Hello, I was looking into purchasing one of the /e/ smartphones. I’m confused about the app offerings. On one hand, it says that all applications are open source bricks and I am able to see applications like Netflix, Youtube, and Spotify in the application checker. But it also has a filter for open source applications. Am I correct in assuming that the /e/ smartphones will only offer the open source filtered applications through the app store? Or will regular applications like YouTube and Spotify be offered? Thanks.
The default App Store that comes with the /e/OS offers YouTube, Spotify and Netflix…that being said some of the apps may not work on a de-googled ROM like /e/. You can check this list of what works and what does not work.
Ah, thankyou for the quick reply, Manoj. I am surprised that this is legal. But I suppose the applications are just APK files anyways and Google Play doesn’t hold a monopoly on distributing APKs?
The /e/ Apps installer basically combines two sources for Apps. It includes the F-Droid repository of Open Source Apps, and it includes non-Open Source Apps via CleanAPK.
The latter is discussed controversially because it’s not very transparent, but in the end it gives a lot of users the Apps they want, and you still have the choice to just not use those Apps, or even to just not use the /e/ Apps installer for that matter, you could just install and use F-Droid directly and pass on using non-Open Source Apps.
