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by fkooman 3705 days ago
You make some good points, and it would certainly help somewhat, but it won't solve the underlying problem. Instead of real choice and ability to buy something that will be under your control instead of the manufacturer or operator you need more than giving Samsung et al the ability to remove Google Chrome and install their own browser infested with spyware that no longer receives security updates after it ships and cannot be removed. If these constructs Google enforces on the manufacturers are indeed illegal, why don't Samsung, HTC, etc. not sue Google to get it sorted? I mean, it is a b2b problem.

A Galaxy config? Yeah, they have that now more or less, they offer many alternatives next to the Google ones installed by default that are in all ways inferior to the Google versions of those apps. They replace one big company services with another and do a worse job. No benefit for users.

Anything that does not bring benefits to projects like e.g. Replicant or CopperheadOS are in the end meaningless for "consumer" freedom and progress in the mobile device space.
1 comments
ocdtrekkie 3705 days ago
Why do you make the assumption that anything that's not Google is infested with spyware?
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fkooman 3705 days ago
The Google proprietary stuff, and some of the free parts in Android are also already spyware. But adding an additional layer of proprietary software is just no good for the user :-)

I mean, I can also rant about CyanogenMod using oCLock (or whatever it is called) that sends by default your exact GPS locations over HTTP (not HTTPS!) to Yahoo.

Allowing Samsung to put their own stuff on top will just not improve anything for the user, it will improve stuff for Samsung, but I don't care about that.

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ocdtrekkie 3705 days ago
Not necessarily on top. Samsung can already layer more stuff on top, but this would enable Samsung to replace things. Now, yes, that might be exchanging Google spyware with Samsung spyware, but at least you can choose who's spying on you? (Using different services for different things can help keep all of your data off a single profile, at least.)
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