When I started this project, I called it an “Odyssey”.
I choose to use this term because I knew that it was not possible to bring a brand new, perfect world to users. We are doing something better, not perfect (yet!).
What we are doing is to unGoogle Android, starting from low level stacks, like connectivity check, NTP, DNS, and then we try to do the best work at all stages, app store, default online services, default search…
You mention Android, but how many Linux systems are using Google default DNS or provide Google search as default? How many apps, even not Android, are using Google’s (and other’s) trackers? How many Linux users use the full fat Chrome browser?
So, yes, we microG is the “best bad solution” for apps. It’s still a dependency to Google services, but it makes Android apps work, have push notifications etc. It also provide some nice features such as the geolocation API that we can plug to something else than Google.
Also, as it doesn’t need a personal Google user account to work, it’s a reasonably correct smoke screen between the user and Google services. It prevents Google to track you personally.
This dependency is still not acceptable for the long run, and I hope we can progressively add more alternatives for apps.
What I have in mind for the long term is:
- PWAs… (will be in the next App Installer)
- building/adopting new alternative SDKs for building mobile apps. There is already a nice initiative on this and this will take take, but there is hope. Also, as we see some giants moving away (forced…) from Google, we can expect some disruption with mobile apps in the coming years
So, yes, not perfect, but I’m pretty sure that /e/OS is currently the mobile OS that is reducing user’s exposition to the Google ecosystem the most.
It’s an odyssey, and tomorrow will get better.