[HN Gopher] DivestOS ROM shuts after ten years
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DivestOS ROM shuts after ten years
Author : azalemeth
Score : 51 points
Date : 2024-12-27 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (divestos.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (divestos.org)
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| I guess it doesn't matter anymore, but it took me a lot of clicks
| to understand what this actually is/does.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Care to share?
| jandrese wrote:
| Android ROMs for phones that are out of support but otherwise
| still perfectly functional.
| Evidlo wrote:
| This seems really sudden. Is there any other info besides a
| handful of bullets?
|
| This was one of the few ROMS that still supported my old Android.
| joemazerino wrote:
| DivestOS was a good ROM that combined the functionality of
| LineageOS with security of graphreem. It will be missed.
| flippyhead wrote:
| It's funny, I often hear, for the first time, about interesting
| projects just as they are shutting down. I wish there was some
| kind of pre-emptive news service that would tell me about them
| BEFORE they shutdown! Like maybe some kind of quantum computer
| internet thing that lets you time travel but just via the web
| browser.
| wiml wrote:
| This seems like a good place to Ask HN: What is the state of
| Android distros/forks right now anyway? What's the popular
| works-pretty-well-for-most-people project? What are some
| obscure or niche gems that could be better known?
| fisian wrote:
| GrapheneOS on a Pixel is probably the most polished and
| secure experience. I have installed it (and enabled sandboxed
| Google services) on my mom's phone (she's pretty non-
| technical) and she had no bigger problems in the last years.
| fmajid wrote:
| Probably the most secure mobile OS available to the public
| right now.
| dsr_ wrote:
| +1 for Graphene -- installation is easy, documentation is
| not bad, and it's really easy on the battery.
| yonatan8070 wrote:
| I got a Pixel 8 to run GrapheneOS just last week, I
| installed it right after I got the phone after all the
| recommendations I read online.
|
| Before that I was using crDroid on a Poco F3 (I switched
| because the camera was quite awful and the battery got
| drained rather fast), and I was expecting some of crDroid's
| features that were just missing. A shortcut to the
| flashlight via power button long press, battery charge
| limit/smart charging, bandwidth display on the status bar,
| the option to add more columns to the quick settings, just
| to name a few.
|
| I ended up running crDroid on the Pixel as well, overall
| it's a decent experience, but not nearly as polished, it
| turns out I had to manually grant Google Play Services the
| location permission via ADB so apps would know where I am
| (missed a train to that one).
|
| I'd love it if there was some ROM that combined the
| security and sandboxing from GrapheneOS with all the neat
| little features in crDroid... or an actually good Linux
| phone.
| jpk wrote:
| Would you mind talking a little bit about the threat
| model that would lead you to using Graphine on a new
| device? IIUC, you have to unlock the bootloader to use a
| custom ROM, which makes the device vulnerable to physical
| access in cases like theft, confiscation, etc. So you
| have to trade that for whatever the custom ROM gives you?
| prmoustache wrote:
| The bootloader is only unlocked for the first install,
| then locked again.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Graphene only supports the pixel line, and part of the
| reason is because that's one of the very few (if not the
| only?) phones that let you relock the bootloader after
| installing a replacement ROM
| aftbit wrote:
| Graphene's team takes a fairly hostile view towards
| feature creep, possibly for very good reasons. They
| basically only add features that improve security &
| privacy. Everything else is stock AOSP.
|
| My personal hill to die on is that the launcher uses lil
| tiny icons and text, which I find hard to read, and
| alternative launchers are a bit of a privacy and security
| disaster. They refuse to add anything to the built in
| launcher to adjust this, and suggest either raising all
| of the sizes (with accessibility, which affects all apps)
| or use an alternative launcher.
|
| Alas it is still a very nice operating system.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Is there still the issue of third party launchers being
| treated as second-class, not allowed access to features
| like gesture navigation? I haven't used one in a while.
| evolving-silica wrote:
| I wouldn't say most polished. Out of the box LineageOS
| comes with better stock apps like gallery, dialler or SMS
| app.
|
| Some shown here: https://lineageos.org/Changelog-28/
| exe34 wrote:
| lineage os works well on the pixel 5 - cheap (obsolete) phone
| that more than matches my needs.
| doublepg23 wrote:
| LineageOS is stellar on my Sammy S5e - pretty perfect comic
| tablet imo (ultralight, OLED, high res, external storage)
| code-blooded wrote:
| CalyxOS is the alternative to Graphene mentioned above.
| CalyxOS has a bit different goals - it cares about privacy
| more than security and complete removes Google services
| instead of sandboxing them (they get replaced with MicroG
| which is a shim of Google services so that majority of apps
| continue to work). I successfully used it for a few years on
| my Pixel 4a. Most apps just worked including banking, but
| some didn't. Notably dating apps didn't work well and Uber's
| map didn't look right.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Possibly the most interesting this is that they will shut down
| and that generates the most interest unfortunately.
| blowsand wrote:
| https://divestos.org/pages/about https://divestos.org/pages/faq
|
| "DivestOS is a full-time passion project (not a company)
| maintained solely by Tavi since 2014. It has many goals, but
| primarily: prolonging the life-span of discontinued devices,
| enhancing user privacy, and providing a modest increase of
| security where/when possible."
| piecerough wrote:
| Who's Tavi?
| fwip wrote:
| The name of the maintainer.
| grizzles wrote:
| I want a (preferably open source) android phone without spam. I'd
| pay a healthy amount for it. I don't want to flash roms or do
| anything like that.
|
| Anyone tried the Fairphone? How is it for notification spam?
| mminer237 wrote:
| What notification spam do you mean? Even on Google's Android, I
| feel like it's really easy to turn off any notifications I
| don't want.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Perhaps like https://www.androidauthority.com/stop-ads-
| samsung-phone-3108... ?
| grizzles wrote:
| Thanks for your comments. I didn't realize settings allowed
| you to turn those off. Now fixed. Hallelujiah.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| > Anyone tried the Fairphone?
|
| I wish I could say yes. Sadly, they still don't sell to the
| USA. They tried doing some sort of partnership a bit ago with
| the last Fairphone and an USA vendor but it seemed to not go
| very far. Can't even get the latest phone from them, and they
| have some sort of custom OS on it.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| you can get a fairphone 4 in the USA. rooting and replacing
| with calyx is a thing.
| ndesaulniers wrote:
| > I'd pay a healthy amount for it.
|
| I think unfortunately while a lot of people claim they would do
| so, in actuallity they still have a limit on how much they
| would fund such an endeavor, and there's not enough such people
| that care to properly fund the amount of work it is to maintain
| such a large amount of code as exists to support modern smart
| phones.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| I used Divest OS on an old phone for a while. It was really good.
| I later replaced it for Lineage OS, because I needed a few
| specific apps that needed Google services, unfortunately.
|
| It was awesome to breathe life into old devices of you don't need
| Google services on them. Kinda sad to see it ending.
| gpvos wrote:
| This is rather sudden. I see in earlier news that DivestOS was
| submitted to the FLOSS/fund in November.
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(page generated 2024-12-27 23:00 UTC)