Develop Bugs

[TOOL] [01/23/11] Android Customization Suite 1.0 - devs read me!

Android Customization Suite 1.0
This is a program to complement your ROM. It is able to produce a CWM flashable zip with apps your ROM might be missing (T-Mob ones, launchers, utilities, etc). It also has other tools available for you. It can produce an empty flashable zip for you (read more about it here). And now, it has "repositories." Developers can upkeep their own repos with whatever files they wish. Roms, themes, mods, etc.
need i9000 Devs to talk to me to get their work added on here!
in the mean time, you guys can mess with the Utilities in the Vibrant section just to get a feel for it
Screenshots
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Older Screenshots:
Repo Tab 0.999
Repo Tab
Utilities Tab
Launchers & Misc Tab
Vibrant Apps Tab
System Tab
Instructions
Download. Note: you must have Java installed to run this app
WHILE YOU ARE DOWNLOADING MAKE A NANDROID BACKUP
Unzip the folder. Please keep it intact. Moving files around in there will probably break the functionality.
Run ACS.jar.
Choose desired apps.
Wiping Dalvik cache is recommended, but it will take you about 5 minutes to boot
Copy flash.zip to your internal sd card
Flash with CWM
Linux users: if you are running Linux I advise you to use the run.sh file to run the program, otherwise it may use your home directory to store files
Mac users: you need to have java 1.6 installed for this to work. i tested this on a friend's mac (running 10.5.8 & java 1.5) and it wasn't working. also i was not able to update her java to 1.6 either. so i'm assuming you need to have snow leopard installed for this to work...
Devs:
Check out this reference guide for more info on setting up a repo list. Feel free to contact me for any clarification. It's really not hard to do it, just have to understand how the app works a little. The guide should give insight and instruction. Contact me to add your repo to the list.
Options Note
If you want to change the location of system apps, please make your selections first THEN change the location
Change Log
v1.0
-finished gui changes, no more tabs
-added menu bar with options option
-couple bug fixes from .9999999
v0.999
-redesigned gui
-everything is in form of a repo now (or will be at v1, too lazy to do launchers tonight)
-added functionality for different phones
-changed the way the app checks files against the server, should be much more efficient & faster
-need a new name!
v0.86
-bug fixes
-location of system apps (in the options tab) now works
v0.85
-repo functionality added
--any devs, feel free to contact me to add a section for your rom/mods/whatever
--the "repo" is maintained by you and is updated automatically when you update it, no need to recompile the app
-options tab
--new option to specify where you'd like to store apps that would originally go in /system/app currently may not work, need some script help from a dev to fix this D:
-download percent for convenience and downloading large files
-did i mention there's a repo?
v0.7 Beta
-couple GUI changes to make it prettier
-new feature to create blank CWM zips for your use, read more about it here
v0.6 Beta
-improved code to download from online server & error checking
-added modems
v0.5 Burly Beta
-Basically rewrote program...
--should be more efficient now, too
-Initial online implementation
--hopefully my web host can handle the traffic
-icon is missing, after 8 hours of working on 0.5 i'm not going to fix it right now
-file size down to less than 150k
v0.4 ALPHA
-KERNELS & MODEMS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS UPDATE, SORRY
-TouchWiz Launcher Widgets will not be added along with the launcher
-added progress bar (along with rewriting some code to make it more efficient)
-added a rename box, you can now name your .zip whatever you like
-added more tmobile bloat (sigh)
-the application will not recognize APKs and files outside of itself, so for instance if you have an APK that you want to add just put it in the corresponding folders.
-- for instance my VCK.jar is in folder /vck/, i want to add hi.apk. I could move it to /vck/data/app/hi.apk and when you click generate zip, the program should include it. please contact me if this is unclear or you have questions, this is only a minor feature
v0.3 ALHPA
-Renamed to Vibrant Customization Kitchen (thanks BruceElliot)
-re-organized tabs a little
-fixed bug where program would not work properly after generating a zip (thanks jdanisevich)
-Launchers & Misc tab should work
v0.2 ALPHA
-Most Vibrant Apps added (missing TMO TV & Media Hub for now)
-Misc Tab works now (minus GB keyboard, didn't work for me for some reason)
v0.1 ALPHA
-Initial Release
Current Known Bugs
-Please report any bugs you may have!
-If you do encounter a bug, restarting the program and trying again may help.
If you like this Tool, hit the Thank you button!
github - I don't really know what I'm doing with git, but here's my attempt at publishing it
Credits
-Scrizz - doing the hard work on the modems
-Heathen - script help
-Morfic, Eugene, Supercurio for their work (and allowing me to use their kernels)
-all ROM devs
-everyone else in this community who always help
Media Mentions
XDA Front Page (v0.3)
Android Spin (v0.4)

Sure, a universal kitchen is a great idea
+1

sounds like a good idea

I'm interested! This might be the tool that can enable noobs to cook their custom roms, if I understand it correctly.
A few questions though:
Where does the tool obtain the apps? From the web, or from your own computer?
Does it include the capability of de-odexing the /system/app and /system/framework? Would that be too much to add?
Optimize and zipalign capability? Can that be done too?
Is this an alternative to the online kitchen, like paulobrien, leshak or others, but in this case, the tool resides in your comp, and not from the web?
If you don't mind, please elaborate a little more.
There are many budding chefs here and I'm quite certain a number of people would be interested.
Very much obliged.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

g00ndu said:
I'm interested! This might be the tool that can enable noobs to cook their custom roms, if I understand it correctly.
A few questions though:
Where does the tool obtain the apps? From the web, or from your own computer?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the web. Most of the stuff is hosted on my web host, couple of guys have their stuff linked on their hosting.
Does it include the capability of de-odexing the /system/app and /system/framework? Would that be too much to add?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It doesn't. It depends, I'm not so great at developing ROMs and such. Just trying to help where I can.
There are already tools to do this though, right?
Optimize and zipalign capability? Can that be done too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again depends what is involved in the process, I don't know much about either.
Is this an alternative to the online kitchen, like paulobrien, leshak or others, but in this case, the tool resides in your comp, and not from the web?
If you don't mind, please elaborate a little more.
There are many budding chefs here and I'm quite certain a number of people would be interested.
Very much obliged.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not so much an alternative, but it's more of a ROM-complement.
It has the ability to eventually cook ROMs, but I'd have to code another module that would handle this. It might get pretty code intensive and not so efficient in Java as it is probably on these online kitchens.

birgertime said:
....
Not so much an alternative, but it's more of a ROM-complement.
It has the ability to eventually cook ROMs, but I'd have to code another module that would handle this. It might get pretty code intensive and not so efficient in Java as it is probably on these online kitchens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for taking the time to answer this. Appreciate your help in extending this to the international i9000 users.
I look forward to testing your tool.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

birgertime said:
From the web. Most of the stuff is hosted on my web host, couple of guys have their stuff linked on their hosting.
It doesn't. It depends, I'm not so great at developing ROMs and such. Just trying to help where I can.
There are already tools to do this though, right?
Again depends what is involved in the process, I don't know much about either.
Not so much an alternative, but it's more of a ROM-complement.
It has the ability to eventually cook ROMs, but I'd have to code another module that would handle this. It might get pretty code intensive and not so efficient in Java as it is probably on these online kitchens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, there are already tools which are able to cook custom ROMs, deodex them, zipalign them, and otherwise perform modifications on them. I think this sounds like a great idea; however I'd just keep it as a complement to a ROM, not an entire replacement for a kitchen.
Good work.

