Hi all, I'm new here and I'm not a fan of Android. In fact, if Google was suddenly sucked into a time warp and returned to being a simple search engine company with broadly targeted advertising I'd be very happy. I honestly can't find a good word to say about Google/Alphabet these days - well, there's lots of good words, but most of them aren't considered appropriate for polite company.

I've been wanting to try an alternative to iOS for ages - so I managed to source a useable Nexus 5 on eBay and fired up LineageOS then MaruOS and then Sailfish (which fell over) and they all feel horrifically similar to Google's spyware. Not to mention being very poorly laid out.

So hello UBPorts and finally a UI that doesn't steal my screen real estate OR my privacy.

I'm a little surprised how small the app ecosystem is for now. I honestly thought it would be somewhat bigger after several years - and it just shows how pervasive the other systems are. Kodi would be handy for me because I have a DNLA server for my music so I'm a bit stumped there. I could get by with the SAMBA shares but I guess no one has sorted that one yet. I hate being a simple user - I wish I'd kept up to date and maybe I could have ported some stuff myself. Oh well

Obviously there are other things I would like - games are not an issue.

I'm going to recommend this to my friend who hates smartphones because I believe it satisfies all of his needs - except the proverbial battery life. Oh, I miss those days.

@UKPhil I'm not that put off by Apple because it doesn't "pretend" to be our friend in the way Google does. You know when you buy an iPhone (and you DO buy an iPhone as we all know) that you're paying for the privilege of the best mobile OS there is - Android is particularly weak because it's so fragmented and now we have a bunch of alternative "Androids" too.

It's not that I trust Apple per se, but I trust someone who is rude to me up front rather than someone who cuddles me while he's picking my (digital) pocket. Google defines evil more to me than even Microsoft ever did... and I've been out of the business almost as long as I was a part of it. Google pretends to even be a friend of open source (Summer of Code for example) but it does nothing that doesn't directly benefit Google in the long term; and that includes letting employees develop their own products.

It's hard to list all the things that Google takes advantage of - I know of some via the FSF and others just by watching my network traffic.

It's no surprise that Ubuntu Touch never really got a foothold as it doesn't have a killer app. It's not just the app ecosystem - because let's be honest - 90%+ of those are either utterly banal or just copies of each other. Hard to imagine what the killer app could be - and that, in and of itself has to be a problem. Google (what them again!) is well known for pilfering other people's ideas: Android itself was pinched from Blackberry at first and later from Apple.

So, I'll be promoting Ubports proudly and laughing at those who thought I was crazy all those years ago.

I don't have any data (so to speak) on this phone, so it can't be that directly.

In the last 16 hours, it's generated 11,717 requests!

That's LOT of DNS traffic regardless of anything else. That sounds awfully like a bug. I know theses are a couple of packets but if this was using my mobile data that could add up.

Damn, that's creepy!

But assuming that it's real (I don't have any way to check right now) that's certainly something to make people aware of. FUD is how salespeople sell us stuff we neither want nor need.

Even without GAPPs, there's a lot of problems endemic to Android as a platform. If we stick with FOSS, we're relatively (never 100%) safe.

The problem with anything that supports Android is the users. Before you can say "Edward Snowden" they're installing all sorts of stuff from dubious sources (cough, Amazon, cough) and we're back to square one. Where there's a quick buck to be made, someone is going to try and exploit it. I don't have a problem with advertising, however I DO have a problem with firms using my data, collating and collecting it to sell me stuff. That's not on. Ironically everything we post on forums is open to bloody Google too. I'm seriously thinking we need obfuscated forums for public use that don't need TOR, etc. to get into them.

I'm thankful that Ubuntu released this as a open projects and that UBports picked it up. It's a true delight to use. In fact, since I'm relatively competent at Javascript, I might even have a crack at some development. I'll have to do a Scope first though.

(10pts to Gryffindor if you get the reference but never mind if you don't.)

Perhaps it's time to get nasty on social media. I don't mean nasty as in ad hominems and other unpleasantnesses, I mean get busy...

What attracts people to Android? Cheap, choice of phones ... you name it, right?

How many do actually know what comes with Android. I know the Fairfone advert looked at that (in German?) but we can exploit this elsewhere. In fact, I believe my crew could probably do something if I get the whips out.

Video aside, there's a couple of things that Android (or ASOS with GAPPS) does that even Apple doesn't do and it's why Google spent so much time and money with vendor-lock in.

It spies on us. Now you probably know that (why else are you on the UBPorts?) but I'm willing to be that most people have little or no clue just how far down the rabbit hole that goes: and it's deep. Google forces (or strongly suggests) Android users to use everything from their email to their DNS.

Some of those apps are so deeply embedded into the system that disabling them will break something. Internet Explorer fiasco anyone?

But wait - DNS? Who cares? DNS is open... only it's not. Google's DNS servers are closed source and we don't know what it stores. We can be sure that it's not doing it out of the goodness of Google's heart though. Google stopped "not being evil" many moons ago.

"It's Open Source" - only it's not. Sure, it uses the Linux kernel but Google controls a hell of a lot of what makes Android ... Android and despite the efforts of the AOSP, most people get a phone that's basically a data collection system for Google.

These are cracks in the slab that Google simply cannot deny because they are true. I dare say there are many others so I propose that all you smart folk here produce a list, which we can easily format so Granny can understand, with all the reasons why you should dump Android and Google faster than a hot coal.

I'll see if I can knock that into a video (unless someone else wants to run with it) but the "paper" version can be spread around and we can help people understand that the phone they think they bought, is selling them down the river every second of every day that it's turned on.

I was alarmed to see the number of hard-coded (direct IP) addresses that my old handset was sending back home: data that was encrypted so there's no way I could determine what it was.

Should I be worried? I don't know but this is the sort of fear that will drive people away from Google and Apple and return us to a world where private communication is just that. PRIVATE!

(The Crack in the Slab is a reference to a level in Dishonored II).

Top banana!

That should certainly fix it for now - how odd of it to keep asking for it... Sounds almost Google-like!

I don't have any data (so to speak) on this phone, so it can't be that directly.

In the last 16 hours, it's generated 11,717 requests!

That's LOT of DNS traffic regardless of anything else. That sounds awfully like a bug. I know theses are a couple of packets but if this was using my mobile data that could add up.

I run PiHole at home on my OrangePi PC (as bundled with DietPi but it's available as a separate download for ARM boxes) and I've noticed an alarming number of outgoing DNS requests going to "dash.ubuntu.com" and "dash.ubuntu.com.local"

I'm not monitoring the network sufficiently to know what (if anything) is going on with all this chatter but could that be causing a something of a battery drain? I'm running 15.04(r11) if that's relevant.

It's past my bedtime now (us auld farts need out sleep) so I won't be able to respond for at least 12 hours or so but if you need any more info, please let me know.

@UKPhil I'm not that put off by Apple because it doesn't "pretend" to be our friend in the way Google does. You know when you buy an iPhone (and you DO buy an iPhone as we all know) that you're paying for the privilege of the best mobile OS there is - Android is particularly weak because it's so fragmented and now we have a bunch of alternative "Androids" too.

It's not that I trust Apple per se, but I trust someone who is rude to me up front rather than someone who cuddles me while he's picking my (digital) pocket. Google defines evil more to me than even Microsoft ever did... and I've been out of the business almost as long as I was a part of it. Google pretends to even be a friend of open source (Summer of Code for example) but it does nothing that doesn't directly benefit Google in the long term; and that includes letting employees develop their own products.

It's hard to list all the things that Google takes advantage of - I know of some via the FSF and others just by watching my network traffic.

It's no surprise that Ubuntu Touch never really got a foothold as it doesn't have a killer app. It's not just the app ecosystem - because let's be honest - 90%+ of those are either utterly banal or just copies of each other. Hard to imagine what the killer app could be - and that, in and of itself has to be a problem. Google (what them again!) is well known for pilfering other people's ideas: Android itself was pinched from Blackberry at first and later from Apple.

So, I'll be promoting Ubports proudly and laughing at those who thought I was crazy all those years ago.

Hi all, I'm new here and I'm not a fan of Android. In fact, if Google was suddenly sucked into a time warp and returned to being a simple search engine company with broadly targeted advertising I'd be very happy. I honestly can't find a good word to say about Google/Alphabet these days - well, there's lots of good words, but most of them aren't considered appropriate for polite company.

I've been wanting to try an alternative to iOS for ages - so I managed to source a useable Nexus 5 on eBay and fired up LineageOS then MaruOS and then Sailfish (which fell over) and they all feel horrifically similar to Google's spyware. Not to mention being very poorly laid out.

So hello UBPorts and finally a UI that doesn't steal my screen real estate OR my privacy.

I'm a little surprised how small the app ecosystem is for now. I honestly thought it would be somewhat bigger after several years - and it just shows how pervasive the other systems are. Kodi would be handy for me because I have a DNLA server for my music so I'm a bit stumped there. I could get by with the SAMBA shares but I guess no one has sorted that one yet. I hate being a simple user - I wish I'd kept up to date and maybe I could have ported some stuff myself. Oh well

Obviously there are other things I would like - games are not an issue.

I'm going to recommend this to my friend who hates smartphones because I believe it satisfies all of his needs - except the proverbial battery life. Oh, I miss those days.