Your Web News in One Place

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

Sign up for GreenGeeks web hosting
September 26, 2019 12:10 am

The /e/ Google-Free, Pro-Privacy Android Clone Is Now Available

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Gael 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. Duval's approach hasn't been to reinvent the mobile operating system wheel, but instead to clean up Android of its Google privacy-invading features and replace them with privacy-respecting one, in which, as Duval said in an interview, "Your data is your data." To do this, he's started with LineageOS. This is an Android-based operating system, which is descended from the failed CyanogenMod Android fork. 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. What this means is that you can run some Android apps, which normally only work on a fully Google-enabled Android phone on an /e/ phone. These compatible apps are available via the /e/ app store. The /e/ platform also comes with its own services, the report notes. For example, its search program uses Qwant, a popular, privacy-first European-based search engine, and for cloud storage, you get /e/'s own cloud, which is based on the open-source NextCloud. You can download and install /e/ on 85 different smartphone models. You can also buy an /e/ phone today if you're in the EU.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.


Original Link: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/fMYabg9ZjnU/the-e-google-free-pro-privacy-android-clone-is-now-available

Share this article:    Share on Facebook
View Full Article

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot