Peace be with you guys 🌹
This is my first Fairphone with /e/OS and I’m really excited😊. It arrived within 3–4 days even though the estimated time was 2–3 weeks. That suprised me, because I live in Germany.
Everything came intact: headphones, screen protector, and phone case. They also included this little pin to get into the SIM tray slot, which I thought was great. There was no charger in the box but that’s intentional on their part. Doesn’t matter to me since all modern chargers work anyway.
It’s really easy to use and murena has its own browser. The default search engine is Qwant, which I don’t use because of Bing. But honestly, my main goal was F-Droid and using apps that reportedly won’t work on Google-certified devices starting in September. I’ve already downloaded my own apps like IronFox and I’m happy 😁.
Now I’d love to hear your opinion: I think Google has shot itself in the foot with this decision. By closing down Android further, more people will switch to de-Googled systems.
That’s my take, what do you think?🤔
I ve been wanting to do something like this. but one thing I’m not sure off is the Google compatibility 🙃🙄🙄
I can’t quit it cold turkey. for instance need Google maps and it’s location sharing. i would love it if the Google apps were installed on this phone as second class citizens. is this possible?
You could just install Google Maps? Like, still gives Google access to your location and movement, but it’s a free device, you can put on it whatever you want.
You could also get a Fairphone with the Stock Rom, that should include Google Services. You could install a different Rom later.
There’s also self hosted FOSS location sharing services, but for those, you need a server or VPS, and do some legwork to set them up.
You can (although probably the typical buyer of a deGoogled phone wouldn’t). There’s a lot of open source of more privacy respectful maps/navigation apps available and a Murena Maps is on beta now.
Well, yes, but they specifically require family location sharing. There isn’t any privacy respecting service I know that does that, safe for some self-hosted ones (which might not be easy to set up for the average user).
I don’t know about Murena Maps (because it’s not yet ready for a daily use) but neither CoMaps / Organic Maps / OsmAnd nor the preinstalled Magic Earth seem to require family location sharing. I agree that having a complete selfhosted setup may be requiring too much from the average user. The OSM based solutions are a good compromise to me, aren’t they?
They, as in the user, require that feature.
Oh ok, now I understand better!
I’m not sure that if I install Google maps on this, will location sharing still work reliably…
As I said - the non-murena version of the Fairphone ships with a ROM featuring the usual integrated Google Services.
Another option I could see - buying a new device doesn’t brake your old one. You could keep running your current one till you found a way to set up a degoogled device with all the services you need.
that’s a fair point. I’ll switch data over to the new phone. but if I need this one I can run a hot spot
Hi, thx for your Comment.
I’m aware that you can’t stop all at once. For me it was also step by step until I could boycott everything completely. Anyway, I looked into it for you. There’s an “App Lounge” where you can log in with your Gmail account to access Google apps. You can also browse there anonymously. I think it’s like the Aurora Store, but I’m not really familiar with that. As for Maps, Murena apparently has its own map app, but I use the one from F-Droid “OpenStreetMap”. I hope I could help you.
thanks. it looks like I can install Google maps from here. but I’m not sure it will allow location sharing to work as that needs to run in background and constantly update location
You’re welcome. So I’ve done some research and apparently many features won’t work at all because the necessary Google background services are missing (de-googled system). I can really recommend OpenStreetMap as an alternative to you.
thank you. I use open street maps already. but for location sharing I need the other people in my family to also use it. unfortunately that’s not on the cards right now.
Ah yes, that’s true. I know that problem too. My family doesn’t use it either. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.
I use Organic Maps (which uses Open Street Map Data) on my Murena Fairphone 6 and it’s doing a decent job.
That said, it IS a downgrade. The search is not as forgiving of typos. Also, you often won’t find a local buissnes at all when searching for it by name. So i look the address up and search for it on Organic maps.
I am okay with that. It’s okay to loose some convenience for not supporting an american megacorp. But i do understand that this is a personal decision to make.
I’m totally agree with you. With all!! Organic Maps is a bit unusual at first, but it does good work. Sacrificing some convenience isn’t the end of the world.
@Gloomy @AuroraSine CoMaps is an Organic Maps fork maintained by former Organic Maps developers, due to the opaque governance of Organic Maps, which is meant to become more proprietary in the future.
You can take a look at CoMaps’ open letter :
https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/
Embarrassingly enough i was aware of said letter and just messed up the two when i switched phones some weeks ago 🙈
Thanks for bringing it up, i switched to Comaps now (again).
@Gloomy @AuroraSine comaps on Android here. Agree with your comments totally except it being a downgrade… it is just different.
No no. It’s not a downgrade. When it comes to privacy, Organic Map definitely progress. I wouldn’t use Google Maps even if it teleported me to the place. It’s just different, like you said. Took some getting used to, like I said, but that’s for anything new. It’s easy for me right now to use it. Most people aren’t just ready to give up comfort though, and I see that every single day. 🙁
Honestly, as a FP4 user currently running e/OS, I never use the app lounge. It’s frequently glitchy and missing apps. My most used installers are Aurora (will get you basically anything that’s on the Android store) and F-Droid. I also recently installed Accrescent specifically for its IronFox app support.
Still haven’t figured out if there’s any way to buy paid apps, though.
Hello, I’m really sorry, but I don’t know anything about buying apps at all. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend anything to you. But I think that you have to do that directly via the Google Play Store.
As for Aurora Store or the App Lounge: I avoid them completely. I know, It’s still better, and privacy-friendly, than downloading directly from Google Store, but there will always be a tiny bit of Google in the system. And I don’t want that.
I try to use my phone really free of Google, and I searching more with my browser, IronFox, because in my opinion you have much more control in a browser than on an app.
I assume using it through the browser doesn’t let you do the location sharing how you need?
I never try it, but I dont think so. When it comes to location, I’m really clueless. I meant Instagram, TikTok, even Lemmy. Sorry I kind of sidestepped your actual question. I meant it in general.
yeah through browser it won’t update your location when backgrounded. I leave it on 24/7
What about openstreetmap.org?
I use it already. but convincing the family to switch and use that is not easy. (we location share constantly for safety)