This linux phone by Liberux seems like the most promising option in the near future. The crowdfunding campaign failed this summer but the project is still moving forward, just waiting to hear more from them @Liberux
Also GrapheneOS but not sure how far along any of this is: “We plan to partner with OEMs to have devices produced meeting all our requirements, providing additional privacy/security features beyond them and ideally shipping with GrapheneOS rather than massively lowering our standards.”
Edit: here’s a recent post from GrapheneOS from August 2025:
Isn’t Liberux a crowdfunfing scam?
Why do you make baseless claims like that? They refunded everyone when they didn’t meet their funding goals, and also committed to creating a special edition phone in the next campaign for everyone who supported. You can see the campaign here on indiegogo
LMAO
That Liberux phone looks pretty cool, though I’m not sure how Linux apps would work. Does it just use Android apps? I can’t imagine too many Linux programs would work well on a phone, both because of the size as the screen as well as battery usage/background sleep.
Linux phone OSes can usually run Android apps through a VM but generally you want to avoid it for performance and privacy reasons.
There are apps available for mobile Linux that are optimized for small screens and touch. Just not a ton understandably due to low userbase.
Good to know, thanks!
Unfortunately for the US (possibly other countries?) we’ve shut down 2g/3g. 4g/5g here don’t support calling only VoLTE and Vo5G and as far as I know Linux phones haven’t figured those out meaning calling on Linux isn’t currently a thing.
Of course they have. We even have the Librem 5 that’s sold here. The big problem the linux phones face is the cost of getting certified by all three carriers here — and without carrier cert, they just don’t work.
So any rumors on that major Android OEM?
I have a question for all Pixel/Graphen OS users. Will these changes affect new users (I am currently interested in purchasing a Pixel 8 to install Graphen OS for the first time and want to use apps from outside the Google Store) and current users (if I want to install an app on GraphenOS, e.g. via F-droid or Aurora Store, will I be able to do so in the future, or is there no information on this and only time will tell)?
Not a GOS user, but as far as I know, you will still be able to install shit on GOS
Thanks dude!
Maybe this would be a push for a real open source based phone. GNU/Linux phones needed this push to really get more popularity
You can’t sideload on Linux.
…because why "sideload"when frontload works directly? I guess…maybe it’s your cuckold fetish to watch someone else nerd your box…
Don’t even try to get me started on windoze until the fucking Epstein files are releeased.
Not if age verification apps have any say.
https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet/av-doc-technical-specification/issues/18
1k? Must be in Euros or USD.
Well, I never gave them permission to install Google Chrome. Maybe they should start thinking about their self first…
Us: nope, I degoogled my Android phone. Good luck.
MicroG is amazing
Ive had grapheneOS for years, is every customer android rom done for? I may just get a “dumbphone” or maybe back to iphone? I wish I could just have no phone but obviously need close family to contact me at anytime
It’s very strange that you are considering moving to a dumbphone or an even more locked-down platform because google is locking down android.
They’re taking away a vital feature, so you want even more taken away?
What would you recommend? Apple tracks a ton of data but also blocks 3rd party trackers at least
Linux phones
I would recommend staying away from apple if control over your device is something you value.
My 320 EUR Pixel 7a is running GrapheneOS.
It’s just Android. You’re as subject to this as anyone else is, if not moreso.
No. It’s removed downstream. Anyone with a degoogled Android phone is not subject to this.
I agree, and I’m very much for an open Android fork. I think it is a path of less resistance than trying to hammer Linux’s spherical bod into a square hole
I have a Oneplus 6T. Linux phones feel like laptops, behave like laptops, and the apps? They’re the same, nothing is made with vertical orientations in mind, and almost nothing you need for a phone is available outside of scant outliers.
Even with being a complete music pirate with complete, Jafar-levels of control over my collection, I had access to two abandoned subsonic apps, Clementine(vertical, riiiight) and Jellyfin.
Jellyfin on a desktop loads every image every single time it loads, and it does the same on mobile Linux, because it’s the same app. On Android, it caches everything and sleeps itself.
Multiply that by, every app you use.
That’s our workload for Mobile Linux.
We already have it. When you install an Android OS it doesn’t include google by default It requires additional work to get the gapps spyware
It is an a degoogled by default open source Android fork. I am writing this on a Pixel tablet running GrapheneOS with zero Google software sources on it. Google Play has no power here, and is running sandboxed if you choose to install it.
One day you’ll wake up to the news that Graphene is ending support at a certain Android version because they can’t get sources.
Your privacy depends on Google allowing Android to be open. It isn’t anyone’s decision but theirs.
It ain’t today. Relax.
Obviously Google can stop releasing upstream sources and they could also prevent bootloader unlocking on Pixels, which would limit GOS to legacy support, unless somebody can maintain an Android fork and also a sufficiently open and secure hardware base. Which is a major effort.
The alternative is to move to a mobile Linux or just Linux on a WLAN tablet or other portable device. With a MiFi router or a tethered phone.
If that is not an option, I will rise up from the comfort of my couch and go back to using Linux desktops. Which I never stopped doing.
If that’s not an option, there are still books.
Yeah, if devs stop developing apps for android. It won’t matter if you use android without play services.
At this point im not sure why I dont just get an iphone
Ok?
Going from needing Google’s permission to install apps to needing Apple’s permission to install apps. How would that help in any way?
