My intention is to buy the cheapest smartphone I can reasonably get as I need to use a phone for professional reasons; the company uses Whatsapp and other applications I do not want to have occupying space in a smartphone I use for my personal life.

I’ve been loading my phones with FOSS applications from F-Droid for years now but I am aware the loop is tightening and continuing to do so is becoming more and more difficult.

Ideally, I would like to keep this phone as much as possible exempt from connecting with Google. This means I don’t intend to load an account on the phone and instead load F-Droid and Aurora to get the software I want to use.

  • qyron@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    To what I’ve read, Google will be locking access to users installing non App Store applications.

    My current personal phone is already as much customized as I can manage but needing to buy a new one, although for work reasons, I want to keep using the same software I already use.

    • Zak@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      Google plans to introduce restrictions on installing applications by developers who have not proven their identity to Google, which is neither

      • “Locking” in the sense that you can’t turn it off. The process they describe is obnoxious, an unreasonable imposition on your ability to use your device as you see fit, and likely to result in some open source developers abandoning the platform, but “locking” is too strong. The link answers what I think you’re asking, which is how to allow installing whatever apps you see fit.
      • A requirement to use Google’s store. Many FOSS apps for Android are from developers registered with Google. If it’s in the Play Store as well as F-Droid or the developer’s website, they’re already registered.