Have you ever wondered what it would be like to engage in a mobile ecosystem outside of the watchful eye of the Big Tech giants and gatekeepers? A system that includes everything from operating systems, to app stores, to cloud services, messaging apps, email servers and more? A system that puts your privacy first, believes in a democratic approach and healthy competition, and a system that relies on open-source solutions to drive its software? Welcome to Mobifree, a human-centered, ethical alternative, that champions privacy over profit and believes in collaboration, sustainability and inclusiveness.
Everyone is locked into a mobile phone ecosystem where the terms are dictated by a handful of Big Tech companies all located in a single country. From end users looking to download and use their favorite apps, to developers who run into roadblocks when trying to get their solutions published, to governments who are increasingly using apps as a way to provide services to their citizens, we are all impacted by the gatekeeping, data tracking, and railroading Big Tech is imposing on us in the current mobile ecosystem. A new alternative is required to shape a better future. And F-Droid is excited to be a part of creating that new mobile ecosystem, together with our other partners in Mobifree.
Android is Linux. There are also open source versions of android like LineageOS and GrapheneOS. I have Graphene and it completely changed my relationship to my phone. No bloat, just what I want.
Banking apps work fine as they don’t use google play services. Idk about the other features except maps, the open source version is OSMAnd, which is fine and works but takes some getting used to, and lacks many features/optimizations of Google Maps, which seems to get worse and worse every year.
Android is not Linux, it is derived from it. The two are not API compatible, and Android ripped out most of what made Linux Linux to be able to support binary blob drivers, direct Dalvik JVM support in the kernel and other funky stuff.
It’s as much Linux as macOS’ XNU kernel is FreeBSD.