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Murena, the Privacy-First Android Smartphone, Arrives (zdnet.com) 62

Posted by BeauHD from the Google-less dept.
The /e/OS-powered Murena One is the first smartphone from Murena that does its best to free you from Google without sacrificing too many core features. There are no Google apps, Google Play Services, or even the Google Assistant. It's all been replaced by open-source software alternatives with privacy-respecting features. ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols reports: Murena and Mandrake Linux founder Gael Duval was sick of it by 2017. He wanted his data to be his data, and he wanted open-source software. Almost five years later, Duval and his co-developers launched the Murena One X2. It's the first high-end Android phone using the open-source /e/OS Android fork to arrive on the market. The privacy heart of the Murena One is /e/OS V1. There have been many attempts to create an alternative to Google-based Android and Apple's iOS -- Ubuntu One, FirefoxOS, and Windows Mobile -- but all failed. Duval's approach isn't to reinvent the mobile operating system wheel, but to clean up Android of its squeaky Google privacy-invading features and replace them with privacy-respecting ones. To make this happen, Duval started with LineageOS -- an Android-based operating system, which is descended from the failed CyanogenMod Android fork. It also blends in features from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) source-code trees.

In the /e/OS, most (but not all) Google services have been removed and replaced with MicroG services. MicroG replaces Google's libraries with purely open-source implementations without hooks to Google's services. This includes libraries and apps which provide Google Play, Maps, Geolocation, and Messaging services for Android applications. In addition, /e/OS does its best to free you from higher-level Google services. For instance, Google's default search engine has been replaced with Murena's own meta-search engine. Other internet-based services, such as Domain Name Server (DNS) and Network Time Protocol (NTP), use non-Google servers. Above the operating system, you'll find Google-free applications. This includes a web browser; an e-mail client; a messaging app; a calendar; a contact manager; and a maps app that relies on Mozilla Location Service and OpenStreetMap. While it's not here yet, Murena is also working on its own take on Google Assistant, Elivia-AI. You can also run many, but not all Android apps. You'll find these apps on the operating system's App Lounge. [...]

There's still one big problem: the App Lounge still relies on you logging in with your Google account. In short, the App Lounge is mainly a gateway to Google Store apps. Munera assures me that the Lounge anonymizes your data -- except if you use apps that require payment. Still, this is annoying for people who want to cut all their ties with Google. The fundamental problem is this: Muena does all it can to separate its operating system and applications from Google, but it can't -- yet -- replace Google's e-commerce and software store system. As for hardware specs, the $379 Murena One features a 6.5-inch IPS LCD display, eight-core MediaTek Helio P60 processor, side-mounted fingerprint scanner, three rear cameras (48MP + 8MP + 5MP) and 25MP front camera, and 4,500mAh battery. It also features a microSD card slot for expandable storage and headphone port.
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Murena, the Privacy-First Android Smartphone, Arrives More

Murena, the Privacy-First Android Smartphone, Arrives

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  • Amazon fire (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 )
    My Fire is android but I log on with my Amazon account. I find this superior as Amazon is out to make an honest buck through sales rather than finding new secret and underhanded ways to monetize my information. Like Facebook, once Google has you labeled on a device there is no privacy.

    • You sure about that? They sell data to third parties...

    • Re:Amazon fire (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @03:41AM (#62582764) Homepage Journal

      When I visit amazon.com, my add-ons block large numbers of trackers and other underhand stuff.

      Amazon is not trying to make an honest buck, they are trying to induce you to spend more money by tracking everything you do in order to target the most effective ads at your eyeballs. I doubt their Fire devices are any different, there is no way they would give up all that sweet usage data.

      • If only Amazon were any good at using the vast amounts of data I have voluntarily given them related to my shopping

        They best they ever come up with is “would you like to buy another one of these things you already own? You bought this thing a while ago, do you want another?”

        No, I already have one of those that I bought from you.

        I mean, does ANYONE here get useful suggestions from Amazon? Does ANYONE here EVER get useful ads? I know that there’s the psychology involved in an ad following

    • Honest, like identifying sales trends on your platform, figuring out which trending products you could make for a few dollars less, making and selling those on the platform, and then promoting them over the original manufacturer/vendor.

      Honest like that?

      • You mean the exact same thing grocery stores do? The exact same thing Macy’s and Target does?

        Did you REALLY not know that Amazon isn’t anywhere near the first department store to do this??

    • Amazon is out to make an honest buck through sales rather than finding new secret and underhanded ways to monetize my information.

      I'm still not wild about Alexa listening [arstechnica.com] to everything that gets said.

