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Items tagged with: Degoogled
Pocket Casts -- Awesome Open Source
Thanks to Automattic, the strongly open source company behind WordPress, another great product Pocket Casts goes open source! Awesome!
This is a great alternative to my current favourite podcast app, AntennaPod which is available on F-Droid.
Users: FOSS Matters
Quoting Chief TWiT leo@twit.social:
Now that we're learning this lesson that centralized silos are brittle and operate in the interest of the owners not the users......please note the move toward centralizing podcasts into apps from Amazon/Audible, Spotify, iHeart, YouTube, TikTok etc.
If you like podcasts, use an RSS-based podcast player. Support the open ecosystem...
My favourite podcast: The Self-Hosted Show (direct Pocket-Casts link to it).
Developers: Progress Needed
FOSS Apps live in FOSS App Stores
The Pocket Casts app is currently published only in the proprietary Google and Apple app stores [1]. I have voted for their “Add to F-Droid” issue and hope that they will agree to do so and that some nice folks will contribute to help make that happen. (Of course there is no analogous option for Apple users, as Apple locks all their users in their walled garden.)
FOSS Apps live in FOSS Forges
The source code and development process of Pocket Casts is currently hosted on the proprietary Microsoft Github, sadly, like Millions of Free Software developers forgot why it matters to own their tools. In my strong opinion, to better serve FOSS as a whole they would GiveUpGithub and move to a FOSS software forge provider such as Codeberg.org and/or host a FOSS code forge at their own domain.
[1] As a techie you could also download it from the release assets section of their app source repository, but for general users that doesn't count.
More: #awesomeFOSS #degoogled #android
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FOSS Apps Live in FOSS App Stores!
Don't lock a FOSS Android app in Google's proprietary store!Many of us are looking to FOSS solutions in order to keep our digital lives under our own control. We don't accept that any Big Tech company should hold the keys to a vast swathe of our digital life. So on our smart phones we may choose to use a FOSS version of Android. That means one that uses the open source parts of Android but avoids the proprietary Google lock-in parts. These so-called “deGoogled” Android-compatible operating systems include LineageOS, Murena /e/-OS, CalyxOS, GrapheneOS and more. Users of non-Google phones can find various “back door” ways to obtain apps from Google's play-by-our-rules-store, but that's completely the wrong way. FOSS apps should be available through FOSS app stores such as F-Droid.
F-Droid is not only an app store, it's also a protocol or “app store kit” that allows anyone to publish their own F-Droid-compatible app store. (I set up one up just to publish one camera app for myself and friends.) Each app publisher can choose whether to publish their app in the F-Droid store following its rules and conditions, or publish on their own store where they can set their own rules and conditions. Each user can decide which F-Droid-compatible stores they want to use, according to their own assessment of the publisher's reputation.
Read more about F-Droid:
These fine FOSS people do it right
- FUTO Circles a.k.a. Circuli, matrix-based private social media — published in their own f-droid repo [1]
These fine FOSS people need a nudge
- Pocket Casts — issue filed: “Add to F-Droid” (I've up-voted it)
TODO: add lots more examples
These Fine People Understand
Read More
- FOSDEM '23 talk
Sat 15:00Reckoning with new app store changes: Is now our chance? — Recent legal and policy developments around app stores and what they mean for free software- FOSDEM '23 talk
Sat 16:00EU alternative to app stores — Guardian Project tooted: “At #FOSDEM,@marcel_kolajawill present the #EU pilot project to look into open-sourcing the EU's apps and publishing them outside of #BigTech including on @[url=https://mastodon.technology/users/fdroidorg]fdroidorg[/url]. @[url=https://social.librem.one/users/eighthave]Hans-Christoph Steiner[/url] will join, talking about how F-Droid will help pull the EU towards #FreeSoftware. Join us!”[1] An f-droid repo link is not a web page. To use it, you open your f-droid app's “repositories” settings and add the link there.
Related: – FOSS Apps Live in FOSS Forges– Your FOSS Project Deserves its Own Domain
More: #degoogled #awesomeFOSS #selfHosted #GiveUpGithub #DitchDiscord
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GrapheneOS: the private and secure mobile OS
GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.GrapheneOS
AntennaPod – The Open Podcast Player
AntennaPod is a podcast player that is completely open. The app is open-source and you can subscribe to any RSS feed. AntennaPod is built by volunteers without commercial intere...AntennaPod
EU Pilot Project: Public Apps in F-Droid
Great news: someone at the EU understands that public services must not foist Big Tech on their citizens.
F-Droid.org tooted the news yesterday: “EU Pilot project — De-monopolized access to EU applications”
What does this mean and why is it important?
I recently framed a take on this issue as “FOSS Apps Live In FOSS App Stores”. Free (Libre) Open Source Software apps should be distributed in such a way as to be available to everyone, not only to Apple's and Google's users.
The same fundamental issue applies to apps provided by governments for public use. Today, our governments are distributing their apps only through Google's and Apple's stores, and so are requiring their citizens to be signed-up users of these particular Big Tech companies in order to use them. We citizens do not all want to be under the control of such companies: many of us opt out, and many others wish to opt out but find too many obstacles such as this.
The governments must stop doing this.
How are they looking at solving this?
The long EU paper says, under “Item PP 02 23 02”: “The focus of the pilot project includes EU institutions releasing their apps on existing alternative app stores, including f-droid that aims at promoting apps released under open source licenses”.
Saying “alternative app stores, including f-droid” recognises that the goal is to have app stores that are independent of the Big Tech corporations, and that currently there is one well established technology for independent app stores, called F-Droid.
How does F-Droid come in?
To understand better the role that F-Droid will likely play in this pilot project, it is important to understand that F-Droid refers to two things.
First, F-Droid is a curated app store, known for its ethic and strong enforcement of only Free (Libre) Open Source Software, and warnings about anti-features in the apps it distributes.