Windows Only?
Edit: Sorry. Didn't read. Java. Allrighty then

seeARMS said:
Yeah, there are already tools which are able to cook custom ROMs, deodex them, zipalign them, and otherwise perform modifications on them. I think this sounds like a great idea; however I'd just keep it as a complement to a ROM, not an entire replacement for a kitchen.
Good work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course there are tools available to do those, but currently, these tools are fragmented and spread all over, thus making it difficult for budding chefs.
While an online kitchen is good, I have my reservation as well. It does limits the rom choices. Everyone is dictated by the developer on which rom he will put in, and lesser known roms will be left out.
Perhaps at this point of time, an integrated approach might be too premature.
I really look forward to the day when such a kitchen exists for users who can have the freedom to choose what rom they want to put in.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

Nice one. I'd love to give it a go

g00ndu said:
Of course there are tools available to do those, but currently, these tools are fragmented and spread all over, thus making it difficult for budding chefs.
While an online kitchen is good, I have my reservation as well. It does limits the rom choices. Everyone is dictated by the developer on which rom he will put in, and lesser known roms will be left out.
Perhaps at this point of time, an integrated approach might be too premature.
I really look forward to the day when such a kitchen exists for users who can have the freedom to choose what rom they want to put in.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not really. Check out dsixda's HTC Kitchen: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=633246
It's a single, cross platform tool which can do everything from deodexing and zipaligning to adding root, to signing an APK, etc. It's an extremely powerful (and I believe user-friendly) tool which budding chefs are able to use in order to learn more about ROMs and Android in general. Personally I think it'd be a good idea to just keep these two applications separate (kitchens + this ROM complement) and just focus on providing as much functionality within this tool as possible as opposed to focusing on both.
Users are able to choose any ROM they want, add any applications / themes they want, etc. Essentially the user has total freedom.
Also, if you need any help with this application birgertime, I'd be glad to provide a hand.

seeARMS said:
Not really. Check out dsixda's HTC Kitchen: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=633246
It's a single, cross platform tool which can do everything from deodexing and zipaligning to adding root, to signing an APK, etc. It's an extremely powerful (and I believe user-friendly) tool which budding chefs are able to use in order to learn more about ROMs and Android in general. Personally I think it'd be a good idea to just keep these two applications separate (kitchens + this ROM complement) and just focus on providing as much functionality within this tool as possible as opposed to focusing on both.
Users are able to choose any ROM they want, add any applications / themes they want, etc. Essentially the user has total freedom.
Also, if you need any help with this application birgertime, I'd be glad to provide a hand.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I know about this kitchen. Thanks, but also take a look at the video guide thread, so many were complaining about problems, and that makes me wonder if it is fit for use in the first place.
Anyway, I shall check up the kitchen further, thanks.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

g00ndu said:
Yes, I know about this kitchen. Thanks, but also take a look at the video guide thread, so many were complaining about problems, and that makes me wonder if it is fit for use in the first place.
Anyway, I shall check up the kitchen further, thanks.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess users with a good amount of knowledge of Android should be using that kitchen. A lot of problems in that video thread are pretty basic and able to be solved quite easily (ie not signed, symlinking problems in the update-script, etc).
It works quite well if used correctly. I guess it's just difficult for the average user to pick it up and start creating a ROM (however, I think it was intended for advanced users in the first place).

OP updated, need i9k devs to give this a go!

Looking good. Gonna test it out in a few,

TextSecure 2.0.6 without GCM/PUSH

Many are aware of my recent concern about this app relying on Google proprietary GCM network and spying Google Services Framework.
Here is TextSecure 2.0.6 compiled by myself from source, but without GCM/Push/GSF/Googleplay/Google Account.. No Google services required to use it at all. All other features are preserved including the latest encryption protocols. This is pure SMS with no internet needed. I am sharing this app under GPL3 license.
INSTRUCTIONS: Unzip and install as a regular app. Keep in mind that you have to uninstall previous versions as they are signed with different signature. Just back up your app with Titanium backup and restore data only.
Source: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/TextSecure
Creidt to original developer Moxie Marlinspike.

You pretend like it's not possible to use the current version without GCM/GSF installed, which is plain wrong.
It works very well, there is simply a message that tells the user he/she won't be able to use push messages without GCM.
You are basically telling people to trust that you didn't mess with it, instead of trusting Moxie (an accomplished security expert) and Open Whisper Systems.
If you want people to use this, you should release the source code, which you are already required to do by the GPL (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic), add documentation how an identical build can be built and the hash of it.
It's also funny that your "pure SMS with no internet needed" version still requires full internet access in the permissions...

lindworm said:
You pretend like it's not possible to use the current version without GCM/GSF installed, which is plain wrong.
It works very well, there is simply a message that tells the user he/she won't be able to use push messages without GCM.
You are basically telling people to trust that you didn't mess with it, instead of trusting Moxie (an accomplished security expert) and Open Whisper Systems.
If you want people to use this, you should release the source code, which you are already required to do by the GPL (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic), add documentation how an identical build can be built and the hash of it.
It's also funny that your "pure SMS with no internet needed" version still requires full internet access in the permissions...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What a pure bull...
I am not telling people to trust me. All I did was remove Push and GCM ability. And all I need to say is what I said in the original post. That's it. Now, here, unlike Google blobs, the app could be decompiled and easily examined.
Now, with each your response, I am more and more convinced that the development is compromised...

[ROM][OFFICIAL] RattlesnakeOS [Android 9.0]

Intro
This is a bit different than most postings here, as I'm not providing any binaries to install on your phone and instead providing a simple tool, rattlesnakeos-stack, to build your own OS based on AOSP on a regular basis, with your own signing keys, and your own OTA updates. This probably will be interesting to a small subset of users as it does cost money to run this infrastructure in AWS.
What is RattlesnakeOS
RattlesnakeOS is privacy focused Android OS based on AOSP for Google Pixel phones. It is my migration strategy away from CopperheadOS (hence the name similarity) which is no longer maintained.
Features:
Based on latest AOSP 9.0 (Android P)
Support for Google Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL
Monthly software and firmware security fixes delivered through built in OTA updater
Maintain verified boot with a locked bootloader just like official Android but with your own personal signing keys
Latest Chromium browser and webview
Latest F-Droid client and privileged extension
Free of Google’s apps and services
What is rattlesnakeos-stack
Rather than providing random binaries of RattlesnakeOS to install on your phone, I've gone the route of creating a cross platform tool, rattlesnakeos-stack, that provisions all of the AWS infrastructure needed to continuously build your own personal RattlesnakeOS, with your own signing keys, and your own OTA updates. It uses AWS Lambda to provision EC2 spot instances that build RattlesnakeOS and upload artifacts to S3. Resulting OS builds are configured to receive over the air updates from this environment. It only costs a few dollars a month to run (see FAQ for detailed cost breakdown).
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How do I set this up?
Head over to the github repo and take a look at the README for full setup, build, and flashing instructions.

then this thread should be in the guides section IMHO.

Hi, when the rom will be available to download?
Thanks

cesarguaro said:
Hi, when the rom will be available to download?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Read literally the first sentence.