  • that way better than most setups and a huge step in the right direction...

    how about the hardware/drivers? If later i want to try ubports or any other system, will i be allowed? will the hardware drivers be upstream
    and how repair friendly it is? another closed brick or something that we can open and fix

    a quick jump seems that they are using existent models, like fairphone or refurbished known good enough phones

    on the opposite side, how about the software supporting open phones like pinephone

    • I'm not sure what you mean by "be allowed" to try another system. Of course you can try. It won't work, because UBports hasn't been ported to the hardware, but nothing prevents you from installing another ROM on the device. Everything else you asked about - how open it is, repairable, running /e/OS on the PinePhone (and other open devices like the Librem 5) is all in the Murena FAQ.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by higuita ( 129722 )

        actually there is, most android have a locked boot system that don't allow booting in to a different system... that is the first major road block, being able to unlock the boot to start up a different android version or a totally different system

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

          I don't see the issue with bootloader. Being asinine about unlocking is more common only with big brand names (Xiaomi, Samsung, Huawei...). Virtually all small "noname" chinese brands (including this phone) come with verified boot unlocked, meaning such devices are not a walled garden in any form and shape.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

        It's not allowed because Mediatek doesn't mainline vendor drivers and userspace HAL drivers are binary only. Meaning running ubports or pmos would require substantial effort to port required Mediatek drivers to mainline. Since Murena is a brand merely re-selling closed OEM design at outrageous mark-up, they can't really do all that much about it, either.

  • Been enjoying it for about two years (Score:5, Interesting)

    by computer_tot ( 5285731 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @08:48PM (#62582205)
    I've been using /e/OS for a few years. Got it pre-installed on a Galaxy S9 and it's been great. It's amazing how much better the Android-based experience is when there aren't ads and trackers and things popping up to annoy me. I also like their cloud service. It's based on Nextcloud and you can sign in to use the typical Nextcloud features. The summary mentions there is an option to download apps through the software centre which acts as a proxy to the Google Play store. This is a valid option. People who want items from the Play store (which aren't available elsewhere) by installing Aurora Store. It'll let you login to the Play store anonymously and download whatever you need. Personally I've found almost everything I want through the default software centre or through F-droid, but it's nice to have extra options.

    • It's amazing how much better the Android-based experience is when there aren't ads and trackers and things popping up to annoy me.

      What you're describing isn't an Android-based experience, but rather the Samsung experience.

      • It's not just Samsung. I've had three Android phones. An LG, a Moto, and a Samsung. The stock ROMs were all like this - naggy, annoying, ad-filled. Running /e/OS on my Samgsun phone is so much faster, smoother, and less annoying.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's not so much the OS the matters, it's how cheap the phone was. I tell people to avoid cheap phones but they buy them anyway, and then complain that they keep getting spam notifications and forced app installs. I show my them Pixel that has none of that stuff, and the fact that they can get a new or used one quite affordably.

      It does help to have DNS66 or a similar ad-blocker installed (I use Mulvad VPN with DNS based blocking), but the main thing is to avoid the monetizing crapware that cheap phones come

      • ... forced app installs ...

        I have a mid-level Samsung and just got 2 forced-installs that can't be disabled or uninstalled: 1) AppCloud, the Pay Tv from Google; 2) Samsung Pass, the facial recognition from Samsung because they want to force half the world to use their crappy answers to Google.

        The Murena isn't sold in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and for some reason no-one sells the TeraCube (maybe because it's 4 year-old hardware). The choice is to limit the gang-rape by going vertical integration but there are only 2 choices: Google

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

          Murena is $150 range device, with a soc from around 2016-2018. Pretty much the same as TC2. In this regard, TC2 is far better offering, as the hardware seems to be reasonably priced original hardare, as opposed to stock design from chinese OEM with 300% markup on top.

          Focus on repairability intersects with privacy pretty well in general, as both neccessiate being DIY-friendly to some extent.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

        Outright backdoors are more of a domain of fake sub-$100 android phones (Wish.com). Those are typically early 2010s era socs running android 6 with Android 9+ skins. While people do get fooled by fake advertising here and there, I've yet to see anyone actually using it.

        As for legit chinese brands (Oppo, OnePlus, Realme, Infinix, Tecno, UMIDIGI, Doogee, Cubot ... and many many others), those typically ship bare AOSP due to stiff competition. Ironically, It's the "luxury brands" that can afford to be more bra

  • You can already run Lineage with Microg on a bunch of devices. Pretty decent devices.
    Maybe you already have one.

    • If you want a cell phone that supports US cell bands (meaning, no internationals that only do like 1 out of 5 a US carrier may use) and has an easily unlockable bootloader, there aren't a lot of options. The Google phones, OnePlus, and *SOME* Motorolas are all I know of other than some very rare and expensive outliers (like the Asus ROG).

      Most of the phones still have proprietary radio code and other hidden partitions of unknown makeup (other than to maybe government agencies) that even a AOSP overwrite won'

  • Very happy with /e/OS (Score:4, Informative)

    by dcollins ( 135727 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @10:40PM (#62582380) Homepage

    I've had /e/OS since last year on a Teracube branded phone, very happy with it.

    Any free Android app that I've been interested in, I've been able to access, side-load, and run -- without going to any app store.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Maybe a little too good to be true?

  • Meaning the FBI financed it's production?

  • In two to three years (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Tuesday May 31, 2022 @11:13PM (#62582452)
    In two to three years we'll be reading a /. article about how the "privacy first" statement from this company was all BS and they were tracking and selling user data all along. The company will state that there were "bugs" discovered that need to be fixed. Same old song and dance. I don't trust a single company any longer that claims privacy. They are all full of shit. Advertising assholes have ruined everything.

