Yeah, Neo Launcher is really good. Even though its still in its beta right now, the full release is coming soon. I consider it an upgrade over Lawnchair, and honestly probably the best open alternative to Nova (rip) overall.

+1 from me as well. I almost never have issues with Bitwarden. And when I do its usually in apps that don’t allow autofill in a normalish way. So I’m not sure thays really Google’s or Bitwarden’s fault, but the app developers…

Yeah, if you don’t mind it possibly taking a week to download something… Really like the idea, but in practice it’s very slow for something like that, unless you got a lot of seeders for something maybe.

It’s great seeing HeliBoard come so far, especially after it seemed like OpenBoard was potentially dead. I’m still a (firewalled on CalyxOS) GBoard user, but HeliBoard is the closest I’ve found to a viable replacement for it. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing what future developments it has in store.

I learned something today… and I’m not better off for having learned it. What a dumb ass virtue signal to use on something.

Wanted patent protections for myself mostly. I know the Apache 2.0 is best well-known for that, but I tend to prefer the simplicity of the BSD licenses. More so curious why the BSD 2-Clause was chosen for that Patent clause and not the BSD 3-Clause. Just seems odd to me. I updated my original post with more info.

You are correct, yeah. I updated my post with more info on what I was asking about, plus the text of the two licenses.

This is absolutely true. The Fairphone kinda gets around this since its got open parts and can be user serviced for most things, but the honest question for that is how many are gonna go to that trouble, not next week when your phone is still new, but 5 years from now? The dedicated certainly will and I commend Fairphone for it, but a lot of average folks with a slower phone are gonna want to upgrade at that point.

Really, it’s gonna depend on what your top priorities are. I run a Pixel 6 Pro with CalyxOS and I love it. But for you, it depends on whether you really need top security or want to go for a more open and long term design (which may not be entirely beneficial or all that special now).

For the Pixel 8, you’re gonna get much better cameras and more of those “Pixel Features” even when running something like GOS or CalyxOS. Its really nice cause you can even use GBoard and GCam and just firewall them (or however you do the equivalent in GOS), so you get the benefits without the downsides. Though it will be more expensive too.

With Fairphone, you’re gonna get a more open design that likely will last longer. That said, it doesn’t have a top end processor in it, so you have to imagine what it’ll be like in 6-8 years trying to run Android 20. Longevity is nice, but not as helpful if it can’t keep up physically with new releases. Also, with the Pixel 8 line now set to be supported for 8 years, it kinda… Undermines the Fairphone argument somewhat, though not to a huge degree.

Personally, if it were me, I’d choose the Pixel (and also choose CalyxOS as well, but that’s more a personal choice, don’t let the Graphene folks try and sway you with a bunch of FUD. CalyxOS is just fine, but GOS is a good choice too). It will have higher quality hardware, the processor should be able to handle tougher workloads into the future, and I think you’ll quite like the experience.

But, the Fairphone isn’t a bad choice either, and its definitely supporting a better ecosystem overall. It just won’t have as good of cameras and may not run as well a few years down the road, which could be an issue for the longevity. It can also run CalyxOS as well, so you won’t be missing out on using most other normal apps.

Really, it just depends on your use case and priorities. I don’t think you can go absolutely wrong choosing either one though.

Holy crap, I didn’t know about this fork before now. I kinda thought that OpenBoard was sorta… abandoned at this point, but seeing the improvements from this fork just made me go and try it again. Normally I just use GBoard with it’s connections disabled (CalyxOS, so that is possible to do in a secure way), but trying this out now to see if I can dump Gboard entirely.

+1 for Neo Launcher!

I really don’t get why the Pixel lineup always gets this weird… hostility directed at it every release cycle. It’s like the Pixel line is always given an extra level of scrutiny, that makers like Samsung, OnePlus, or even Apple don’t get. There are reasons to give it scrutiny, especially on the software side, but some of the things thrown at the Pixel line (especially since the 6) just sometimes seems… petty. I’m not saying it’s without fault, I’m a Pixel 6 Pro owner after all and can definitely offer some criticisms. But a lot of the criticisms about the design of the models always seems like nitpicking, yet it becomes a big to do.

I just don’t get it, is it just the Google name that brings about higher expectations?

Say what you want about Brave, but at least they are moving to their own indexing. Where as DuckDuckGo is just Bing…

Also I’d take that anti-Brave link with a grain of salt. I’ve got a hunch it’s somehow connected back to a Vivaldi dev. So I’d view it as highly untrustworthy.

I’d definitely try CalyxOS first, as it’ll be the closer experience to what you’ve had in GOS. There’s also DivestOS as well, but you’re gonna be more limited there since it won’t have MicroG (be default, not sure if it can be added in?) So it won’t have any real access to play store apps. You’ll probably get another 2-3 years out of CalyxOS on your pixel 5 if I had to guess. All depends on how long they can keep the security updates going for it.

LineageOS is a fantastic option, and eventually even when CalyxOS stops getting updates, LOS is absolutely a good choice to continue in using your device for long after the official support window. Just make sure you go with the version with MicroG so Play store apps mostly work as they should.

Good bot!

^^^ This!

Fairphone brings a much better device to market with better cameras, a better screen, likely a better chip, open hardware specifications and modularity, a completely unlockable bootloader (with likely support for CalyxOS and other ROM’s shortly), and up to 8 years of software support(!), but people say they won’t get it because no headphone jack…

MFW people have their priorities extremely mixed up… That’s been the world now for 6 years, it’s time to get over it. Letting perfect be the enemy of good is how you decide to throwaway something as good as what Fairphone seems to be offering. Sony still offers Android devices with headphone jacks, just don’t be upset if you don’t get another Android version pushed to your device.

Meanwhile…