Hey Man,
First, don’t mind my english, I speak it like a spanish cow !
Hey, Bud " Rome wasn’t built in one day "
and plz keep in mind the following
" It always easier to criticize then to act ".
First, /e/ isn’t perfect, like you, like us, because we are all humans. We are all unperfect. Do I have to remind it to you?
Plz, tell us what you can bring to /e/ to be near perfection?
Kind regards,
Khazar
May I offer another perspective? Do you know who else is a great platform? US! for example I have created, for my community two presentations. We are the teachers, I gathered data from research on other reputable .org sites like EFF.org (The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. ) even Tristan Harris’ web site he was ex google employee his title technology ethicist ( hahah at Google right? ) Tristan Harris left Google in 2015 after creating a 141-slide presentation on the need to minimize distraction and respect users’ attention, which since his departure, has reportedly been seen by tens of thousands of Google employees according to The Verge.
After leaving Google, Harris co-founded the Time Well Spent non-profit organization which is now known as the Center for Humane Technology. His views are middle of the road but that’s a far cry from the insidious, and sadistic views of Google, Alphabet and Sidewalk labs view.
there at least 20 .org sites around the world seriously discussing privacy search using Qwant or Swisscows or Startpage and gather data. .org privacy see what results you get. People don’t even know about any other search engine, Google is all they know. that in itself is dangerous.
Then I created 15 minute talk on what a smartphone even is how it works what its made of, and 35 minute talk on privacy and why it is important in being human?, I went to my local community and got those talks on the library web site.
Also now that you know about ephone , in the midst of a 30 second conversation at the bust stop or in grocery store line or wherever a conversation is steering in that direction mention there is an alternative, people are starving for alternative but don’t know what they don’t know… WE are the platform what comes out of our mouth matters! 
Never allow “inevitability” in your vocabulary. Finally read the Vanderbilt University study on Google. Its right here provided by e on their about page. Select " Research published by Digital Content Next in August 2018 revealed staggering facts about passive data collection…" it is part of my third talk I have been researching privacy issues for 4 years. we need to back ePhone and help make it better. You have every right, yes by constructive criticism, and disagreement that’s how systems improve, the designers are willing to listen. You are right! but also by telling others lets not leave that job up to someone else. Cheers!
Google got to be a problem because we let them. But as you see around the world we can change it, but it will take time. It took time to get as bad as it did. The US is prefect example.
Today I read about the giveaway of an /e/ Fairphone. As I understand it, you need to “like” the anouncement on Twitter, and retweet it, or something like that, on Twitter.
This made me sad.
/e/ promotes itself as an OS to “de-Google” the device, so we can have a chance to take back our privacy and our data. Great, I like that a lot, I am grateful to /e/ for that.
I speak for myself, but I suspect many others might feel the same way: My desire to de-google my device is part of a larger general effort in my life to stay as far away as possible from Big Tech. Big Tech steals our information, tracks us, strips us of our privacy, crushes competition, destroys local business, stifles free speech, and generally are hateful platforms very toxic to human relationships. So, I was dismayed to see /e/ promoting this on Twitter - worse, restricting it to Twitter.
I don’t need a phone, so it means little to me whether I am able to participate in the drawing. I refuse to use Twitter - or Facebook, or Reddit, etc., so I am excluding myself anyway. Like I wrote above, I was taken aback when I saw the relationship between /e/ and Twitter in the anouncemnt. My assumption - hope - was that the philosophy of those leading /e/ regarding Big Tech is similar to mine, maybe I am mistaken?
I do agree with you 100% I have 0 interest and connection to any of those accept to be aware they are insidious, Googles meddles in everything and now they and Amazon want to meddle in vehicles, I own an old VW, and worse Google now wants be involved in the healthcare field? They will sell you to the highest bidder. The behaviour modification is so subtle and undetectable at times. FB Twitter, have almost ruined a generation of youth and their thinking. I don’t know what to say about /e/ and twitter. Perhaps the idea, is if Twiiter abd FB are going to invade peoples lives then let /e/ invade twitter and subvert the dominate paradigm.
Frankly I liked the local telecom companies LAN lines I dont know where you are but at one time in history Germany federal gov. subsidized the phone company, The Postal service subsidized telephones, Why we need this things at all. But if they are going to exist
they have to be made safe and private.
Things are a little more subtle here. Lead Developer ‘Guntram’ offers a ban already as Telegram greeting text:
ATTENTION: NO OffTopic allowed.
Who violates this will be dismissed
.
@NoName161,
why do you think you are still a Telegram member? But not because you give tritely words from you??
.
This thread is going off topic. Request all to stick to the point and criticize /e/
Personal attacks and name calling does not help anyone.