Looks like some amazing work. Haven't had time yet to test it out yet. Hopefully soon though.

Well, if I understand it the right way, I'm able to setup my own room without programming knowledge?
And if I won't use OTA, can I create flashable updates too?
Thanks in advance,
Rashka

MKRashka said:
Well, if I understand it the right way, I'm able to setup my own room without programming knowledge?
And if I won't use OTA, can I create flashable updates too?
Thanks in advance,
Rashka
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, this allows you to create your own builds of a ROM which by default is pretty much stock AOSP with the features mentioned in the original post. It is possible to customize it with some more advanced options that were added recently to allow patches and prebuilt APKs, but those options do require some knowledge of building AOSP.
By default the OTA updater app is included in the build process and by default it will point at your specific AWS environment where successful builds end up, so the only way to easily disable OTA updates at the moment would be to in the updater app settings change the channel from 'stable' to 'beta' (as all builds are set to stable). You could still manually download the OTA zip files produced by successful builds and stored in S3 and manually flash them.

dantheman78 said:
Yes, this allows you to create your own builds of a ROM which by default is pretty much stock AOSP with the features mentioned in the original post. It is possible to customize it with some more advanced options that were added recently to allow patches and prebuilt APKs, but those options do require some knowledge of building AOSP.
By default the OTA updater app is included in the build process and by default it will point at your specific AWS environment where successful builds end up, so the only way to easily disable OTA updates at the moment would be to in the updater app settings change the channel from 'stable' to 'beta' (as all builds are set to stable). You could still manually download the OTA zip files produced by successful builds and stored in S3 and manually flash them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, I will definitely try this as soon as I got time for it.
Is this for pixel 2 only or can I use it for multiple devices?

MKRashka said:
OK, I will definitely try this as soon as I got time for it.
Is this for pixel 2 only or can I use it for multiple devices?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It supports Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL. Currently you'd have to create a different stack for each device you wanted to create builds for.

Hey, This is my first time trying anything with AWS, but I think I have the basic setup down. It honestly took me a bit, as setting up a free account, and then trying to run an instance was showing that I had 0 instances available, till I realized I could start a EC2 Spot Instance, which is likely what you meant in the README. (However, setting up a Spot Instance is actually a page later than where the readme says to launch the instance, hence my confusion. I just had to click continue and run a c5.4xlarge Spot Instance instead.) However, when I go to deploy it, I get the following error as the last line that will output so far. (Currently attempting to do this on windows, as my debian box is just now being set up again. If need be, I could switch to that system, especially as I have most everything else set up, it'd just be a pain, as I've yet to set up the non-free wireless drivers on that system, and don't feel like dragging that tower out next to the router at the moment.):
[36mINFO[0m[0000] Downloading Terraform binary from URL: https://releases.hashicorp.com/terraform/0.11.8/terraform_0.11.8_windows_amd64.zip
[31mFATA[0m[0004] Failed to create terraform client: chmod C:\Users\******\AppData\Local\Temp\rattlesnakeos-stack580992971\terraform: The system cannot find the file specified.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Any idea what I could be doing wrong in this case? It looks like it could be because it's trying to run chmod on a windows file that ends with .exe (as I can find a terraform.exe file in the temp folders, but no terraform), while the system is expecting it to be in linux with no .exe file extension? Thanks in advance, can't wait to get a working build going, as this is exactly what I've been looking for since the management at CopperheadOS went all stupid.

schreckles said:
Hey, This is my first time trying anything with AWS, but I think I have the basic setup down. It honestly took me a bit, as setting up a free account, and then trying to run an instance was showing that I had 0 instances available, till I realized I could start a EC2 Spot Instance, which is likely what you meant in the README. (However, setting up a Spot Instance is actually a page later than where the readme says to launch the instance, hence my confusion. I just had to click continue and run a c5.4xlarge Spot Instance instead.) However, when I go to deploy it, I get the following error as the last line that will output so far. (Currently attempting to do this on windows, as my debian box is just now being set up again. If need be, I could switch to that system, especially as I have most everything else set up, it'd just be a pain, as I've yet to set up the non-free wireless drivers on that system, and don't feel like dragging that tower out next to the router at the moment.):
Any idea what I could be doing wrong in this case? It looks like it could be because it's trying to run chmod on a windows file that ends with .exe (as I can find a terraform.exe file in the temp folders, but no terraform), while the system is expecting it to be in linux with no .exe file extension? Thanks in advance, can't wait to get a working build going, as this is exactly what I've been looking for since the management at CopperheadOS went all stupid.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey there! Sorry about the issue with Windows (I haven't done much testing there as I don't have a Windows box). I am working on a new release and will add in a fix for this.
If there is anything I can do to clear up the README, let me know. The intention is that I want people with a new account to launch an EC2 instance of the same size (could be on demand or a spot instance - doesn't really matter) that will be launched for builds of the OS (c5.4xlarge). New accounts are sometimes not allowed to launch EC2 instances of this size, so this is just meant to be a verification step.

dantheman78 said:
Hey there! Sorry about the issue with Windows (I haven't done much testing there as I don't have a Windows box). I am working on a new release and will add in a fix for this.
If there is anything I can do to clear up the README, let me know. The intention is that I want people with a new account to launch an EC2 instance of the same size (could be on demand or a spot instance - doesn't really matter) that will be launched for builds of the OS (c5.4xlarge). New accounts are sometimes not allowed to launch EC2 instances of this size, so this is just meant to be a verification step.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No worries, looking at the output, I kind of figured that's all it was, but I'll gladly continue to test for you, even though I'm a first-timer.
For the readme, I actually think it's very clear, and I think the main reason I had issue is the fact that my AWS is a brand new free account as of today. When going through the EC2 console, I was unable to set up a c5.4xlarge instance, but it would allow me to set up spot instance instead, if I went to the next page. If the RattlesnakeOS-stack tool uses Spot Instances, it should be just fine. However, if it depends on a regular EC2 Instance, new users may need to request an increase to their instance limit at http://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/ec2-request
Otherwise, from what I'm seeing so far, this seems to be a great way to get a more private, more secure Android ROM built with one's own signing keys, so I'm excited to have such a responsive dev working on such a project.
In the meantime, I'm also working on getting my debian box back up (was trying PureOS, but for my system I needed non-free drivers, which kind of makes PureOS a moot point, so I'm heading back to debian for the time being.)
Thanks again, and I'll continue to follow the progress!