Second, F-Droid is also an open standard mechanism by which other organisations can set up their own curated app stores¹, and by which people can search and install apps from those independent f-droid app stores in just the same way as from the F-Droid.org app store. (I'll use lower-case “f-droid” as a reminder.) Unlike most well known Big Tech platforms, independent f-droid app stores are absolutely independently governed by their creators: they are not created inside some platform controlled by the F-Droid.org team.
Anyone can use F-Droid on a Google-Android phone and also, importantly, on a phone that is android-compatible but not connected to a Google account and perhaps not running any Google software, especially not their Play Store. Such a phone is also known as “a degoogled phone”).
A citizen using a degoogled phone, or one who does not want to get an app via Google for other reasons, can search and install apps from both the F-Droid.org app store and also any other compatible app stores to which the user opts in.
It is entirely feasible and I would suggest likely that the EU would evaluate running their own F-Droid app store for their apps, either in addition to or instead of submitting their apps to the F-Droid.org store, so as not to be dependent on it, and to have control over their terms and conditions and schedule of distribution.
Hurray! and may others take up the idea too.
Read More
- FOSS Apps Live in FOSS App Stores!
- F-Droid's fediverse feed
- FOSDEM '23 talk
Sat 15:00Reckoning with new app store changes: Is now our chance? — Recent legal and policy developments around app stores and what they mean for free software - FOSDEM '23 talk
Sat 16:00EU alternative to app stores — Guardian Project tooted: “At #FOSDEM,@marcel_kolajawill present the #EU pilot project to look into open-sourcing the EU's apps and publishing them outside of #BigTech including on @fdroidorg. @eighthave will join, talking about how F-Droid will help pull the EU towards #FreeSoftware. Join us!”
[¹] The f-droid mechanism is quite Small Tech, and open to anyone with technical skills. For example, I run a little f-droid repository myself, with currently just one app in it.
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#FDroid in an #EU "Pilot project — De-monopolized access to EU applications"... "The focus of the pilot project includes EU institutions releasing their apps on existing alternative app stores, including f-droid that aims at promoting apps released under open source licenses"https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-14783-2022-ADD-5/en/pdf
F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository
F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform. The client makes it easy to browse, install, and keep track of updates on your device.f-droid.org
PineTime Smart Watch -- Awesome Open Source
My smart watch is open source. Awesome!
PineTime from Pine64 (product | shop | wiki)
The PineTime is made of open-source hardware and open-source software.
Read a detailed review by It's MOSS.
Being created in order to inspire open development, Pine64 sell it directly for a very low price. It comes as a working product ready to use. For developers, the similarly priced development kit is recommended.
I haven't worn a watch for decades, but I am so happy this exists, I have ordered one.
Actually, to be candid, I ordered one because I want to be more intentional about promoting open source products. We can tell our friends we don't need Apple or Google owning us. But telling is weak. Showing is strong.
A few weeks later... here it is! Woohoo!
I installed GadgetBridge from F-Droid on my degoogled Android phone, and connected it. Upgrading the Infinitime firmware from version 1.6.0 as supplied, to the then current version 1.11.0, went smoothly.
What Does it Do?
It tells the time. It notifies me, with vibration and on-screen display, of notifications shown on my phone. It can control a music player on my phone, start/stop, track skip, and volume control. Those are the functions I find useful, at least initially.
There's an intriguing “navigation” screen, as in map directions. I have not been able to make it do anything, and on searching online found a note that it “only works with PureMaps/Sailfish OS”. That's a pity. I wonder if it can and will be made to work with the awesome open source Organic Maps.
Maybe you are more interested in the step counting and heart rate monitoring. There are also some little gadgets like timers, scribbling, metronome, and mini-games.
Where Next?
This is a hacker's watch, a hackable watch. Infinitime OS is not the only OS it can run. There is also Wasp-OS, and instructions on how to switch between Infinitime and Wasp-OS.
On either operating system, it's possible to add new functions. I would like to learn how to do so. For instance, I would like to monitor and control my smart home gadgets.
Alternatives
Other smart watches exist with open-source hardware and software designs. Some are hacker-only projects, which you can build yourself, such as Bellafaire's and more that we can find in round-ups such as this and this.
Here are the ones I know that are available to buy.
- Bangle.js reviewed in MagPi magazine, Feb. 2022
- Watchy by SQFMI
And finally, I came across an interesting project by “dcz” who has begun making a bike “computer” based on Bangle.js watch hardware with custom software: Jazda.
This article is part of my Open Source Gadgets series.
#fossGadgets #cloudFree #degoogled #awesomeFOSS #openHardware
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All I Want for Christmas is... a Smart Phone?
“What's it to be: Android or iPhone?”
Actually, NO! There is another way.Time I Learned: there are freedom-respecting phones.
I'll tell you which one you need.
(For the literal minded: It's just a title. I don't really think Christmas is about buying gadgets. This article is about freedom in technology.)
What's the problem?
What's so bad about choosing either Google or Apple?Many of us today are increasingly concerned about the vendor lock-in, advertising and data mining perpetrated by Apple and Google. They are so pervasive that it's hard at first to see all the avenues of social human interaction and creativity in which we could be harnessing the power of our computers and our electronic connection to others, all these avenues from which Big Tech have cut us off, as they steer us through their own product pathways according to their own commercial objectives.
In short, we are carrying around general purpose computers but we are artificially locked in to using their power only within the vendor's own playground. Read: The General Purpose Computer in Your Pocket. Those mega-corporations ensure everything we do is steered toward making their advertisers and shareholders richer: attention grabbing, commercial subscriptions, ads and so on. Not towards what's best and nicest for us as people.
We've been subjected so completely to their way that it's hard to imagine any other way. Hard to see that the nuggets of convenience we'd have to give up would be as nothing compared to the adventures we'd gain by switching. We can't see the wood for the trees.
Yet, the alternatives are here. We don't have to accept it's a choice between a rock and a hard place.