Free speech and positive criticism does not require one to hide behind pseudonyms and false ID’s.
This thread was about why /e/ used social media channels like telegram the official response is already available here.
I looked into LeOS. For the most part, it seems ok-ish… but there are some really questionable choices!
TotalLauncher does not appear to be Open Source. Lawnchair Launcher would be a better choice IMHO. It’s like NOVA Launcher, but FOSS.
The search apps they have implemented is not mentioned in their list of apps, and looks really dated (like from the Android 2.3 Gingerbread era).
K9 Mail, if I remember right, is no longer really maintained.
They could of used a different browser, like Bromite. It’s a more mainstream “privacy focused” Chromium fork with better tab management than Jelly.
There are also no links to their repo on their site, and the ROM is GSI only.
As for /e/ there are also some suspicious choices.
Magic Earth is pretty nice, but I don’t think it’s open source.
The app store is kinda questionable. It offers Google apps, but does not present itself as a Play Store mirror.
The push for /e/ cloud also seems suspicious.
And as for the censorship on this forum, I think it should stop. The only things that should be censored are legitimately evil, illegal things. Using pseudonyms and false ID’s should be allowed, as long as nobody is doing legitimately evil, illegal things.
“The push for /e/ cloud also seems suspicious.”
Users are not forced to use e cloud. The OS works fine without e cloud at all. If I’m not mistaken, there was something with Magic Earth that it was removed because of storage issues. I don’t like android, but right now there isn’t anything else besides e that does not sell its users (data) and could be used by anyone without tech knowledge.
I know it works fine without /e/ Cloud, but it’s still suspicious.
I’m interested to here more about Magic Earth and the storage issues though… I’ve experienced some weird storage bugs in a build. I don’t think it’s related to that, but I’m still curious.
Also, technically people still need to know how to unlock their bootloaders and flash ROMs to use /e/ not that it’s hard, but still… that is unless they buy a device with /e/ already installed.
Hello, reading this thread I’d like to explain a few things:
1- About using some mainstream communication tools & “convictions”
/e/ is not a religion, not a church. Our only “conviction” is that there is a general and serious privacy concern with privacy in mobile phones, and with Google in particular. We think we can bring a brick to help solving this situation. We think open source & collective intelligence is probably a good answer and strategy to create something different, more trustable.
If we want to have a chance to succeed, we cannot be driven by ideology. We have to be pragmatic, to find the best path to make the project known as much as possible. So yes, we have used kickstarter, yes we communicate on Twitter (and Mastodon), and yes there is even an /e/ group on Facebook. The reason is that we try to communicate where there are some people to listen to us.
For those who think this is not acceptable to use some of these tools for /e/'s purpose, think about trojan horses, it’s pretty cool.
2- About moderation & censorship on /e/ forums
I agree that ideally, there shouldn’t be any moderation. That could be possible in an ideal world where people would be educated enough to stay polite with others in conversations, where there wouldn’t be haters, where criticism would be constructive and respectful, where some users wouldn’t use our forums to advertize other projects, where some wouldn’t spread some FUD and fake news.
But sadly, there are idiot noobs, sadly there are haters, sadly criticism sometimes happens to be violent, sadly some register on our forums to fight /e/ by spreading FUD and fake information.
Of course it’s only a minority of people in a vibrant and supportive community, but this minority shouts loud and is hurting the majority of users.
So unless we want to give the power to “the ones who talk the loudest”, moderation is needed and sometimes we have to delete posts, delete accounts after repeated warnings etc.
3- About Magic Earth
Our default Maps application is Magic Earth, and it is the only non-open source app in /e/OS.
However, Magic Earth have provided information about the app’s privacy. More details about this here. We also hope that they can turn their app to open source software. We may also consider other options in the future if a better software becomes available for Maps, but at the moment it’s the most reasonable and acceptable option for us.
The things that you know can be divided into 2 groups - those that are discovered by you and those that are programmed into you. The MSM, big tech etc is constantly programming you, telling you what to think. There are other actors, more subtle, more insidious that tell you what to think in different ways and one of these ways is to stir up dissent.
Like the witch trials of old, the accusations and loud voices were enough to convict innocent women to death. If someone is banging a drum for a particular cause, ask why? Why does MSM bang the drum of the liberal left? Because they are paid to do so. Who is paying? Those who would lose a lot of money otherwise. Who would lose a lot of money if e/OS became really popular - in fact if e/OS took away hundreds of millions of Android users from the clutches of big tech. so who is paying the drummer?
If you don’t like e/OS don’t use it and take your criticisms elsewhere, otherwise thank these great guys for their wonderful efforts.
I am not in favour of censorship - but I am in favour of removing malignant voices from the forums if there is a suspicion there is an ulterior motive behind their criticisms.