schreckles said:
No worries, looking at the output, I kind of figured that's all it was, but I'll gladly continue to test for you, even though I'm a first-timer.
For the readme, I actually think it's very clear, and I think the main reason I had issue is the fact that my AWS is a brand new free account as of today. When going through the EC2 console, I was unable to set up a c5.4xlarge instance, but it would allow me to set up spot instance instead, if I went to the next page. If the RattlesnakeOS-stack tool uses Spot Instances, it should be just fine. However, if it depends on a regular EC2 Instance, new users may need to request an increase to their instance limit at http://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/ec2-request
Otherwise, from what I'm seeing so far, this seems to be a great way to get a more private, more secure Android ROM built with one's own signing keys, so I'm excited to have such a responsive dev working on such a project.
In the meantime, I'm also working on getting my debian box back up (was trying PureOS, but for my system I needed non-free drivers, which kind of makes PureOS a moot point, so I'm heading back to debian for the time being.)
Thanks again, and I'll continue to follow the progress!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the additional details! I pushed a new release https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack/releases/ with my best guess fixes for Windows. Let me know if it works or not - if not I'll break down and spin up a Windows box to test it out

dantheman78 said:
Thanks for the additional details! I pushed a new release https://github.com/dan-v/rattlesnakeos-stack/releases/ with my best guess fixes for Windows. Let me know if it works or not - if not I'll break down and spin up a Windows box to test it out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So far, looks like your best guesses for a windows box are pretty good. It seems to have gone alright so far, as it says it successfully deployed AWS resources, created a new topic I can subscribe to, created new folders in my S3 bucket, but I'm not seeing any running instances, yet, so we'll see. (Since I wasn't seeing any instances running yet (and I do have an instance available, as I requested and got approved for one a couple hours ago) I also tried to manually build, following the readme, which was clear enough, but looks to be the same, so I'll wait a bit and see if amazon just needs to catch up.)
Again, it's great to have such a responsive dev with this kind of stuff, that'll be new to a lot of the community members, so thank you again!

schreckles said:
So far, looks like your best guesses for a windows box are pretty good. It seems to have gone alright so far, as it says it successfully deployed AWS resources, created a new topic I can subscribe to, created new folders in my S3 bucket, but I'm not seeing any running instances, yet, so we'll see. (Since I wasn't seeing any instances running yet (and I do have an instance available, as I requested and got approved for one a couple hours ago) I also tried to manually build, following the readme, which was clear enough, but looks to be the same, so I'll wait a bit and see if amazon just needs to catch up.)
Again, it's great to have such a responsive dev with this kind of stuff, that'll be new to a lot of the community members, so thank you again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I'm not sure what I did/am doing wrong, but when I try to manually run a build from the Lambda Manager, it runs in 6-8 seconds, and I get a success, but there's no output, and nothing new saves to the S3 bucket. Once Debian is done installing (setting up encrypted LVM takes a while, as it overwrites every block on the hard drive randomly), I'm going to try setting up everything from there as well, to see if it's an issue of how I set up AWS somehow or with how the stack tool ran on Windows.
Edit: Looks like my first build just got done building, and took about 5h18m, so right on track. I thought I'd had android SDK set up on here, but I guess all the old stuff I'd done was solely on a linux box (which I'm still resetting up, since that overwrite of an 8 TB drive for encryption took quite a bit.) So, now the debate is between setting up on Windows vs waiting till I've got everything situated in Debian. I work tomorrow, so I won't get much done, but should be able to either after work or in the following couple days. Thanks again for the repatch to fix Windows...looks like that did the trick.

schreckles said:
Yeah, I'm not sure what I did/am doing wrong, but when I try to manually run a build from the Lambda Manager, it runs in 6-8 seconds, and I get a success, but there's no output, and nothing new saves to the S3 bucket. Once Debian is done installing (setting up encrypted LVM takes a while, as it overwrites every block on the hard drive randomly), I'm going to try setting up everything from there as well, to see if it's an issue of how I set up AWS somehow or with how the stack tool ran on Windows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Lambda function should take just a few seconds to execute - it should also tell you where it is launching the EC2 spot instance for the build - probably Ohio region (us-east-2) as it's usually the cheapest at the moment. The initial build will take 5 hours or so on a c5.4xlarge because it's building Chromium in addition to normal AOSP build. If you have executed the Lambda function multiple times manually, you may have multiple builds running (go to Ohio region if that's where it launched in EC2 console and double check), and feel free to terminate any additional instances if that's the case.

dantheman78 said:
The Lambda function should take just a few seconds to execute - it should also tell you where it is launching the EC2 spot instance for the build - probably Ohio region (us-east-2) as it's usually the cheapest at the moment. The initial build will take 5 hours or so on a c5.4xlarge because it's building Chromium in addition to normal AOSP build. If you have executed the Lambda function multiple times manually, you may have multiple builds running (go to Ohio region if that's where it launched in EC2 console and double check), and feel free to terminate any additional instances if that's the case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aha...that's exactly what it was. I had figured since I pointed Rattlesnake to US-East-1 (N. Virginia) it would automatically run there, so I didn't see it, but it ran, finished, and I'm not worried about spending a few extra bucks on learning something like this, so no biggie. It just happened to run twice. Will be setting up my SDK this evening (thought I'd had it on windows, but that may have been on my old thinkpad and my linux box instead, come to think of it) and install either tomorrow night after work or the day or two after. Thanks again for all the help and for such a well thought out guide to begin with!

schreckles said:
Aha...that's exactly what it was. I had figured since I pointed Rattlesnake to US-East-1 (N. Virginia) it would automatically run there, so I didn't see it, but it ran, finished, and I'm not worried about spending a few extra bucks on learning something like this, so no biggie. It just happened to run twice. Will be setting up my SDK this evening (thought I'd had it on windows, but that may have been on my old thinkpad and my linux box instead, come to think of it) and install either tomorrow night after work or the day or two after. Thanks again for all the help and for such a well thought out guide to begin with!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome! Glad you got it all worked out.

The hilarious irony part: now I wait for my Pixel 2 to be RMA'd for the camera failing, literally minutes before I was going to flash my phone last night. At least now, I have my Debian box set back up as my dev environment, have my nextcloud server set up, and a few other little things set up in preparation and in the name of privacy.

Questions about Privacy and MicroG
First off, thanks for developing this ROM, I believe it serves a very valuable purpose. I have two questions:
1. Unless I overlooked something, you state in the headline that this ROM is privacy focused but the features you have listed do not include any privacy features (other than no GApps and F-Droid which can be achieved using most custom ROMs). What makes the ROM privacy focused? Can we assume that apart from the features you listed, the privacy and security features of CopperheadOS are present in RattlesnakeOS?
2. Can MicroG be used (as a GApps alternative) with RattlesnakeOS, I know this was not possible with CopperheadOS as the developer did not want to implement signature spoofing. Is this still the case?
The MicroG team makes a rather convincing argument that allowing signature spootfing is an acceptable risk/trade-off for certain users.
edit: for anyone else interested in MicroG I found this related discussion on Reddit

Finally dumped Apple for Galaxy Tab S - A few questions if I may....

