Google Free Android

It has been 2 months since I left google behind on my android, but there are a few things that bother me a lot. Why doesn’t android support davcal by default for contacts and calendar sync (it forces users to use google calenar sync instead, unless you use a 3rd party app like I did) and why google continues to push its bloatware inside android deviecs and their restrictions? From push notifications to other core things, if you don’t use google, your android doesn’t function properly and has a lot of restrictions.

My question here is, why isn’t Android OSP service agnostic and protected to the point where companies like google and ms can contribute to his code, but cannot restrict what it does, in other words, preventing rebranding and turning it closed source like chromium to chrome.

I know android is linux based, and the beauty of linux is doing whatever you want with it, but since android 2.3 that google has been asphyxiating the android platform. 3rd party app stores go through hell to get inside android devices, the app instalation is manual because the app store has no root (so it’s more clumsy than google play store or brand store like samsung or alcatel app store). If that wasn’t bad enough, getting another rom on android is sometimes a pita and has always the risk of turning your phone into a paperweight.

Just like windows xp, vista and 7 were forced to display a panel to show users that are more browsers than Internet explorer, the same should be done withe the app store and apps on android. This is becoming a nuisance and a not at all needed monopoly.

Some phone builders do some changes (mostly regarding the UI and UX, themes and icons), others go far beyond that and deploy their own store and bloatware. I’m from Portugal, my mobile carrier is Vodafone and my second most beloved phone was an old huawei ascend g300 with 2.3. **** was it fast back then, upgraded to 4.0 ICS, and it was like going from xp to vista. Mostly vodafone’s fault, since the update brought 5 carrier apps of no use (taking space from the phone, and hogging ram).

I know this sounds like a rant, but I do miss the old Symbian nokia times, or motorola times, or any other brand where all games and aps were java based and you would get virus just for trying to download an mp3 song or a 3gp porn movie, ah memories.

You don’t appear to mention http://www.cyanogenmod.org/. Have you tried it?

I think you can look into :

or the Mozilla mobile OS.

Yup, first rom I tried ever, on my first android phone (alcatel something something, with froyo 2.2). I used cgm to get 2.3 since 2.2 didn’t had multi touch support (couldn’t move and jump on super mario at the same time, or any other game). I used it later on to get android 5.0 on my huawei g300 that had stock 4.0 vodafone running. The problem is that roms are unstable even when marked as stable, give some issues here and there and by the end of the day, you always go back to the stock rom. Also CGM doesn’t have a way to auto sync contacts and calendar if you don’t sign in to a cyanogenmod account or install gapps (google apps).

Tried Firefox Os on my old huawei, it was neat, but not decent hardware support. Also Firefox OS is dead, at least for Firefox Os phones… I’ve read about Tizen and Jolla, but not in depth. I do not plan to buy a new phone, so flashing a new os into my device is always an option, gonna see what I can bake. But still, Android needs protection before google milks it dry for profit…


Remember the Sunwell

Maybe but I don’t see anyone providing this protection. Its something that google created so why it would force itself to make lower profits from it ?
As far as I can see nobody else can protect it since its something that google owns basically :slight_smile:

I might be wrong, but google only took Android Open source project (aosp) and helped the development by including some google branded tools into it.

Not sure about the history but as far as I know it’s not completely open source. For example google is working on the latest Android and until it’s ready it’s not released into the open.

glistwan wrote on 29.12.2015 12:16:
> I think you can look into :
> https://jolla.com/
>
> or the Mozilla mobile OS.

Jolla is struggling, Firefox OS is officially dead.
IMHO Android without Google is for masochists :wink:

Uwe

I just finished replacing the supplier (Giztop) Android ROM in my Xiaomi Mi 4c smartphone with a developer ROM from Xiaomi MIUI site. Xiaomi make this very easy. It was an important update for me. It did away with the constant (Giztop) full screen adverts, and did away with the (Giztop ?) constant unwanted application installations (where hardly a day went by when I did not have to uninstall some unwanted automatic app installation).

Having typed those annoyances (that I did away with by updating the Android ROM on my phone) , I do have the impression, that the entire situation wrt various Android versions being available for Smartphones, is on a slow but improving flexibility curve. I think it much easier today to install 3rd party ROMs on one’s Android device, than it was a few years ago.