DivestOS: long term device support with enhanced privacy and security

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I hope you will revisit this detail (unchanged since 2018?).
Having an endpoint provided by divest.org rather than by google seems preferable. For anyone who cannot trust “the hand that feeds”, just invite 'em to self-build, eh)

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@ctnk
All builds of DivestOS have a toggle in the settings app to disable the captive portal check.
I will not have all devices running DivestOS phoning home to me every connection change.

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@Spyro

My grouper works fine on the 09/12 build.
You likely need to use factory reset from recovery.
TWRP seems to work better on that device.

raphael only has partial support in LineageOS official trees, once it is done I can start builds for it.

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346

@SkewedZeppelin Is there some Samsung Galaxy S2 that worked after my report?

The DivestOS recovery doesn’t have the issue that It had last year (now it flashes successfully) but I tried installing the OS today (I verified checksums correctly) and it keeps in bootloop for more than 10 minutes.

However, it is marked as “Status: Tested Working” in the devices list.

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@EchedeyLR, my Galaxy S II (i9100) runs with various CustomROM, from AOSP ‘N’, ‘P’, ‘Q’ to ‘R’, just not with DivestOS Mobile (bootloop).

Currently running CarbonROM 7.0 Opal Release 2021/08/30 (Android 9-Pie), which I feel is slower than an unofficial LineageOS 18.1.

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Xiaomi Poco F1 (beryllium)

Overall third unsuccessful DOS installation. This time DOS build 18.1 / 11.0 / R
divested-18.1-20210913-dos-beryllium.zip

Today’s installation of DOS 18.1 2021/09/13 was done twice with OrangeFox Recovery (OFR) via adb sideload dos*.zip and via OFR 'Install' > dos*.zip

Each time the identical negative result: The F1 boots up to the Poco-logo and stays there for 120 seconds, then boots up again to the Poco-logo. Now only two seconds pass until the F1 boots into the custom recovery. Formatting /data afterwards is just as useless as deleting the /caches.

The subsequent installation of the second edition of /e/OS build Android R (beta) 2021/08/31 was a mere formality. And the FM radio is back on board and working.

Is there any fear that the Pocophone F1 (and F2 and F3?) will have to share the fate of the Pixel 4a ‘sunfish’ (and others)?

349

Thank you for sharing.

As you are telling me, I also have this issue only with DivestOS where I get a bootloop.

Other roms run perfectly, including back when I had LineageOS.

I was looking for a ROM without propietary applications at least using microG by default.

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Divested Computing Group aka SkewedZeppelin aka Tad is uncompromising with DivestOS: not unthinkable ‘Google Play services’ or ‘microG’.

All CustomROM I’ve tried, with the exception of /e/OS, are ‘vanilla’ releases that can be retrofitted with microG (NanoDroid - Nanolx or MinMicroG Project - ‘Standard’ or ‘NoGoolag Edition’).

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Be careful with that: if you install microG later and the custom ROM has no signature spoofing enable (by default is like that in AOSP, most roms and LineageOS included) microG won’t work at all.

This is why I asked specifically for roms with it, which care about that thing which must be enabled at build time.

This is the reason why the project LineageOS4microG exists in a first place.

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@EchedeyLR, my statements aren’t based on theoretical assumptions but on practical experience. DivestOS, like LineageOS, is intentionally not compatible with microG in its original version. Those who need microG use compatible alternatives in forms of forks and derivatives. There are some very well functioning ROMs for a variety of devices. I’ll leave it at that. The thread ‘DivestOS: long term device support with enhanced privacy and security’ is primarily about DivestOS.That’s what we should be talking about in the first place.

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D̶i̶v̶e̶s̶t̶O̶S̶,̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶L̶i̶n̶e̶a̶g̶e̶O̶S̶ Android is i̶n̶t̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ not compatible with microG because of a basic security feature.

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Stock Android with ‘Google Play Services’ represent the biggest evil of all for me. Google Play Services, a bundle of proprietary background services and APIs for Android devices, is Google’s monitoring bug (spy buggy). Google Play Services have been known for years to transmit personal data from users or Android devices to Google. A study of The School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, reveals data theft. This :writing_hand:study reveals how invasive this data transfer is. Current versions of Google Play Services send the following information to Google every 20 minutes: IP address, device IMEI, hardware serial number, SIM card serial number, handset phone number, the WiFi MAC address and user email address, app user statistics. This basically affects all Android users who have Google Play Services installed on their device.