Hi all, I have finally had enough of Apple (and planned obsolescence!). I have never used Android before, got myself a Galaxy Tab S and once I learn how to use it well, I will be dumping my faulty iPhone in favour of a Galaxy phone as well.
I bought a used Tab S with 4G in lovely condition. Just turned it on and it says Insert Sim. I skipped that and it said "Many features will not work without an active Sim".
Therefore the first question I have is how much to read into that message?! Do I believe it? I don\'t plan on using a data Sim, only want to use WiFi. Will the Tab S work just fine without a cellular SIM or is it going to give me constant errors and problems? If the latter I may have to sell it in favour of a non SIM version. Any advice appreciated. I quite like the idea of being ABLE to use a data SIM if I want to some time, hence why I bought it.
Second question is I DESPISE Google and all the tracking stuff. I use a VPN much of the time. A friend of mine has a Galaxy Tab and said I should "root" the device. Can anyone tell me the main benefits of doing so? I am trying to work out how necessary is it (as I am short of time so won't do it unless it will give me benefits). I intend to use VPN and try my best to prevent google tracking what I watch on youtube, what searches I do, and just about anything else I can. I also notice that for Earth and Maps to work, I obviously need to let it know my location (which I don't generally like doing but understand the trade off and will do it in this case). Is there a way (perhaps via rooting) to enable GPS location sharing without feeding GOOGLE my whereabouts (i.e. using other map software instead of Google's)?
I am blown away by the quality of this device. thanks for anyone who has time to offer their thoughts on the above. Thanks

Welcome to the real world, Neo!
SIM Card allows having such things like mobile data (this works just the same as the iPad LTE) and voice calls from a tablet (this feature is unique to Android - you can make voice calls just like it is a big phone, using either built-in mic and speakers or via Bluetooth headset). If the SIM is not inserted, there will be no problems - you can safely dismiss the warning.
Regarding the Google-free experience and rooting. Rooting is direct equivalent to iOS jailbreak. Both result in getting root shell (# or uid 0).
To root the Tab, you must flash the CF-Autoroot via Odin: https://www.theandroidsoul.com/root...10-5-lte-sm-t805-one-click-cf-auto-root-tool/ This is for 10.5 LTE aka SM-T805, for 8.4 LTE aka SM-T705 the instruction is similar: https://www.theandroidsoul.com/root...-8-4-lte-sm-t705-one-click-cf-auto-root-tool/
Also it is good to flash the TWRP recovery after you get root to get a rich recovery environment helping you to backup and restore your device, flash custom ROMs etc.nMore info here: https://twrp.me/FAQ/
Dont hesitate to ask questions once they arise.
---------- Post added at 02:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:12 PM ----------
Ph, and forgot to mention Google free experience. Once you get root, you can debloat your stock ROM but I'd advise flashing a LineageOS ROM for newer Android version and latest security patches. Also, Google services are not present by default in LineageOs but can be flashed separately. However, I am already more than a year without Google services and apps.
For example, I use K-9 Mail + OpenKeychain from F-Droid open-source app market to use GMail with OpenPGP support.
F-Droid is the primary marketplace app having opensource applications. For closed-source apps available on Google Play, the open-source Google Play client app named Yalp Store offers the same functionality as play market but not requiring Google services.
Youtube client I use is Newpipe, opensource app available in F-Droid. There are other clients too, like SkyTube.
Google Maps can be replaced by OsmAnd+ - an opensource client for OpenStreetMap infrastructure, again available from F-Droid app store.
Office application suite I recommend is Hancom Office - it is free for Samsung devices, and it processes documents faster than Office365.
Also, I made it work on LineageOS and other custom ROMs.
I use Brave Browser as a primary Web browser, as it is opensource app based on Google Chromium code but heavily de-Googled and having some cool features like embedded ad-blocker.
Hope this helps you a bit.

gellmar said:
Welcome to the real world, Neo!
SIM Card allows having such things like mobile data (this works just the same as the iPad LTE) and voice calls from a tablet (this feature is unique to Android - you can make voice calls just like it is a big phone, using either built-in mic and speakers or via Bluetooth headset). If the SIM is not inserted, there will be no problems - you can safely dismiss the warning.
Regarding the Google-free experience and rooting. Rooting is direct equivalent to iOS jailbreak. Both result in getting root shell (# or uid 0).
To root the Tab, you must flash the CF-Autoroot via Odin: https://www.theandroidsoul.com/root...10-5-lte-sm-t805-one-click-cf-auto-root-tool/ This is for 10.5 LTE aka SM-T805, for 8.4 LTE aka SM-T705 the instruction is similar: https://www.theandroidsoul.com/root...-8-4-lte-sm-t705-one-click-cf-auto-root-tool/
Also it is good to flash the TWRP recovery after you get root to get a rich recovery environment helping you to backup and restore your device, flash custom ROMs etc.nMore info here: https://twrp.me/FAQ/
Dont hesitate to ask questions once they arise.
---------- Post added at 02:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:12 PM ----------
Ph, and forgot to mention Google free experience. Once you get root, you can debloat your stock ROM but I'd advise flashing a LineageOS ROM for newer Android version and latest security patches. Also, Google services are not present by default in LineageOs but can be flashed separately. However, I am already more than a year without Google services and apps.
For example, I use K-9 Mail + OpenKeychain from F-Droid open-source app market to use GMail with OpenPGP support.
F-Droid is the primary marketplace app having opensource applications. For closed-source apps available on Google Play, the open-source Google Play client app named Yalp Store offers the same functionality as play market but not requiring Google services.
Youtube client I use is Newpipe, opensource app available in F-Droid. There are other clients too, like SkyTube.
Google Maps can be replaced by OsmAnd+ - an opensource client for OpenStreetMap infrastructure, again available from F-Droid app store.
Office application suite I recommend is Hancom Office - it is free for Samsung devices, and it processes documents faster than Office365.
Also, I made it work on LineageOS and other custom ROMs.
I use Brave Browser as a primary Web browser, as it is opensource app based on Google Chromium code but heavily de-Googled and having some cool features like embedded ad-blocker.
Hope this helps you a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Crikey!! Can't thank you enough for the time and effort there, what a great welcome to the other side
I confess most of what you said went straight over my head, ROMS and such like, but I will learn as there are clearly some great tips in this post.
So - fine without SIM, cool thanks.
Flashing - gonna take some time to learn but I think the link you posted is what I need, I have the SM-T800
So Lineage is an OS, is that right? And it comes free of Google bloatware/spyware?
I can't believe there are ways to view youtube and maps etc without giving Google your retinal scan. JUST what I hope to do!
Brave Browser - not heard of that, was gonna look for Firefox or Waterfox and set it up myself with RTC discabled, Ublockorigin etc etc (if poss) but maybe don't need to now as Brave sounds built to do what I want already.
Thanks again, great post

marrteee said:
Crikey!! Can't thank you enough for the time and effort there, what a great welcome to the other side
I confess most of what you said went straight over my head, ROMS and such like, but I will learn as there are clearly some great tips in this post.
So - fine without SIM, cool thanks.
Flashing - gonna take some time to learn but I think the link you posted is what I need, I have the SM-T800
So Lineage is an OS, is that right? And it comes free of Google bloatware/spyware?
I can't believe there are ways to view youtube and maps etc without giving Google your retinal scan. JUST what I hope to do!
Brave Browser - not heard of that, was gonna look for Firefox or Waterfox and set it up myself with RTC discabled, Ublockorigin etc etc (if poss) but maybe don't need to now as Brave sounds built to do what I want already.
Thanks again, great post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Strange the T800 has no dedicated SIM slot, it is WiFi only. T805 does have a SIM card though. You can check it opening Settings - Phone info. Also you can use the dialer to enter a magic code *#1234# to get info about your firmware (pay attention to PDA and CSC values). Would be good if you provide these here before you start any flashing.
LineageOS is a community built distribution of Android OS (like Ubuntu or Debian are GNU/Linux distributions) with some additional tweaks like Privacy Guard (a framework giving you control about permissions application ask, like a consent or denial to read contacts, GPS location, phone number etc). Full disclosure: I am an official maintainer of LineageOS for SM-T805 and I belong to the team creating LineageOS for other devices on the same chipset, like SM-T800, SM-T705, SM-T700, SM-P600 etc. There are also ResurrectionRemix ROM based on LineageOS and also there are de-bloated stock ROMs based on latest available Android 6.0.1 official factory OS. The official LineageOS is based on Android 7.1.2, and there is a (not very stable) 8.1.0.
I was a long-term fan of Firefox on Android (and I still am on PC!), but Chromium engine is twice as fast on our tablet (90.08 for Brave vs 45.04 for Firefox in browser benchmark)

