethical phone.
From what I’ve been researching, Fairphones pretty much work after a year or two on at least Ubuntu Touch. It uses Halium though for that. It seems like the older ones mostly work after a couple years on postmarketOS, but crucial stuff like audio from the speakers is still broken or whatever. Security is pretty obviously gonna be worse than an Android phone no matter what you use though.
GrapheneOS
Giving more money to Google after they fucked u in the arse. Brain dead move
- In what way?
- What do you suggest, live brain dude?
Linux or bust. We need to humble these companies at any costs. Open software open hardware
This is a good idea, except that it requires money. I already have an old Pixel right here that I can put Graphene on.
I guess my point is, it’s not necessary to harass people about their choice of phone OS before you know their situation. 🤷
Okay, I’ll just install debian on my phone then, thanks for the advice.
Jesus!
Which phone do you suggest then? Like I ALSO have a Librem 5, it’s just a lot of quirk. Its also not an answer to someone with an Android phone already unless they just have extra money for it. Hopefully we see better Android emulation on Librem type phones though and that gap closes.
I’ll root and/or use ADB to install APKs. Fuck Google.
Same here. I already use ADB for each new phone setup because it is so much faster, anyway.
I will switch to Android roms that don’t have that defect, and continue to buy and tinker with Linux phones when I can afford it, until they become daily-drivable.
Well, I know that I probably wont be buying anymore android devices and I know for sure that I’ll never buy an iOS device. But outside of that I’m not sure, I’ll have to wait and see how things play out. If possible, I’d like to be able to use Linux or at least custom versions of android but, as of now, most of my devices don’t have custom roms available and the two that do haven’t been supported in years. I have looked into Linux phones, tablets and other portable devices like the Steam deck and the Legion Go S but they are very expensive and there isn’t even a way for me to purchase some them.
I am also aware of ADB commands but I’ve never used them before. If they are easy enough to use without potentially bricking my devices, I am not opposed to using them.
I moved to GrapheneOS about a month ago, not too long after the announcement. Bought a used Pixel and jumped. TBH moving to Graphene was something I’d considered for a while for privacy reasons but Google gave me that last push.
There are some different ways of doing things but I’ve really enjoyed the transition overall.
I’ll happily continue using my GrapheneOS Pixel since nothing will change for 3d-party ROMs :)
Until it does. Google is already closing development, so the GrapheneOS devs will have a more difficult time rebasing their changes to AOSP each snapshot.
Yeah, it’s a moving target for sure. For now, the devs seem to be very certain that AOSP will stay and that they will still be able to port GOS on new devices (although it will take more time and work).
Not exactly. GrapheneOS has an OEM partner and has early access to AOSP changes that aren’t public. A huge downside to that is that security preview releases can’t be open source until after Google makes the code public.
Well, that’s not a huge downside. They still provide those security updates in their binary builds.
Fair enough. I said “huge” because I guess some people care a lot. I personally don’t and have been on security preview releases since they started releasing them.
Is this verified, or does it still depend on how the mechanism is implemented?
If app installation is not managed by Google (i.e. if you’re not using Google Mobile Services or GMS), Google cannot block the installation of any apps. Graphene’s devs have confirmed themselves that this new measure will not affect their ROM
That’s great to read
Perfect. I thought about some kernel level shenanigans which could be out of influence for third party vendors.
Can you tell me how the ad experience is with GrapheneOS? As in, do apps which try to insert ads in screen transitions (or anywhere) still do so? Or websites which put in AdSense popups?
GrapheneOS doesn’t recommend AdAway or other adblocking solutions, so does it do so itself?
It does not block anything by itself. I use Adguard as my DNS provider and it does that system-wide. It you can also use a VPN provider such as ProtonVPN that does it
Hmm. OK, I’ve been using AdAway (not AdGuard) as DNS and/or VPN, experimenting with both) under Pixel 9 stock OS, and it mostly works… but some apps and websites still get ads through.
LineageOS w/Adaway root /etc/hosts blocklists was 100% perfect on my older phone… that’s my main quibble with trying LineageOS vs. GrapheneOS.
I know some people recommend against rooting, but I’ve never had security issues doing it and it seemed to offer more bulletproof ad-blocking.
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Then those people don’t deserve freedom anymore.
Don’t cut yourself on that edge.
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lmao
This has got to be a satire account right?
probably bot?
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Oh yeah, the question was threefold: What are you doing to fight for rights other than acting like an edgelord on the internet so much so that you deserve to say others deserve their rights taken from them? Secondly, do you think that putting pictures of generic attractive gothy women as your profile avatar somehow gives you more street cred among the neckbeards online? Last week your avatar was a different woman entirely. Finally, with how stupid both of those things are, this has to be satire of teenage edgelords, right?
I have read you will still be able to install using ADB and I figure I will do that since I have done that a lot in the past anyway.
Are you going to constantly plug in your phone to update via ADB too?
You can connect ADB via wifi and push updates via command line. Honestly trivial to automate when you’re at home.
With shizuku you can even run adb and access it via your own phone.
LineageOS user here, so nothing will change for me. Perhaps in the long-term Google might kill off AOSP for good, in which case I’ll seriously consider a so-called real Linux device. Cautiously optimistic about the FSF’s Librephone project, which right now is attempting to reverse engineer blobs in Android devices.
I already have a Pinephone sitting around so maybe I’ll re-flash Mobian on it and play around with it. In the long term my ideal distro would be Guix or some Guix derivative.
I’m likely going to use ladb to sideload “directly” on the device. I’m really hoping there are some legal challenges and/or bad pr to make them back down. I’m also considering picking up a Fairphone 4 or 5 and running CalyxOS as a plan B.
Fairphone looks really bad after reading some of the GrapheneOS forum threads covering them. Calyx is still on hiatus over the security patch thing
Last time I checked on fairphone they weren’t doing the due diligence for basic security, and that’s why grapheneos won’t touch them
Did they get worse?
I had never read their forum threads on Fairphone and eOS until the other day. Makes me glad I ruled them out for other reasons.
That’s a shame on both counts. I’ll have to follow more closely for a Plan C.
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Will they be able to circumvent Google’s restriction?
Google’s restrictions would act through its Play Store. Custom ROMs don’t need to use GPS. So they could circumvent it.