What we can do instead is choose tech that unlocks the power of these personal computers we carry around, and lets us use them for purposes that make no profits but enhance our own social lives. Gentle technology. Small Tech as opposed to Big Tech.
Once we make the leap and begin exploring the previously untapped possibilities, we begin to appreciate what it feels like to be released from Big Tech's constraints. It's not a stretch to say those companies had pressed us into their servitude, and now we can be free. That's what I'm feeling, and I want us all to have that opportunity.
Which Freedom-respecting Phone?
The one that stands out as best suited for ordinary people is built upon a deGoogled version of Android:
- Murena /e/OS smartphones
- deGoogled, Android-compatible phone
- with deGoogled “cloud” suite: email, docs, storage, etc. (free or €2~20 /month)
- choice of phone models (€300~600) including Fairphone
Being freedom-software (open source), the maker guarantees your freedom to use the tools they provide or change to others. What does that mean in practice? For example, if you don't like the terms and conditions of the Murena cloud software suite, you can use a different one provided by someone else, be it an independent commercial provider, or run by your school or club, or at your best techie friend's home. And then you don't even need a Murena account.
How is this degree of freedom possible? First, with the slogan “my data is my data”, Murena is committed to these principles. It was founded by Gaël Duval, the creator of Mandrake Linux. Second, in contrast to Google's Android which merely contains some open-source software components, this technology stack is designed around open source principles. Their cloud service is not only based on Nextcloud, but is designed to be compatible and interoperable with similar services run by lots of other providers and individuals. Together, and in stark contrast to the Big G and the Big A, these mean there is neither a practical lock-in nor a legal lock-in.
How to get one?
- The no-fuss solution: buy one
- The techie friend option: ask the friend to set it for you on a second-hand phone.
“But I'm Not Average”: Other Freedom Phones
If you are not the average person, or if you want to learn more about the alternatives, read on.I recommend Murena for the average person because their offering is so inclusive: the phone hardware, the cloud services, the freedom to take or leave parts of the system and adapt it to your needs, compatibility with most smart phone apps, and working in a way that is broadly familiar to a lot of people already. I hope we will soon see other providers like them offering a no-fuss all-included solution too.
These alternatives will appeal more to techies and to people with particular preferences or needs, and the ability to spend a bit more effort instead of buying an all-in package. With most of these, you or a techie friend will need to do one or more of: install the operating system software on a suitable phone, setting up any “cloud” services you want, or using apps that are currently less mainstream.
That said, these are quality and important alternatives.
Purism in particular is an outstanding company dedicated to making freedom and privacy centred devices. If their Librem phone isn't for you, check out their laptop, server, security key.
- Purism's Librem 5
- Linux-based phone OS
- convergence with Linux desktop: run desktop apps on the phone, or plug into a monitor and use as a desktop computer
- company dedicated to software and hardware freedom and privacy at all levels, and working with wider FOSS community
Shiftphones in Germany sells modular repairable phones (and laptops, headphones, etc.). While their current SHIFT6mq comes with a Google Android pre-installed, the interesting thing is they offer an easy and built-in way to install an “upgrade” to a degoogled android version. Much easier than degoogling any other phone.
- Shiftphone SHIFT6mq detailed Review including thorough instructions on degoogling it, and suggestions for additional settings and apps.
Iodé is a small company in France selling phones pre-installed with deGoogled Android, with extra privacy features.
- Iodé's new or refurbished phones
- deGoogled, Android-compatible phone
- choice of phone models (€210~730) including Fairphone
For techies, there are more deGoogled Android distributions that you can download and install yourself on a suitable phone:
The phone operating systems from the vendors mentioned, all being based on freedom software, can be self-installed too:
(Where are the iOS-based freedom phones? That's not going to happen: Apple locks its users into its own walled garden completely. See The Neighborhood and The Nursing Home.)
What Does Julian Use?
Personally, for myself and family I am currently using LineageOS-for-MicroG. I chose that option because I am a techie, experimenting with the various options on a budget, so I tended towards those I can install myself on a wide range of old and new phones. And because it is quite close to mainstream Android so a majority of mainstream apps run on it. And because my less techie family members needed the reassurance of being able to continue using their familiar Google apps to begin with, and only gradually migrating to freedom-software, one app at a time when they are ready, from Chrome to Firefox for example.I have experimented with others. I really admire what Murena is doing, and have self-installed /e/OS on an older phone. I am considering switching over to it on my main phone. I would want to set up my own compatible cloud service rather than using Murena's, because I will not compromise on using my own domain name as the key to my own data services. I believe Murena and other companies offering “your own data” services should for this reason always offer “bring your own domain”. For now, the situation is that Murena's service is open source with the source code repository ecloud-selfhosting in “beta” status. (It is to be congratulated also that they host their software forge on their own domain rather than using the anti-freedom github.)
This article is part of my Open Source Gadgets series.
#fossGadgets #android #degoogled #lineageOS #eOS
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Beautiful, Secure, Privacy-Respecting Devices - Purism
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy, freedom, and securityPurism SPC
Best Open Source Smartwatch 2021 - Learn How to Hack your Smartwatch
Here are some of the best open source smartwatch in the market. Pick from different smartwatch with open source hardware and software, see the listJo Di Calivo (SmartWatch Specifications)
A Freedom-Respecting Smart Home
Automating our lights, security cameras, all the Things? We'll be needing some IoT Gadgets and a home automation system.
“Which brand? Amazon Alexa or Google or Apple HomeKit?”
NO! Big Tech makes technology that best serves Big Tech. We don't have to accept it, once we learn there's an alternative.
Time I Learned: our smart home can respect our freedom.
What's wrong with mainstream IoT?
Their system works beautifully. We can see it in their adverts. What are we missing? Let's see. These cool and pretty looking mainstream IoT devices are overwhelmingly sold with “cloud” connectivity. “Control it with our App!” It sounds good. It's certainly convenient at first.