For those that don’t install custom roms it may be preferable to entrust their data to Apple than Google if they are having to end up in a closed ecosystem.
Rest of us are enthusiasts so we can just pick phones with custom rom support, but its not something every Android user is willing to do.
I use GOS rn and quite frankly if GOS ever shuts down I’ll get an iPhone, I refuse to accept worse security from roms like LineageOS or /e/os
It’s not about them being better, it’s about them basically being the same.
Although I’m not saying I trust Apple for privacy, I trust them more than Google on that front.
Because this headline is bunk
Android’s future goes bleak as updates passby.
I have my Pixel 9 pro with GrapheneOS. Google ain’t telling me shit about what I can or can’t install.
Are the banking apps still blocked? How’s the camera? It’s been a while since I installed grapheneos…
I use a credit union, and they whitelisted the OS about a week after I told them about it.
The camera is really good.
I recently did graphene on a new pixel. My bank app (Chase, in the US) did not work immediately but did after lifting Graphene’s default app restrictions, strictly for that one app.
Namely “exploit protection compatibility mode” being enabled did the trick.
Camera on the 9a is fine, but I’m not a photographer. I take photos of serial numbers and server rooms. /Shrug
Are the banking apps still blocked?
Depends on the app.
You can just install Googles Camera without Gservices if you want
N26, revolut, and google wallet didn’t work when I was using it a few years ago.
Revolut explicitly blocks anything not blessed by Google IIRC. One of the worst things about them, it’s otherwise a pretty convenient app.
Wallet told me it’s not supported on “rooted devices” (official grapheneos doesn’t allow root and is actually even more secure than google’s regular OS) and Revolut was buggy and didn’t let me sign in a few weeks ago
Pixels are made by Google? You’re supporting this hot mess? They can lock the bootloader any time?
I locked the bootloader back after installing GrapheneOS. You have to have physical access to the device to do that.
What I mean, with future os updates people might lose the ability the unlock it in the first place. You are safe as long you don’t update to newer pixel android versions. This is what happens to me now if I upgrade my Samsung above oneui8. I will lose the ability to unlock it, forfeiting things like lineageos in the future.
The Pixel 10 just launched, and the bootloader is still unlockable.
If they lock down the bootloader, I’ll just follow wherever the GrapheneOS crew takes their project.
If it becomes impossible for them to continue, I’ll probably just start using a dumb phone and carrying a small netbook with Linux for my internet needs.
Non-zero chance that the GrapheneOS crew will work with a manufacturer to bring a phone to market if Pixels get fully locked down.
Pixel’s predecessor itself, Nexus, was a somewhat low production volume (compared to Samsung or Apple at least) phone for enthusiasts, that Google partnered with different manufacturers to design and produce.
I mean, this is terrible garbage, but if Google is going to fully ruin Android then at least the news being out might push resources towards mobile Linux faster.
I’m actually using an old iphone. I look at it like an appliance to connect with mainstream institutions (including local people like other school parents), and take pictures. I have other appliances of varying complexity up to and including my car that run systems I know nothing about as well. I’m not happy about that either, but these are the compromises that happen in the real world.
The closed system isn’t appealing to me, but the mass market appeal of the device is. A stunning majority of my direct acquaintances use it. It can streamline interactions sometimes.
And you know, I don’t trust them of course, but at least Apple has actually said out loud in high profile presentations that privacy is a fundamental human right, and they always point out when they can keep personal things on-device. And they fight orders to unlock phones. Plus they make their money on hardware sales and services for the most part.
Google, on the other hand, exists pretty much solely to vacuum up data and keep us online and cloud-connected. They typically get major points for interoperability from me, but then I ask how often is it just a cynical embrace/extend/extinguish strategy?
Any big mainstream phone now is just a locked down disposable product of a megacorp. It’s also a data scraping tendril of said megacorp loaded with sensors and a fast data connection. And now as a bonus for those of us in the US - it’s probably a convenient backdoor warrantless wiretap that the oligarchs can just accidentally forward the government the passwords to.
My COMPUTER runs Linux. I can’t wait until I can have a real linux computer in the form factor of a high quality phone.
I have an old phone how would I install Linux and still use it as a phone, for texting etc?
Look at postmarket OS. Unless you are really lucky, texting, calling, wifi, etc is not or barely working.
Unfortunately it isn’t as simple as just needing the right Linux distro with a touch-friendly “DE.”
We essentially need the “IBM compatible” equivalent phone platform like how modern PCs got started.
not sure how these are, but i’m planning on getting one at some point. These should have some other os called murena, which is close to android but not quite, according to the website.
based on android. similarly to how samsungs and xiaom8s system is also based on it.
as long as google doesnt control it, its good enough for me
HarmonyOS ? Technically OpenHarmony ?
it has come to the point that i might consider even chinese controlled stuff over google, though i would prefer european software. I’m just so sick and tired of all this bullshit.
Has the update dropped yet? I’m checking before I update my phone, once it does I’m off for good
I disabled OS updates on my phone, we’ll have to see how long that lasts.
until google remotely enables them again. Fuck google.
In my case, it’s Samsung and if the code’s not already there to do it, they’re not going to be able to push the code to do it ;)
I have three wide spread of ADB’s / networks that are disabled and dumped the Samsung logins.
Yeah that’s what I plan once I know I’m at the version cap
