Fairphone 4 gets support for Google-less /e/OS
Fairphone and the /e/Foundation have announced /e/OS for the Fairphone 4. A beta for the ‘Google-less’ operating system can now be flashed on the Fairphone 4. There is also a Fairphone 4 available from now on which /e/OS is preinstalled on it. But what exactly is /e/OS?
No Google services
/e/OS is basically a modified version of LineageOS, an open source custom ROM that provides users with a ‘clean’ Android experience, without bloatware but with lots of features. /e/OS focuses more on privacy, however. It is an operating system that has been specially developed for users who want an Android experience on their smartphone, but do not want to use the Google services. You can read more about /e/OS in the article below.
Collecting data
If you use Android, Google collects all kinds of data about you as a user. And based on this, Google makes advertisements, among other things, and with this the company brings in a lot of money. Instead, you can, to a large extent, use the Google services for free. And let’s face it, these services simply bring a lot of convenience. All Google services work flawlessly together and, for example, sharing photos and documents with Google Photos and Google Drive is actually unsurpassed. But know that, despite the fact that you can turn off many trackers, Google collects a lot of personal data and data from users.
Gaël Duval, founder of /e/OS, said in an interview with Androidworld that this was frightening: “I realized there is a real problem with the way our smartphones handle privacy. About 80 percent of people use Android and the rest use iOS, but both Apple and Google collect a lot of our personal data. The more I learned about it, the more it really scared me.”
Alternative
That’s why he came up with /e/OS. This operating system wants to be a privacy-friendly version of Android. To achieve this, the operating system promises, among other things, not to track your location and not to scan (personal) data. The operating system also promises that it will limit data flows as much as possible and will ensure that as much data as possible remains on a device itself, and that it is not shared with servers from Google, among others.
Furthermore, /e/ OS, through ‘microG’, comes with open source alternatives for apps such as Google Maps and Gmail. MicroG is thus a replacement for the Google Mobile Services (GMS). Gaël Duval said: ”With /e/OS we use a system called ‘microG’, and that emulates the Google services in a privacy-friendly form. This way you have all the services you need, including: location, push notifications, and so on.” He calls microG a worthy alternative to GMS.
What do you think?
We are interested in your opinion. Does /e/OS appeal to you and are you willing to ban Google services for more privacy? Let us know in the comments below this article.
The Fairphone 4 with e/OS is also available on the eSolutionsop and the operating system can be flashed here for free. Be careful! According to the /e/Foundation, it is only suitable for people who really know how flashing works.