Now, what does “cloud connected” imply? It implies our command to turn our light on goes out from our phone, over the Internet, to “the cloud” which just means somebody else's computer, where it's processed through our account on their system, and from there the command comes back to our light which then turns on. Ta-da! And our security camera feed shows up in our monitoring page on their computer system. Just like they showed in their adverts.
Except when it doesn't. Except when the internet is slow, we wait, and then after a while our light turns on. Except when they mess up and show our private camera feed to some other customer and theirs to us. (Yes, that happened.) Except when their communications and their computers are poorly secured and get hacked. (Yes, lots of times.) Except when their company goes bust overnight and all our devices stop working. (Yes, that happens too.)
When we use the vendor's app and “cloud connected” control, it means we are renting the use of our device as a service from the vendor. The vendor permits us to use the hardware we bought, but only through the intermediation of their servers. We can use it in ways they allow, for a time they determine, until they discontinue that service or go bust or require us to upgrade or pay extra or watch adverts or agree to new terms. Whatever they want. We “bought” it but we don't own it. Or we could say we own the bare hardware but we don't own the functioning product.
What's the Solution?
The alternative is that we can use IoT devices that are locally controlled, that depend only on our own local network, and therefore can respond fast no matter what our Internet connection is doing, and remain solely under our own control no matter what happens to the Vendor.
My recommendation for a home automation control centre:
Home Assistant <home-assistant.io>
Home Assistant lets you control and monitor everything — doorbells, lights, cameras, action! — and wrenches back your local control over Big Tech branded devices from Amazon, Google, Apple and the rest.
“Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first”
Depending on your level of technical expertise there are different ways to obtain Home Assistant. For ordinary people looking for the simplest and most reliable way, I would recommend buying a tiny stand-alone hardware device with the software pre-installed. Currently the best option would be the “Home Assistant Yellow” pictured above. If you buy the complete version, it contains a Raspberry Pi and also a Zigbee communication interface which talks wirelessly to certain home automation devices. (At the time of writing, Home Assistant Yellow is available to pre-order.)
On the other hand, with it being freedom software, you or your techie friend could set up Home Assistant on pretty much any computer such as a laptop or a Raspberry Pi. That would be a good option for experimenting with it.
For lots of information about using Home Assistant, listen to The Self-Hosted Show podcast.
For recommendations on security cameras, also consult The Self-Hosted Show.
For your smart switches, plugs, lights, temperature sensors etc.: mylocalbytes.com (UK) or cloudfree.shop (USA).
What About Other Options?
My recommendation for Home Assistant is what seems to me the best solution for most ordinary people, friends and family. Techies and the curious should take a look at these two other freedom-respecting home automation hubs.
For those building software, Mozilla WebThings is an important project providing “an open platform for monitoring and controlling devices over the web”.
What Will Julian Do?
At the time of writing I am just beginning my home automation. My first IoT device is:
- a “smart” plug/socket (switching, power monitoring)
Plug a light into the smart plug. Click! It's on. Click! It's off... on, off, on, off. That's fun. OK, that's enough of that.
Plug my fridge into the smart plug: it tells me the power consumption when the fridge motor is running, when it isn't, and the total energy and average power over a day. That's interesting. Click! It switches off... oops, didn't mean to do that. Keep it on.
There are lots of ways to run Home Assistant. The easiest way for me to start was an almost one-click install of Home Assistant on YUNoHost. If I outgrow that, I can run it in its own virtual machine (VM) on my ProxMox VM server. Longer term, I have been hearing that people get used to their home automation and expect it to be always available, a permanent fixture of the house. To improve reliability, by taking my general-purpose servers out of the equation, I would seriously consider moving it to a Home Assistant Yellow self-contained physical device.
On my phone I installed the official Home Assistant companion app from f-droid. As well as providing access to the HA dashboards and configuration, this app also adds a Home Assistant integration that monitor's the phone's power stats (battery level, etc.) and optionally lots more kinds of statistics.
Now I have got it up and running and kicked the tyres with my first integration, I might try:
- “smart meters” for my electricity and gas supply (energy data)
- garage door sensor (turn on light, alert when I left it open)
- voice assistant / smart speaker: Hopes and promises for open-source voice assistants in LWN summarises the landscape of FOSS smart speakers, the most promising being Rhasspy which is being brought in to Home Assistant, and OpenVoiceOS (OVOS) which is taking over from where Mycroft was going
- solar panels or a heat pump (may provide energy data)
Related
- A talk, Practical Computerized Home Automation by Bruce Momjian at FOSDEM'23. “Home automation is an elusive technology — often desired, rarely achieved. This talk explores a successful ten-year home automation deployment, outlining the challenges that derail many attempts. It will cover technology choices, programing basics, and a dozen successful applications.”
- A talk, Challenges in Home Energy Management by Markus Storm at FOSDEM'23. “How to best use your own PV-generated power ... deploying openHAB ... covering the most power intensive use cases of a household: EV charging, heat pump and white goods operations.”
This article is part of my Open Source Gadgets series.
#fossGadgets #cloudFree #smartHome #degoogled #awesomeFOSS #openHardware
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What to Give: Tech Gadgets that Respect Our Freedom
“All I Want for Christmas is...” a device that works as a tool for me not as a tool that continues to work for its maker
We love a new tech gadget. What will it be? It's all about “smart” these days.
- A smart watch (full article)
- A smart phone (full article)
- A smart home (full article)
- full of IoT things: doorbell, lights, sockets, security cameras
What do You Mean, “Freedom-Respecting”?
Today there's a huge gulf between the Big Business approach and the freedom-respecting approach.What do I mean by “freedom respecting” and why would I care this much? After all, we might ask,
“Dear Julian, we know you love Open Source, and we know those Big Tech prorietary vendors are out to get us with their vendor lock-in, their advertising, and their data collection. Yes it's annoying but it's how things are in today's world. We put up with it because we just want something that's easy, that does what we want. They make that stuff, and it works. Why are you still getting so upset about it?”