SORRY! The seller called it a T800 but I checked and yes it's a T805.
I am SO busy at the moment with work and family stuff, not sure when I can get round to this and it looks like I have a lot of learning to come which I am dreading a bit with my schedule as it is! Don't suppose there is any chance someone (if not yourself) on this forum offers any kind of service? By that I mean, I post the Tab with cash to cover the job, and someone roots it and does the things you have mentioned then post it back? Probably a bit too much wishful thinking, but if you don't ask.......

marrteee said:
SORRY! The seller called it a T800 but I checked and yes it's a T805.
I am SO busy at the moment with work and family stuff, not sure when I can get round to this and it looks like I have a lot of learning to come which I am dreading a bit with my schedule as it is! Don't suppose there is any chance someone (if not yourself) on this forum offers any kind of service? By that I mean, I post the Tab with cash to cover the job, and someone roots it and does the things you have mentioned then post it back? Probably a bit too much wishful thinking, but if you don't ask.......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This can be done remotely via TeamViewer - you can be around and follow my commands like press home button etc. The rest is done via ADB on PC side. But write me in PM next week - I have some things to do that I promised before.

That's too kind of you. Not sure if you mean Teamviewer with the actual device or another computer. I am in no hurry at all. My device is factory stock right now, been reset and I am not doing anything with it for now.
Thanks again

I don't suppose (given your knowledge of privacy issues etc) you know of a secure alternative to Skype? I am talking mainly about a desktop app. I have researched many times over the past year and it seems to me that every time something decent gets going, they get shut down or just close down without much explanation. Sure seems suspicious in some cases. Best I could find was ViPole, which is good although has some weaknesses. I can't believe nobody has made something that can do the basic stuff Skype can do! (text, video/voice, screenshare and file share). It's so simple by today's standards! Of course plenty of options until you get to P2P or encryption, then there seems to be nothing which actually works very well at all! Just in case you know of anything?

marrteee said:
I don't suppose (given your knowledge of privacy issues etc) you know of a secure alternative to Skype? I am talking mainly about a desktop app. I have researched many times over the past year and it seems to me that every time something decent gets going, they get shut down or just close down without much explanation. Sure seems suspicious in some cases. Best I could find was ViPole, which is good although has some weaknesses. I can't believe nobody has made something that can do the basic stuff Skype can do! (text, video/voice, screenshare and file share). It's so simple by today's standards! Of course plenty of options until you get to P2P or encryption, then there seems to be nothing which actually works very well at all! Just in case you know of anything?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look for Signal and qTox.

Thanks. Tried and still use Signal, although it's got some flaws and not at all sure I trust the privacy side. I really need screenshare too which it doesn't have.
qtox and utox i have tried, tried all the tox chat programs. Completely buggy and unusable. Nice and secure though , which makes it a shame they can't make the software work properly! notifications dont work, cam, calls completely broken. unusable.
I looked at variuos others but it's all going over to apps for smartphones and tabs now, I want a desktop app. Maybe Skype through VPN would help a bit, but not ideal!
Thanks again

marrteee said:
Thanks. Tried and still use Signal, although it's got some flaws and not at all sure I trust the privacy side. I really need screenshare too which it doesn't have.
qtox and utox i have tried, tried all the tox chat programs. Completely buggy and unusable. Nice and secure though , which makes it a shame they can't make the software work properly! notifications dont work, cam, calls completely broken. unusable.
I looked at variuos others but it's all going over to apps for smartphones and tabs now, I want a desktop app. Maybe Skype through VPN would help a bit, but not ideal!
Thanks again
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To accelerate the process of bringing up the quality of opensource projects, one must at least report the bugs timely. Have you filed a feature request? We all donate either our money, or our time to the community. Some of us donate both

Ha, yes I do make reports whenever I spot anything. I am talking to one of the developers about it but I don't see it getting fixed as the impetus seems to have gone and no way they will add screenshare I dont think. I will try though yes, least I can do in the hope that someone produces something useful but not "in bed" with the government!

Hidden Google Account + Hidden Systemadminapp in LineageOS | Privacy infiltrated?...

Is the builtin app named "Storagemanager" a hidden system administrator in LineageOS 19.1?
I ask this because in LineageOS 14.1 Storagemanager is a systemadministrator app.
In LineageOS 14.1 under > settings > apps > special app access > deviceadministrators, nothing showed up by default, but then i pressed the three dots on the top right and selected "show system", then storage manager was shown as active system administrator app.
I had the option to disable it, which i did, as i dont want ANY app to be administrator as i consider myself as the device owner being the administrator in place, no need for an app to have any such administrative permissions.
Now in LineageOS 19.1 when you navigate to > settings > apps > special app access > deviceadministrators > the three dots on the top right corner to show system apps ARE GONE.
This makes me think storage manager is a secret/hidden system administrator that cannot be disabled in lineageOS 19.1 because the three dots at the top right have been removed in 19.1 basically making it IMPOSSIBLE to the device owner to remove unwanted systemadministrator apps.
If infact storagemanager is a secret systemadministrator app, why is that so, why was the option to disable this app from being a system administrator removed??
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Another question, in LineageOS 14.1 when i tried to open the calendar app, there was a prompt/popup saying "to use the calendar app you must add atleast one google account to your phone".
To be honest that scared me... considering that i use LineageOS purely for privacy and Google is the opposite of privacy.
That being said please keep in mind (this is very important), in LineageOS 14.1 when i opened the calendar app i was asked to add a Google account...
Here comes the things, in LineageOS 19.1 when i open the calendar app the prompt/popup says this: "before you can use the calendar app you must add atleast one calendar account".
That sounds very suspicious to me, because in 14.1 it was called google account and now in 19.1 its called callendar account, obviously my question is now... is the callendar account a google account just being called out in another way...?? If yes this is obviously a major manipulation because not naming google here will trick most likely any LineageOS user to creating a callendar account without even knowing that in reality what they just did was to create a goolge account on their privacy phone...... what sort of manipulative person would make such a nightmare come true? At this point i must ask if LineageOS even is a privacy option anymore... or has it been inflitrated by google already...
Another suspicous change i detected after switching from LineageOS 14.1 to 19.1 is that under > settings > apps > special app access > useage access, zero apps are listed, but once i pressed the three dots in the top right corner, bluetooth, media storage, nfc service, package installer, permissions controller, phone services, shell, storage manager, and systemui where ALL shown as "access to useage data = allowed". This really makes me woonder what is going on with LineageOS, what reason is there to grant all these apps access to useage data by default?? In LineageOS 14.1 there was not a single app even the system ones, that had useage data access set to allowed, infact in 14.1 all apps where set to be not allowed to access useage data. What is going on here and why??
Another change i noticed from LineageOS 14.1 to 19.1 is that under > settings > privacy, in 14.1 i was able to edit individual app permissions and enable or disable the privacy mode, in 19.1 there seems to be a new service so called "trust" which is responsible for privacy, im fine with that, however i am missing a very important privacy setting that was present in 14.1 but is not in 19.1 and that is "start on boot". On 14.1 i was able to select any specific app and deny or allow it's access to start itself on boot. Why is this important setting not present in 19.1?
In 19.1 under > settings > privacy > permissions manager, there is no option to deny apps to "start on boot".
My guess is, either 19.1 blocks all apps from starting on boot by default, or it allows it by default for all apps and there is simply no option to stop that which would be a major privacy downgrade compared to older versions...

thank you for posting this, my eyes have been opened.