    • What a sad, defeatist statement.

      - So much of /e/ code is open source that I don't think that's a fair assesment. It's essentially a huge community effort (https://doc.e.foundation/projects-looking-for-contributors). We know most of the things they implemented protect privacy. You can wireshark a Google and a /e/ phone, and the difference is night and day.
      - Their cloud service is optional. I personally think it's cool that they try to not just create a more trustworthy phone, but also understand that normal

      • "What a sad, defeatist statement." - The reality of a situation like this is rarely cheerful. This song and dance has played out too many times already. The trend is evident. It will happen. Wait and see.
      • It's understandable to be cynical these days, but in this context it's silly, and this post points out exactly why. Good post.

  • ... for a well-built Google free Android smartphone. Two good smartphone options with a third coming in the next months. Check it out here:Volla.online [volla.online]

  • My choice is a 5" screen sized phone. No larger than the One+X, I'm out of luck and not a happy camper...
    This phablet trend got to stop FULL STOP I'm just venting my frustration here, but I know I'm not alone.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ezdiy ( 2717051 )

      The choice is of course that you port /e/ device tree to a far better specced device like everybody else. This one is aimed at rubes who can't be bothered to bring up custom ROM on their own. While it's convenient there are vendors trying to sell ROMs out of the box, it's unlikely they'll get any traction if they keep slapping $200+ markup per device.

      • What are you talking about? I want a descent screensized phone, not the OS of One+, I always install lineage on my current devices, before that it was cyanogen. Vendors always put some crapware bundled on their os:s to get some extra money from big data.

        And since phablets started to be called phones, a descent one goes for SEK 10k+ (about USD 1200) here in sweden, a better sized screen phone (-5") with the same spec on other parts cost half of that.

  • Yes, it's great to block some of the bigger privacy rapists like Google & Facebook (who pay to have their spyware included in SDKs so that almost all apps spy on us). However, they're not the only ones; telcos do it too & they have exclusive access to ALL our internet, SMS & call traffic. It's also difficult & expensive to hide our identities & web traffic from them. I wonder if there's a way to find out exactly how much of our personal data they sell on to data brokers with no oversight

  • Just an overpriced UMIDIGI A9 (Score:3)

    by ezdiy ( 2717051 ) on Wednesday June 01, 2022 @07:49AM (#62583096)

    Exact same hardware can be had for ~$150. This is a very low end budget phone. Meaning you pay $200 for a GSI swap. Since this is a mediatek device, it's polluted by closed source HAL blobs (/e/ runs merely on top of).

    Scams like this kinda suck as they take business away from more genuine effort (PinePhone et al) that are far more open source.

  • "If all you do is look at the hardware features, the Murena One is a good, but not exceptional, 4G LTE smartphone."

    I had an S5 set up exactly how I would have happily wanted it with LineageOS but was totally blindsided by voLTE. So have they got the voLTE firmware code still working on this thing so a person can actually make CELL calls in the US? Skype or Signal via wifi don't count. If it isn't working cell, nothing should be called a "phone".

    (Oh, and my Pinephone just installed half a gig of update this

  • There's still one big problem: the App Lounge still relies on you logging in with your Google account.

    I know from personal experience that this is not correct. App Lounge offers a choice to use a Google account or to fetch free Apps anonymously. I chose the anonymous option, and never provided Google credentials. I have several working apps that I acquired in this way. It is true that the App Lounge

    In short, the App Lounge is mainly a gateway to Google Store apps.

    This is correct, and it is exactly what is i

    • Hi Mike,
      I'm very glad to see that quick reaction of yours to such a wrong statement about the requirement of a Google account to access the App Lounge (I'm very surprised -and disappointed- that a such a scrupulous specialist like Steven Vaughan-Nichols could have been so careless).
      As a (VERY happy indeed) user for almost 6 months now of both a Moto G7 Power and a samsung galaxy S9 with /e/ installed (after trying LineageOs), I do confirm all that Mike said. Note that the latter S9 has a GUI installer tha

  • Why would they name their phone after a hormonal IUD [webmd.com]?

    I mean, I know going on about your off-brand phone because of its privacy credentials is a form of birth control, but probably not as effective...

    • Why would they name their phone after a hormonal IUD [webmd.com]?

      I mean, I know going on about your off-brand phone because of its privacy credentials is a form of birth control, but probably not as effective...

      Your link points to "Mirena", the phone is called "Murena". Sounds pretty different to me. The name reminds me of moray eels, since Murena is the Latin singular for them, and the fish has similar names in many other languages.

  • Since the post is mentioning this kind of thing,

    Shoutout to GrapheneOS' sandboxed Google Play Services. Very grateful:
    https://grapheneos.org/usage#s... [grapheneos.org]

    https://forum.xda-developers.c... [xda-developers.com]

  • wow, thanks for this interesting read :)
  • But there is no way to reinstall the OS on my phone.
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