For insight, read or listen to The Future of Computing and Why You Should Care and The Neighborhood and The Nursing Home.For some of my personal recommendations, read on. There is a longer article linked to each one.
Smart Watch
There's an open source smart watch → the PineTime (main | shop | wiki) from Pine64
- Both its hardware and software are open source
- A review | DDG search for “pinetime review”
- Being created in order to inspire open development, Pine64 sell it directly for a very low price
- There is working software so you can just use it. For developers, there is a development kit
→ Read the full article: PineTime Smart Watch — Awesome Open Source
Smart Phone
“What's it to be: Android or iPhone?”
Actually, NO! Apple and Google both press us into their servitude with their extreme vendor lock-in, advertising and data mining. We don't have to accept it, once we learn there's an alternative.
What to buy:
- Murena /e/OS smartphones
- deGoogled, Android-compatible phone
- with deGoogled “cloud” suite: email, docs, storage, etc. (optional, free or €2~20 /month)
- choice of phone models (€300~600) including Fairphone
Being freedom-software (open source), the maker guarantees your freedom to use the tools they provide or change to others. What does that mean in practice? For example, if you don't like the terms and conditions of the Murena cloud software suite, you can use a different one provided by someone else, be it an independent commercial provider, or run by your school or club, or at your best techie friend's home. And then you don't even need a Murena account.
→ Read the full article: All I Want for Christmas is... a Smart Phone?
Smart Home Automation
Automating our lights, security cameras, all the Things? We'll be needing some IoT Gadgets and a home automation system.
Recommendation for home automation control centre:
- Home Assistant controls and monitors everything
“Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first”
There are different ways to run Home Assistant. You can buy it as a tiny device pictured above, code-named “Home Assistant Yellow”. Alternatively, because Home Assistant is freedom software, it's open source so your best techie friend can set it up for you on more or less any old computer you have, if you prefer.For lots of information about using Home Assistant, listen to The Self-Hosted Show podcast.
For recommendations on security cameras, also consult The Self-Hosted Show.
For your smart switches, plugs, lights, temperature sensors etc.: mylocalbytes.com (UK) or cloudfree.shop (USA).
→ Read the full article: A Freedom-Respecting Smart Home
#fossGadgets #openHardware #awesomeFOSS
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The Future of Computing and Why You Should Care – Purism
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy and freedom while protecting their security.Purism SPC
openHAB
openHAB - a vendor and technology agnostic open source automation software for your homeopenhab.org
Organic Maps (Android) -- Awesome Open Source
Organic Maps is a great open source app for casual every-day navigation. It has an easy-to-read map display, navigation directions with voice, search for places, save favourite places and add new places, and not a lot else. The usability is decent and it looks good.
It's become my default mapping app, and it makes me ever so happy to have such a good open-source solution.
How good is it?
The mapping is based on OpenStreetMap, and the quality is pretty decent in my area. It's just 2d mapping with a few variations. It zooms and pans smoothly on my OnePlus 6 phone.
The navigation supports driving, walking, cycling, and in some places public transport. The suggested routes are reasonable but not always the best choice, for various reasons, and are best treated as a suggestion or reminder rather than trustworthy advice. It re-calculates if you go a different way.
There is no information on delays and traffic jams, presumably because there is not yet a good, comprehensive, free-as-in-freedom service for providing such information. Personally I find this doesn't bother me too much. On some routes and at some times I know there is a chance of delays and when there are, there is often not much better I can do than stick it out anyway. Of course that's not always the case.
The search for addresses and place names is fast and reasonably detailed, including names of some buildings and businesses, while understandably not as slick and comprehensive as Google's search. For example a result I think should be at the top of the list because it's near by and has the exact words I searched for, sometimes shows up a long way down the list.
Organic Maps can work off-line, when you have no data signal. When you first look at an area it downloads the mapping. After that, within the downloaded areas, you can use Organic Maps completely off-line, including the navigation features. When you look at a new area that you haven't downloaded yet (or have deleted), you initially see just the largest roads and towns, and if you zoom in it asks whether you want to download the detailed mapping for that area. (You have to be online to download it, of course.)
Where does it fit in the FOSS map apps space?
Organic Maps was released as an open source Android app in 2021 by the founders of MapsWithMe (maps.me).
Before that, the only other open source alternative I found worthy of mentioning was OsmAnd, which is powerful with lots of features and add-ons, but significantly less friendly and more complicated to use.
Give Organic Maps a try!
#awesomeFOSS #degoogled #android
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Organic Maps: Offline Hike, Bike, Trails and Navigation
Fast detailed offline maps for travelers, tourists, drivers, hikers and cyclists created by MapsWithMe (Maps.Me) app founders.organicmaps.app
All I Want for Christmas is... a Smart Phone?
“What's it to be: Android or iPhone?”
Actually, NO! There is another way.
Time I Learned: there are freedom-respecting phones.
I'll tell you which one you need.
(For the literal minded: It's just a title. I don't really think Christmas is about buying gadgets. This article is about freedom in technology.)
What's the problem?
What's so bad about choosing either Google or Apple?
Many of us today are increasingly concerned about the vendor lock-in, advertising and data mining perpetrated by Apple and Google. They are so pervasive that it's hard at first to see all the avenues of social human interaction and creativity in which we could be harnessing the power of our computers and our electronic connection to others, all these avenues from which Big Tech have cut us off, as they steer us through their own product pathways according to their own commercial objectives.
In short, we are carrying around general purpose computers but we are artificially locked in to using their power only within the vendor's own playground. Read: The General Purpose Computer in Your Pocket. Those mega-corporations ensure everything we do is steered toward making their advertisers and shareholders richer: attention grabbing, commercial subscriptions, ads and so on. Not towards what's best and nicest for us as people.
We've been subjected so completely to their way that it's hard to imagine any other way. Hard to see that the nuggets of convenience we'd have to give up would be as nothing compared to the adventures we'd gain by switching. We can't see the wood for the trees.