Already 100+ views but only 1 comment, hmm...
Nobody knows anything?
I seriously want to get ansers to the above questions... these are real concerns to me.

My questions don't seem to get to much attention here, not even to mention a reply.
Does anyone know a forum or another place where i can ask what is written above?
I wan't answers, these are real privacy concerns!

Hmmm. I don't have answers to your specific questions. In another thread, you posted, generally, that most people don't care about your concerns. Very true. I wholeheartedly support you advocating your views; however encourage you to tread lightly if you want people to reply to you.
The only sure answer to your situation, and for me, also, is to grab the source of the rom which suits you, one without gapps, and then hire a dev to help go through the source to answer your questions. Then edit as needed and re-compile.
I am familiar enough with the process in general however don't have the skills to do it myself. LOS and its variants are probably a good place to start. I am using a vanilla build of RROS on A10 on a Oneplus8 pro. Since we have tools for A11 that is good but the tools generally aren't available for some time after a new Android release.
Your question might be asked of the Lineage devs, though I am sure they are busy and they are not forcing you to use their (free) product. There are also Linux phones available, although so far the hardware I have seen is not great.
What phone are you using? If you are serious about this, and are willing to support a dev project as above, we would have to settle on one or two similar OSes on the same Android version, and hire someone for a few days. This would be expensive. I, for one, would contribute. If we found 10 or 20 like minded people a crowdfunding page could be set up. If we did not reach the necessary amount then the money could be refunded.
To tell the truth, G keeps putting more obstacles in the way of modders and I am getting to the point where its not worth the trouble. Hopefully the hardware for Linux phones will improve.
Thoughts??

gregpilot said:
Hmmm. I don't have answers to your specific questions. In another thread, you posted, generally, that most people don't care about your concerns. Very true. I wholeheartedly support you advocating your views; however encourage you to tread lightly if you want people to reply to you.
The only sure answer to your situation, and for me, also, is to grab the source of the rom which suits you, one without gapps, and then hire a dev to help go through the source to answer your questions. Then edit as needed and re-compile.
I am familiar enough with the process in general however don't have the skills to do it myself. LOS and its variants are probably a good place to start. I am using a vanilla build of RROS on A10 on a Oneplus8 pro. Since we have tools for A11 that is good but the tools generally aren't available for some time after a new Android release.
Your question might be asked of the Lineage devs, though I am sure they are busy and they are not forcing you to use their (free) product. There are also Linux phones available, although so far the hardware I have seen is not great.
What phone are you using? If you are serious about this, and are willing to support a dev project as above, we would have to settle on one or two similar OSes on the same Android version, and hire someone for a few days. This would be expensive. I, for one, would contribute. If we found 10 or 20 like minded people a crowdfunding page could be set up. If we did not reach the necessary amount then the money could be refunded.
To tell the truth, G keeps putting more obstacles in the way of modders and I am getting to the point where its not worth the trouble. Hopefully the hardware for Linux phones will improve.
Thoughts??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My knownledge on programming is very limited, i would not be able to contribute to any meaningful software really. Indeed my language can quickly become not so nice when it comes to privacy, i don't like how the masses throw away their freedom.
Think about it, google chrome holds around 60% market share, then combine all chromium browsers and we are at around 90% while Firefox is at around 4%. Then think about how many people use Gmail and how many use privacy alternatives like Protonmail. Think about how many people use the standard google android os on their phone and how many have iphones and compare that to how many people use a linux phone or a custom os like lineage or graphene...
Anyone can protect their privacy, there are many great videos on youtube.
Here are some examples:
The Hated One
Creating deeply researched and well-sourced essays critiquing some of the most important issues of our time in a non-partisan, non-sectarian way. Mass surveillance is a backdoor into freedom of speech. Knowledge is power. And power corrupts. https://twitter.com/The_HatedOne_...
yewtu.be
Rob Braxman Tech
I'm the Internet Privacy Guy. I'm a public interest hacker and technologist. I use my extensive knowledge of cybersecurity and tech to serve the public good. I care about privacy. I warn you of digital manipulation, disinformation, mass surveillance. I also discuss alternative communication...
yewtu.be
Techlore
Techlore was built to prove privacy & security are not just achievable - but simple and accessible. We manage several projects, communities, and content to spread privacy & security to the masses. Visit our Website: https://techlore.tech
yewtu.be
Mental Outlaw
Only cool people visit https://based.win/
yewtu.be
Naomi Brockwell: NBTV
www.nbtv.media NBTV teaches people how to reclaim control of their lives in the digital age. We give people the tools they need to take back their data, money, and free online expression. - Your Money - Your Data - Your Life Empower Yourself. Created and hosted by Naomi Brockwell Our...
yewtu.be
Louis Rossmann
I discuss random things of interest to me. This is, and always will be, my personal variety show. I teach Macbook component level logic board repair from a common sense, everyman's perspective. I try to make it seem viable, and entertaining. I also go over business concepts & philosophy that...
yewtu.be
The Linux Experiment
Making Linux accessible: no techno lingo, no super technical content. Just Linux desktop news, simple tutorials, application spotlights, and opinion pieces trying to stay positive, without gatekeeping. 👏 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and...
yewtu.be
I use yewtu.be over youtube.com to avoid google.
See, google chrome and google search know all of your browsing history, there is no privacy, they make a profile of everyone who uses any of their services. Even if you use google without an account chances are they can identify you and your device. Same with gmail... it reads (scans) all of your emails and sell the content to adverstisers. I don't know how people can be ****** enough to use these services when you can simply switch to alternatives that are working perfectly flawless and don't spy on you.
Privacy can be easy.
Instead of google chrome > Firefox or even better Librewolf
Instead of google search > brave search or duckduckgo
Instead of gmail > protonmail
Instead of google android > lineage or graphene
It's not that hard...
Nobody forced me to use lineageos obviously i installed it on my own, i don't like the changes from 14.1 to 19.1 as they seem very suspicious to me, but i will still preffer LOS at any time over the standard google crap.
Before using a google phone id rather not use a phone at all.
Speaking about phones, people who buy iphones have lost their mind, i mean it.
My phone is a samsung S7, as long as it is functional i will not buy a new phone, besides i don't have the money now... your suggestion sounds interesting but i'm not into that really.
In the mean time i will repeat what you said, we can only wait for linux phones to support modern hardware and get one of those in the future.
GrapheneOS seems like the best choice as of now but it's really ironic that it works only on google pixel phones...

Most people don't care that they are been spied on. They are after the they easy life. Want all the mod cons to make things easier. Unfortunately you can't change peoples habits. Have started seen a lot of custom rooms with suspicious files, that makes a person wonder if google is paying the devs to include their software.