LineageOS in combination with MindTheGapps, Open GApps, etc. is also affected. LineageOS Wiki writes: »Google apps are the proprietary Google-branded applications that come pre-installed with most Android devices, such as the Play Store, Gmail, Maps, etc. Due to licensing restrictions, these apps cannot come pre-installed with LineageOS and must be installed separately. The Google apps are not required to boot or run LineageOS, however many users find them beneficial to take full advantage of the Android ecosystem.«

These apps have been packaged by developers independent of LineageOS, and download links have been provided for your convenience only. […] The Google apps packages are not supported in any way by LineageOS.

DivestOS and GrapheneOS are strictly against “Google apps or services”. CalyxOS and iodéOS let you choose whether to enable microG or not during the initial setup. Other CustomROM, such as Havoc-OS or CarbonOS, let the user choose whether to work without ‘services’, with Google services or microG services. All ROM philosophies are a good thing and have their justification, so there is plenty of choice for responsible users. However, those who need ‘services’ have the choice between permanent data theft or a so-called “a basic security function”.

355

Does DivestOS use microg? I checked the init script and thankfully I found out that upon compiling you can change the setting in that file how you want to set up microg. By default it’s set up to use nlp gps. Is there a way to remove this gps module? I can easily run OsmAnd maps on Resurrection Remix without microg and nlp. Or is it necessary to make gps work?

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DivestOS and GrapheneOS are strictly against “Google apps or services”.

No. DivestOS went with a very small sample of users who 3-2 didn’t want microg.

Or is it (nlp) necessary to make gps work?

It is not. It sometimes speeds up GPS sync.

Search this thread for microg by @SkewedZeppelin. It is all covered already: Search results for 'microg @SkewedZeppelin order:latest' - F-Droid Forum

357

Thanks for the clarification! I love when I get a choice when building a custom ROM to let me choose what features I want or don’t want. MicroG is a very good project and it works for a lot of people, but for me I have found apps that don’t depend on Google play services and there’s no reason for microG.
@SkewedZeppelin keep up the good work. Giving users choice is what makes me use FOSS projects.

358

I only use microG for the localization, so I don’t depend on GPS at all
but on local databases of Wi-Fi or cell networks.

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Then you’ll be glad to know that Divest has Déjà Vu - A local RF based back end for the µg Pro | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository iirc

@SkewedZeppelinAny Won’t LocalGsmNlpBackend | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository and https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.openbmap.unifiedNlp/ help too?

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I believe one of the UnifiedNLP is included in DivestOS by default.

Dejavu

I believe this has to be installed by the user. It would be interesting to devise tests to see how much faster sync is, with or without, but it depends on so many variables…

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Location

DivestOS includes:

  • UnifiedNlp (fused provider, not microG)
  • DejaVu (local)
  • Ichnaea (remote)
  • Nominatim (reverse lookup, remote).

Users are free to install more backends, they’ll work just fine.

  • The Apple backend is probably violating some license if I included it.
  • I had thought DejaVu was going to replace both of @n76’s providers, but it seems now that Local GSM backend is a maintained fork.
  • The openbmap one is available too
    but I don’t like processing too much on the phone. ie. downloading large databases and filtering them…

hence why I made my own backend long ago: MergedWiFiNLP. It has a phone component, the provider, and a desktop component, that processes the big databases and can reuse the output.

Lastly these backends do not help GPS sync faster, they just provide applications an alternate and quick source of location.
eg.

  • your weather app
  • the system suntimes calculation for automatic night mode

Google Apps

I still do not plan on supporting microG, or Google Apps, or sandboxed Google Apps.
You are free to enable microG support at compile time, or attempt to install a gapps package onto DivestOS.

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DivestOS […] strictly against “Google apps or services”.

I appreciate knowledge-based statements rather than creeds (“I believe”):

Users can consider themselves lucky because they have a good selection of CustomROMs.