Yet, the alternatives are here. We don't have to accept it's a choice between a rock and a hard place.
What we can do instead is choose tech that unlocks the power of these personal computers we carry around, and lets us use them for purposes that make no profits but enhance our own social lives. Gentle technology. Small Tech as opposed to Big Tech.
Once we make the leap and begin exploring the previously untapped possibilities, we begin to appreciate what it feels like to be released from Big Tech's constraints. It's not a stretch to say those companies had pressed us into their servitude, and now we can be free. That's what I'm feeling, and I want us all to have that opportunity.
Which Freedom-respecting Phone?
The one that stands out as best suited for ordinary people is built upon a deGoogled version of Android:
- Murena /e/OS smartphones
- deGoogled, Android-compatible phone
- with deGoogled “cloud” suite: email, docs, storage, etc. (free or €2~20 /month)
- choice of phone models (€300~600) including Fairphone
Being freedom-software (open source), the maker guarantees your freedom to use the tools they provide or change to others. What does that mean in practice? For example, if you don't like the terms and conditions of the Murena cloud software suite, you can use a different one provided by someone else, be it an independent commercial provider, or run by your school or club, or at your best techie friend's home. And then you don't even need a Murena account.
How is this degree of freedom possible? First, with the slogan “my data is my data”, Murena is committed to these principles. It was founded by Gaël Duval, the creator of Mandrake Linux. Second, in contrast to Google's Android which merely contains some open-source software components, this technology stack is designed around open source principles. Their cloud service is not only based on Nextcloud, but is designed to be compatible and interoperable with similar services run by lots of other providers and individuals. Together, and in stark contrast to the Big G and the Big A, these mean there is neither a practical lock-in nor a legal lock-in.
How to get one?
- The no-fuss solution: buy one
- The techie friend option: ask the friend to set it for you on a second-hand phone.
“But I'm Not Average”: Other Freedom Phones
If you are not the average person, or if you want to learn more about the alternatives, read on.
I recommend Murena for the average person because their offering is so inclusive: the phone hardware, the cloud services, the freedom to take or leave parts of the system and adapt it to your needs, compatibility with most smart phone apps, and working in a way that is broadly familiar to a lot of people already. I hope we will soon see other providers like them offering a no-fuss all-included solution too.
These alternatives will appeal more to techies and to people with particular preferences or needs, and the ability to spend a bit more effort instead of buying an all-in package. With most of these, you or a techie friend will need to do one or more of: install the operating system software on a suitable phone, setting up any “cloud” services you want, or using apps that are currently less mainstream.
That said, these are quality and important alternatives.
Purism in particular is an outstanding company dedicated to making freedom and privacy centred devices. If their Librem phone isn't for you, check out their laptop, server, security key.
- Purism's Librem 5
- Linux-based phone OS
- convergence with Linux desktop: run desktop apps on the phone, or plug into a monitor and use as a desktop computer
- company dedicated to software and hardware freedom and privacy at all levels, and working with wider FOSS community
Shiftphones in Germany sells modular repairable phones (and laptops, headphones, etc.). While their current SHIFT6mq comes with a Google Android pre-installed, the interesting thing is they offer an easy and built-in way to install an “upgrade” to a degoogled android version. Much easier than degoogling any other phone.
- Shiftphone SHIFT6mq detailed Review including thorough instructions on degoogling it, and suggestions for additional settings and apps.
Iodé is a small company in France selling phones pre-installed with deGoogled Android, with extra privacy features.
- Iodé's new or refurbished phones
- deGoogled, Android-compatible phone
- choice of phone models (€210~730) including Fairphone
For techies, there are more deGoogled Android distributions that you can download and install yourself on a suitable phone:
The phone operating systems from the vendors mentioned, all being based on freedom software, can be self-installed too:
(Where are the iOS-based freedom phones? That's not going to happen: Apple locks its users into its own walled garden completely. See The Neighborhood and The Nursing Home.)
What Does Julian Use?
Personally, for myself and family I am currently using LineageOS-for-MicroG. I chose that option because I am a techie, experimenting with the various options on a budget, so I tended towards those I can install myself on a wide range of old and new phones. And because it is quite close to mainstream Android so a majority of mainstream apps run on it. And because my less techie family members needed the reassurance of being able to continue using their familiar Google apps to begin with, and only gradually migrating to freedom-software, one app at a time when they are ready, from Chrome to Firefox for example.
I have experimented with others. I really admire what Murena is doing, and have self-installed /e/OS on an older phone. I am considering switching over to it on my main phone. I would want to set up my own compatible cloud service rather than using Murena's, because I will not compromise on using my own domain name as the key to my own data services. I believe Murena and other companies offering “your own data” services should for this reason always offer “bring your own domain”. For now, the situation is that Murena's service is open source with the source code repository ecloud-selfhosting in “beta” status. (It is to be congratulated also that they host their software forge on their own domain rather than using the anti-freedom github.)
This article is part of my Open Source Gadgets series.
#fossGadgets #android #degoogled #lineageOS #eOS
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How do people identify you online?
- some-name on WhatsApp.com / Facebook.com / Twitter.com / etc.?
- some-name@gmail.com / @hotmail.com / @outlook.com / @icloud.com / etc.?
Whether we call these our id’s, addresses, accounts or handles, most of our identifiers look like these. The bad news is these identifiers are not ours. They don’t belong to us. We are just borrowing some-name from some.company .
If they so choose, some.company can block our account, or start charging for it, or give it to someone else, or change how “our” account works, or start posting adverts on it. They can mine “our” identifier for marketable metadata about ourself and our contacts, or censor what we can and can’t use it for, or sell the management of it to another company, or delete the data we stored there, or do anything else they choose. It’s neither legally nor practically ours. It’s one of their business assets, and they owe us no loyalty whatsoever. If the service is “free” then we and our attention are the product being sold to their real customers such as advertisers.