That’s a pretty lame label to affix to anyone who comes here, curious or clueless, who may be looking for help moving away from Google et al.
I was an idiot noob when I first started exploring and failing at using /e/. I still am to some degree.
Is that your attitude to potential new users, either savvy or idiotic? Not a good place to be if your ultimate goal is to attract more customers. I’ve been recommending /e/ to others in the same situation, but now I’m hesitant if the developers think we’re all a bunch of Neanderthals.
please re-read the whole phrase not just the first part
The coma makes a list of people that needs moderation.
Idiots noobs are literally ignorant in the sense of not informed about e.OS and/or forum and/or technology hence needs moderation to keep forum and topics consistent and guide them to rules making everything here as much as efficient we can.
Now really unaware and hungry for knowledge users does things, reads and raise hands for questions not jumping to conclusions without struggling for knowledge or experience first.
That’s both distracting and irritating, will you behave like that at school or at work?
Hopefully not or if yes that’s neither respectful nor constructive.
What we are doing here is a possible compromise, far away being perfect, simple and for the masses.
Same rules of real life are applicable here, moderators here are the hosts and we are the guests, eating and drinking at their table for free in most of the cases.
Sit at the table, enjoy and we all appreciate your politeness if you don’t like the soup just excuse yourself and leave.
If you want to share your opinions you are welcome but don’t expect all the table will focus on you if it becomes a monologue or sterile controversy.
This thread left enough space to convictions’ author and is taking enough time and energy from community.
I and you should not be too surprised if it will be soon moderated and closed.
I’m not here to argue the spirit of the post, I agree with it for the most part - I’m simply calling out the use of the phrase ‘idiot’ which is derogatory/negative. It could have easily been omitted. Would you agree?
On a more pragmatic note, is there a sort of ‘privacy points’ roundup of information about /e/ and related infrastructure? It would be nice to have an actively maintained (though I doubt it would change a lot) listing of the different items and how secure they are. I doubt it would take a lot of work and it could be part of the promotional material on the website.
Basically, a nice always current summary of where it all stands that a non-technical user (i.e., potential general public customer) would find helpful. I recall some time ago reading that email messages were stored encrypted but the entire process wasn’t encrypted. Has that changed? I think it was in progress before that email outage hit but I don’t know what happened after that. And I use the Notes and Tasks and cloud storage, so is that all fully secure? Do admins have access to my data?
If you want to market security to the general public you have to inform them that you’ve got it in terms they understand.
By the way, I quite like Magic Earth. Of course it would be nice if it was fully private, but if it’s the only thing on my phone that isn’t then it’s not nearly as bad as any other platform.
Thanks for the great OS. (But I did also get a post deleted once on here and I haven’t written anything that wasn’t civil. I also had no way to know what post was deleted, I just received a notice that it happened. That sort of system leaves things open to abuse.)
As mentioned by Gaël we do have a few ‘users’ who log on with the specific purpose of abusing /e/ and /e/ team members.
Over the last three years I have been compared to almost all of the dictators from WWII !! This behavior has been repeated on the channel. Just two day back a user abused me on the channel using a racial slur. There are posts on the net dedicated to abusing /e/ and most of its team members. Initially it used to hurt but now I have stopped caring. Just delete those accounts the minute someone flags it and move on.
If we have so many haters we must be doing something right
Here I am not going into the attacks Gaël has been subjected to on social media, this forum and at times on the channels.
If this hatred was 100% across the board then I would have been worried. The fact that there are thousands who like /e/ gives us strength.
That being said we are under no delusions on being perfect. Neither as an OS or as human beings. But then as Gaël said this is not a church. If you are looking for perfection you are looking in the wrong place.
/e/ is an OS which is looking at users who would like a certain degree of privacy while still using main steam apps. This is not an easy combination.
BTW we have a ton of bugs which we still need to resolved, improvements and feature requests which need to be addressed and yes this thread that has gone completely off topic
@Manoj you have been super helpful to the community here, and to me too… but there will always be trolls no matter what, and that’s part of the job unfortunately. People are weird.
How about @GaelDuval not calling said users ‘idiot noobs’? You shot yourself in the foot right there.
I can mostly agree with this.
But as for the moderation, like I said it should only be used for censoring illegal activity. Otherwise it’s not cool.
People may spread misinformation, but the better approach is to not delete their posts or ban them… instead release a public statement with proper evidence proving them wrong.
As for Magic Earth, I like the software (it’s really easy to use, cleanly designed, has better search functionality, and faster routing than OSMAND) and I don’t have really anything against it other than it’s not Open Source. Also it’s not openly posted on the /e/ site that it’s a closed source software, I hope that /e/ would disclose this information and have better transparency. That would increase trust between /e/ and the userbase.