Downsides of /e/

What ‘concept’ does it change to ship F-Droid app with the rom, and promote usage of aurora store and such for those who really want to get apps from the play store ?

What does Apps allows that Aurora store doesnt ?

I think i can guess and understand why the decision was made to make and use Apps, but this also is very much not satisfaying to me.

On the other hand it’s beyond my understanding why F-Droid privileged extension and F-Droid are not there by default.

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Aurora isn’t reliable and Google can easily break something. And of course it’s one more link toward Google.

Yes, the Apps installer has issues too, but in the long term it has to be reliable.

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Apps should work ok, /e/ can’t rely on a 3rd party service (Aurora).

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For users that the app store bothers they can surely do this anyway no? I read somewhere about flashing f-droid during the install such that it is the default. For the average user, I think most are content to consider the app store a work in progress. I think it would be good if someone could just say exactly how the app store works, where the apps are sourced etc because that seems to be the font of most of the bad will against this project.

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I know Aurora isnt always reliable and that’s a tie to google also. I understand the need and why the choice was made to make Apps.

But i still dont get why F-Droid is totally absent here, when it should be the obvious base for apps, even though F-Droid miss lot of apps

Nothing is perfect for apps for us at the moment, but i’m very much not happy with Apps.
(Sorry for those who probably spent lots of time on it, that’s my honest opinion)

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The idea is that Apps also contains all f-droid apps. I think the “only” problem is Apps, does not work as it should, missing a lot of apps (banking), that’s why people go to F-droid and Aurora. The main reason is for missing apps is probably legal stuff.

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F-droid apps are in the Apps Installer. And you can set the Apps Installer to “Open source apps only”. Yes for now it’s not perfect, but it’s difficult to directly release a fully working Apps Installer. Let’s see in 1 year, and 2 years how it will looks like.

Furthermore, a “James Bond” variant of the main /e/ (I don’t know very well this topic) will come. And I guess it will only have F-Droid and be without MicroG. (But this statements really needs a confirmation)

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Keep up the good work e.foundation. :fist:
I do not really use Apps, because I don’t need non free apps and I like F-Droid.
But I still support the idea of an easy to use AppStore for the non tech savvy, where they can find the WAs and other things, they can’t get rid of, out-of-the-box.

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Well put, I fully agree!!

If you dare call that ‘censorship’ i guess you wont mind being called a troll with nothing better to do than wasting other people time and energy…

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@Andy1, I knew at your 4th post on this forum that you were a never satisfied person and always looking for issues without seeing the solutions. Sadly, I was right.
It was on a MicroG topic, I told you 3 times you could deactivate it but you kept criticised it for nothing. I’m not against critisizm at all, and the e Foundation too. But your kind of critisizm is a bad one, more a “hater” one than a “good intentioned person” one.

Each of your post is to tell how a poor victim you are and how we all try to shut you up. If your posts are flagged and hidden by the community, that’s because of this. You don’t bring anything good to this forum and this project.
(Note that a constructive critisizm is something good, and note that you haven’t been banned of the forum and that’s already a lot.)

List once and for all what you think is wrong in a post, with a nice and beautiful layout and a SHORT description (not a big fat text where we don’t understand anything) for each one of your point. Then that’s it.

So please try to create a more useful content, and don’t repeat everytime the same thing :slight_smile:

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Totalitarianism and lack of transparency…? On which planet do these guys live :)? My /e/-planet is very different :slight_smile:
@Manoj, you have my blessing to kick these trolls off the forum, I’m getting kind of tired of reading their hateful comments every time

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@manoj , I’m thinking the same

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Holy moly! This forum is tense. I joined after a month or two of happy use of the ROM to try and add something useful to the conversation and err…I’m starting to regret it.

From what I have read the main issues people have are:

  1. How the apps are sourced - A possible solution to this, and the other technical concerns outlined in my original post, would be, as @Rik has suggested elsewhere, an independent audit. Identify the problems and then we, as a community, can work towards the solutions.
  2. How the forum is run - The forum rules basically outline what should be considered common decency. Maybe as a community we should discuss, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, a disciplinary procedure such that:
    a. there is a mutually agreed definition of what constitutes a violation of the rules.
    b. any remedial action is applied fairly across all users.
  3. Transparency - And this one I guess is aimed more at the /e/ team - users that seek enhanced privacy and control with respect to their data are obviously going to expect this. Using the apps as an example, most people don’t even seem to care if they are in fact from apkpure or whatever, they are just wary of the lack of, well…the lack of transparency.

I think most people are here in good faith (except those claiming that /e/ is a conspiracy to defraud Google…) and genuinely want to work towards an accessible, privacy focused OS. Expectations are high, that is a good thing (/e/ has a passionate market) but I guess, at least some of the issues mentioned here, stem from the conflict between expectation and reality. So /e/ team, how can we help? Technical and non-technical folk alike.

That’s my two cents anyway, I hope it’s useful.

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Actually usually everything is great, but that’s a “tense” subject indeed.

Don’t ! It’s not your fault if some people are just here to disturb every time.


Thank you for clarifying your concerns.

That’s a legit question, even if there is no proof of modified apps, it’s normal to ask for this information.

I don’t think what you suggest is really needed. Manoj run the forum very well and has been a good judge for more than a year. Rules are just “common decency”. No time to vote a Constitution and create a Parliament.

Same thing than the point 1.

Yes, that’s what make us continue toward this goal :slight_smile:

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Although these things do concern me, I was trying to summarise the points that seem to recur with the greatest frequency across the forum and beyond and to think of fairly easy ways to respond to them, collectively.

I’m not suggesting anything quite so formal. Just deciding where the line is and when it is crossed and how to deal with that because not everyone is happy. I know you cannot please all the people all the time but if there is a problem there is usually a solution. Maybe even simply having more moderators, it is too much work for one person - with more time more nuanced decisions can be made.

Lot of interesting views being posted here.
One point I read is folks are imagining that I take all decisions here independently :slight_smile:
While it is nice to think of having such dictatorial powers ‘unfortunately’ that is not the case. Have a look here at the number of folks who also have similar powers or are moderators on the forum. Most of the cases where trolls and spammers have been removed have been taken with all being kept in loop. The others may not be coming into the picture but they are very much there. Also believe me, we have been extremely lenient with the removals from the forum. For the genuine users all I would say is do not feed the trolls. Ignore them and their comments and they will hopefully move off in search of other feeding grounds.

Now on to the topic :slight_smile: /e/ is not perfect. Show me a software or OS which is perfect or makes everyone happy. We are trying to improve in a lot of areas. That is where we need the support of the community. To help us here we have a large number of users who genuinely contribute to the best of their ability - building ROM’s ,improving the code , volunteering to improve the website with suggestions, catching bugs and suggesting fixes, testing the apps and builds… the list goes on and on. My sincere thanks to all of them.

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Apologies, my bad, I made an incorrect assumption based on the post I was replying to without actually knowing what I was talking about. :grimacing: I was just kicking ideas about. Scrap that last point!

This whole “trolling”, “naysayers”, etc. thing reminds me of Joe Collins and his channel. He does a great job at explaining the situation, it’s an interesting read to open your eyes about this recurring phenomenon on the internet.

I guess one of the downsides of /e/ is that it’s a relatively small project compared to the interest that it attracted, and the ambitious goals it is set to achieve. For those who find this disappointing, please come back in a year or two and check again. Until then, thank you for coming over and spend some time with us.

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