[1]Most of us are trusting people expecting to live in a stable world. We trust it will just continue to work, for free, for as long as we want it. Especially if we’re the president of the United States of America [2]. Oh, how the world proves us wrong.
Owning One’s Identity
There is a better way.By owning our identity, we can set our own rules when a silo’s ToS do not suit us. For one example among many, some of us might want to talk to our children. If I am using WhatsApp, signing up my children is forbidden. I am not allowed to use the same silo to talk to my children that I use with my adult family and friends. But when we run our own matrix server for our family, then we can give our children their own accounts, under our supervision, and exchange messages and photos and make calls with them.
There are two sides to owning our online identity (or identities). We need to have both legal ownership — to be allowed to use it — and practical ownership — to be able to use it.
- Legally owning our identity means we must use identifiers such as myname@myname.org where the domain name part (myname.org) is registered to us personally, rather than borrow a name that is issued by some.company and therefore remains under their control.
- Practically owning our identity means we must have the ability to communicate without requiring both ourselves and our contacts to be
customersproducts of some.company. Our communications technologies need to be “open” in the sense of freedom-respecting and universal, like email is, in contrast to the “silos” or “walled gardens” like WhatsApp, Twitter and all the rest whose users can’t talk to anybody outside them.Legally owning our identifier means retaining the rights to that identifier, even when we change providers of any services. In practice today we are talking about identifiers based on DNS domain names. Years ago, domain names like example.com were the preserve of companies, universities and governments, but nowadays anyone can register one for around £10 to £30 a year. A domain name remains ours for as long as we pay the domain registration fee. The domain name registrars are strictly regulated, giving us about the highest level of guarantee we could achieve in today’s world. (In principle of course they could be overruled or changed by governments, as could anything.)
Practically owning our email is quite straight forward, because email is based on standards that are non-proprietary and universal. (Companies like Google have tried to put their own hooks and claws into the process but they have not gone quite so far as to make gmail incompatible with standard email, thank goodness.) Because of this, we can independently register our own domain, choose our own email address at our domain, and rent an email service from an independent email service provider (such as Fastmail) and attach it to our email address(es). We can even copy our email history onto it, set up forwarding from the old email account to the new one, and so on. And the important part about “ownership” is if this rented service should ever become unavailable or unsuitable, we don’t lose our email address, and we can rent an equivalent service from some other company, transfer the address, and so keep on using our own same email address without our contacts even noticing the transition.
Practically owning our social media and instant messaging had been not impossible but mostly impractical until, at last, around 2020 there has been massive development and uptake of freedom-respecting and universal options, and their names are now becoming well known. The ones I want to call out are:
- Matrix (universal instant messaging)
- the Fediverse (ensemble of federated social media including Mastodon, Plemora and many others)
Footnotes:
[1] Even if we were to pay rental for one of these silo services, that would not change much: they tend to offer no real service level obligation, and can still stop it or change it or do pretty much as they wished in all other regards.
[2] I wrote this article at the start of 2021, after President Trump’s Twitter account had been “permanently suspended” (cnn.com, nypost.com).
[3]John Battelle wrote about the same problem in 2012: Who Controls Our Data? A Puzzle.
https://blog.foad.me.uk/2021/01/08/is-your-online-identity-yours/
Trump permanently suspended from Twitter after Capitol siege
Twitter on Friday took the unprecedented step of banning President Trump’s world-famous account from the platform “permanently” — less than two weeks before he leaves office. “After close review of…Ebony Bowden (New York Post)
Beautiful, Secure, Privacy-Respecting Devices - Purism
Purism makes premium phones, laptops, mini PCs and servers running free software on PureOS. Purism products respect people's privacy, freedom, and securityPurism SPC
FOSS Apps Live in FOSS App Stores!
Don't lock a FOSS Android app in Google's proprietary store!
Many of us are looking to FOSS solutions in order to keep our digital lives under our own control. We don't accept that any Big Tech company should hold the keys to a vast swathe of our digital life. So on our smart phones we may choose to use a FOSS version of Android. That means one that uses the open source parts of Android but avoids the proprietary Google lock-in parts. These so-called “deGoogled” Android-compatible operating systems include LineageOS, Murena /e/-OS, CalyxOS, GrapheneOS and more. Users of non-Google phones can find various “back door” ways to obtain apps from Google's play-by-our-rules-store, but that's completely the wrong way. FOSS apps should be available through FOSS app stores such as F-Droid.
F-Droid is not only an app store, it's also a protocol or “app store kit” that allows anyone to publish their own F-Droid-compatible app store. (I set up one up just to publish one camera app for myself and friends.) Each app publisher can choose whether to publish their app in the F-Droid store following its rules and conditions, or publish on their own store where they can set their own rules and conditions. Each user can decide which F-Droid-compatible stores they want to use, according to their own assessment of the publisher's reputation.
Read more about F-Droid:
These fine FOSS people do it right
- FUTO Circles a.k.a. Circuli, matrix-based private social media — published in their own f-droid repo [1]
These fine FOSS people need a nudge
- Pocket Casts — issue filed: “Add to F-Droid” (I've up-voted it)
TODO: add lots more examples
These Fine People Understand
Read More
- FOSDEM '23 talk
Sat 15:00Reckoning with new app store changes: Is now our chance? — Recent legal and policy developments around app stores and what they mean for free software - FOSDEM '23 talk
Sat 16:00EU alternative to app stores — Guardian Project tooted: “At #FOSDEM,@marcel_kolajawill present the #EU pilot project to look into open-sourcing the EU's apps and publishing them outside of #BigTech including on @fdroidorg. @eighthave will join, talking about how F-Droid will help pull the EU towards #FreeSoftware. Join us!”
[1] An f-droid repo link is not a web page. To use it, you open your f-droid app's “repositories” settings and add the link there.
Related: – FOSS Apps Live in FOSS Forges– Your FOSS Project Deserves its Own Domain
More: #degoogled #awesomeFOSS #selfHosted #GiveUpGithub #DitchDiscord
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@julian:foad.me.uk
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Feedback:
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Donations gratefully accepted
I made my first Android app. Well, I didn’t write it from scratch, I took an open source camera app and just renamed and modified it a bit, and rebuilt it.I called it Trax Cam.
It is a fork of Open Camera. The initial, test version of Trax Cam makes just two small improvements over Open Camera:
(old)
Trax Cam
(old)
Trax Cam
- improving the visual difference of the shutter buttons between video and photo mode, recording and not recording, by contrasting colour and style;
- not forgetting the zoom level when temporarily switching to another app and back, switching between photo and video modes, and the like.
Impressive? Is this everything you have ever wanted from a camera app? No, I didn’t think so. That’s not the point of it. Dear reader, it’s not for you. Not yet, anyway. Sorry!
Trax Cam is not yet intended as a product for ordinary users. Rather, the purpose of this project, at least initially, is as a learning exercise for me. The status of it, at the time of writing, is it is stable, being based on a stable version of Open Camera, and I am running it as my main camera app on two different phones, but I am not committing to making further fixes or updates. I might or might not continue developing or updating it. Switching to other projects will give me a broader and probably more useful learning experience.
Default Camera for /E/-OS
/e/-foundation‘s /e/-OS comes with OpenCamera as its default camera app. I had previously installed OpenCamera on my main LineageOS-powered phone, alongside the default LineageOS camera code-named ‘snap’.I would sometimes switch between OpenCamera and ‘snap’. I like different things about them, mainly the range of options in OpenCamera and the simplicity of ‘snap’, with neither of them managing to bring the best possible combination, and both still having annoyances and room for improvement.
It was while evaluating /e/ that I noticed again several of the shortcomings of OpenCamera, and decided it could be time for me to do something about it. I had some ideas noted in my head, and have now written them down in a bug tracker.
Trax Cam Issues: https://lab.trax.im/trax.im/traxcam/-/issues . Issue #1 is Remember my zoom level , #2 is Boldly indicate photo/video/recording states (both still “open” as I am not satisfied that I have yet completed them as well as could be done), and I have opened several more.
At the same time, I discovered /e/-foundation is recruiting among other positions a Camera developer: “[You want] to make open source camera apps as good as high-end camera apps?” (If you are an “experienced (5+ years) Android developer”, check it out.) It’s good to see that /e/-foundation recognizes the need and seems to have some resources to tackle it.
In my opinion, one thing /e/ could do to encourage volunteer developers to develop OpenCamera (or another) in a useful direction for /e/ and other libre Android uses, would be to publish a road map or a prioritization of issues for what they consider needs to be done. I feel that projects providing a summary of what they want done is often missing and often a surprisingly effective driver in open source development. Developers tend to be quicker and more efficient at implementing something that is at least loosely specified (along with rationale to explain why) than creating something that they need to invent from scratch.
Comparing with Other Cameras
Besides OpenCamera and Lineage ‘snap’ I also briefly tried FreeDCam and OxygenOS camera (proprietary). Those each have some very slick UI designs which bear studying and would be nice to bring in. In particular, if I recall correctly they both use swipe to review the last and earlier taken pictures, which seems to me more intuitive and easier to use.I noticed the OxygenOS camera used slick-looking rotary dials for analogue settings such as exposure compensation. I really liked this at first sight. In use, I found their behaviour a bit fussy and skiddy, easy to leave it on a random in-between value, hard to return quickly to the previously used value. It would be great if we could create something along those lines of analogue beauty, but with more positive and robust behaviour to set and leave a desired value. For example, I think it is common and so needs to be easy to switch between “auto” and the last used non-auto value. (Not just for camera controls, indeed, but for all kinds of settings in all apps.)
Available on My F-Droid App Store
You can try out Trax Cam if you like, even though it is not (currently) aimed at general use. https://fdroid.foad.me.uk/fdroid/repo/im.trax.cam_80.apk is a direct link to the installer file for my initial test version. It’s not published on Google Play store. You will need your “install from unknown sources” option enabled in Android settings.I also put up my own F-Droid app store, and put Trax Cam up on it, so we can install it on phones through the f-droid app. This too is not currently intended for general end users. However, you are welcome to try it. First install the f-droid app (https://f-droid.org/), then add my repository’s URL (https://fdroid.foad.me.uk) under settings, repositories, add.
If you are unfamiliar with F-Droid, it comprises:
- an Open/Libre app store system by which anyone can set up and serve their own app repository, and anyone can browse and install apps from such repositories; and
- the F-Droid app, for browsing and installing apps from any such repositories; and
- a repository of Free/Libre apps for Android, which is the default repository that the F-Droid app connects to until you tell it about other ones.
Putting up my own app store is part of my ambition to support independent creation of free/libre software and self-owned services.
https://blog.foad.me.uk/2021/05/11/introducing-trax-cam/
Issues · Trax / traxcam
Android camera based on Open Camera · Development repository · Introduction blog postGitLab
GrapheneOS: the private and secure mobile OS
GrapheneOS is a security and privacy focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility.GrapheneOS
Wie Berliner Aktivisten Smartphones "entgoogeln".
https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2023/05/aktivisten-entgooglen-smartphones-datenschutz-berlin.html
#datenschutz #Privatsphäre #berlin #degoogled #smartphone
Wie Berliner Aktivisten Smartphones "entgoogeln"
Konzerne wie Google, Meta oder Apple tracken unser Leben mit – jeden Tag und fast überall. Dagegen wehren sich Aktivisten, indem sie Handys auf Wunsch mit neuen Betriebssystemen ausstatten. Von Robert Ackermannwww.rbb24.de
/e/OS named best 2022 smartphone OS by @DistroWatch@twitter.com
https://distrowatch.com/weekly-mobile.php?issue=20221219#top2022
#mydataisMYdata #degoogled #smartphones @opensource@twitter.com
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
News and feature lists of Linux and BSD distributions.distrowatch.com