ShaunSmit said:
Most people don't care that they are been spied on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, plenty of people do. For example, just see XDA's thread for FairEmail:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...en-source-privacy-oriented-email-app.3824168/
Privacydroid said:
builtin app named "Storagemanager" a hidden system administrator in LineageOS 19.1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Privacydroid said:
My questions don't seem to get to much attention here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I am interested in and have subscribed to this topic... it's just that LOS19 is still not really a hot topic for me yet (still fighting with LOS18, lol).

SigmundDroid said:
Well, plenty of people do. For example, just see XDA's thread for FairEmail:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...en-source-privacy-oriented-email-app.3824168/
Well, I am interested in and have subscribed to this topic... it's just that LOS19 is still not really a hot topic for me yet (still fighting with LOS18, lol).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My bet lineage 1.18 is also affected by what i described above.

there might be some privacy oriented custom roms. have you checked ?
e Foundation - deGoogled unGoogled smartphone operating systems and online services - your data is your data
your data is YOUR data
e.foundation
or
Purism– Librem 5
Introducing the – Librem 5 by Purism
puri.sm

Fytdyh said:
there might be some privacy oriented custom roms. have you checked ?
e Foundation - deGoogled unGoogled smartphone operating systems and online services - your data is your data
your data is YOUR data
e.foundation
or
Purism– Librem 5
Introducing the – Librem 5 by Purism
puri.sm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Never heared about https://e.foundation/ will have a look at that one.
The librem 5 has outdated hardware and is expensive, but that's not the problem... the shipping times are totally ******. Can take years for you to ever recive that phone.
Besides, that doesn't anser any of my above questions about LOS, guess that wasn't your intention anyways.

Privacydroid said:
Never heared about https://e.foundation/ will have a look at that one.
The librem 5 has outdated hardware and is expensive, but that's not the problem... the shipping times are totally ******. Can take years for you to ever recive that phone.
Besides, that doesn't anser any of my above questions about LOS, guess that wasn't your intention anyways.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
about your privacy related inquiries, i recon that Lineage, while it used to stand for privacy in the first years, it started to be seen more as a way to get updates on no longer supported devices. and given that almost every user that uses lineage also had flashed gapps, makes sense for them to add gapps in their everyday custom rom as well. Google has its sets of downsides and upsides. Privacy is good, but functionality is more important. a lot of good apps rely on google implemented functionality. Say that i would need to drive around the country. Privacy is my preference, but i need a fully functional bugless waze. Waze without google play services is a mess, if you get it working. Android Auto without gapps isnt possible.

For my devices, at least, Lineage did not have gapps baked in. For me, a good thing. There are a few vanilla roms left out there. Even without gapps, there are still leaks to google (the captive portal connectivity check, for one) but the footprint is much smaller.
For me, I have found open source alternatives to ALL of googles bloat and spyware. Not as convienient, sure. Pain in the a** sometimes, yes. Wayze? Host your own cameras, use openstreetmap (osmand) instead. google has made it very convienient with their ecosystem. I, for one, do not wish to share my life with them.

Fytdyh said:
about your privacy related inquiries, i recon that Lineage, while it used to stand for privacy in the first years, it started to be seen more as a way to get updates on no longer supported devices. and given that almost every user that uses lineage also had flashed gapps, makes sense for them to add gapps in their everyday custom rom as well. Google has its sets of downsides and upsides. Privacy is good, but functionality is more important. a lot of good apps rely on google implemented functionality. Say that i would need to drive around the country. Privacy is my preference, but i need a fully functional bugless waze. Waze without google play services is a mess, if you get it working. Android Auto without gapps isnt possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No idea why people use gapps or microg, it's anti privacy so i do not ever use any of that.
I do not use any google services in my life and i don't miss them or need them for anything, i have alternatives.
I have to disagree on this phrase "Privacy is good, but functionality is more important".
If you are forced to give up privacy to use a service or product then the service or product is not worth being used.
Privacy is way more important than functionality, besides 90% of the time you can find perfectly working privacy friendly alternatives for almost anything.
Instead of google maps for example i use these:
Map at DuckDuckGo
DuckDuckGo. Privacy, Simplified.
duckduckgo.com
OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap is a map of the world, created by people like you and free to use under an open license.
www.openstreetmap.org
Not sure if that is helpful while driving, would be fine for me, never heared about waze.
I banned Google of my life and im happy with that, wasn't that hard after all.

gregpilot said:
For my devices, at least, Lineage did not have gapps baked in. For me, a good thing. There are a few vanilla roms left out there. Even without gapps, there are still leaks to google (the captive portal connectivity check, for one) but the footprint is much smaller.
For me, I have found open source alternatives to ALL of googles bloat and spyware. Not as convienient, sure. Pain in the a** sometimes, yes. Wayze? Host your own cameras, use openstreetmap (osmand) instead. google has made it very convienient with their ecosystem. I, for one, do not wish to share my life with them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My lineage version also doesn't have gapps in it, atleast nothing that is visible or accessable to me..
Not sure about the calendar thing described above..
What do you mean by captive portal connectivity check, what's that?
I beleve LOS uses Googls SUPL Server's too.
Great to meet someone with the same mindset, way to many people throw away their privacy which is equal to freedom, for "convienience"... It's crazy.

What do you mean by captive portal connectivity check, what's that?
I beleve LOS uses Googls SUPL Server's too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every time your device makes a network connection (wifi or cellular) it pings "connectivitycheck.gstatic.com". Not really a ping, its a http request to check for internet connectivity. Successful completion will remove the "x" by the wifi and/or cell data icon. Although if the address is blocked on your router the "x" will remain, and your device will complain about not having internet access....but it does! (so long as your wifi router/cell net has access). But wifi calling won't work.
For more, go here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-how-to-avoid-the-captive-portal-checkin-to-google.3927561/
You can host your own check server, or....just disable the check.
I have confirmed this works on A9 and A10 AOSP roms. There are different variants of this command for different roms. You may have to try several of them.
From an adb shell: (needs root)
Code:
:/ # settings put global captive_portal_mode 0
***********THIS DISABLES GOOGLE CONN CHECK***** A9 and 10
To verify it is disabled:
Code:
:/ # settings list global | grep portal
Should return "captive_portal_mode=0"
If you do connect to a captive portal page (public wifi, open connection) where the owner wants a login cred then the side effect of this is that it won't work.
The issue is that everytime the check is run, google will get your IP address and browser/OS and can infer your coarse location even if location services are turned off. I have all google domains blocked on my wifi so to keep my wife happy I disable the check on her phone also so she does not get the "no internet" notification.
Another hole is the agps (assisted gps) database downloaded from google or your phone carrier regardless of enabled location. I believe you can edit the server which is contacted, again, will require root.
This post says you can edit the gps.conf file:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/a-gps-supl-protocol-and-privacy-breaching.3602863/
Anyone try that? What abour removing "supl" from the apn type?
But I'm not there, yet, I usually have location selected off. Rob Braxman has a good vid here, use freetube:
https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbBkZ-MROEk?
Again as stated earlier the best fix is to find a AOSP source of a rom you like, edit (or hire a dev) to edit out all of the bloat and google tracking which may remain, and re-compile.

gregpilot said:
Every time your device makes a network connection (wifi or cellular) it pings "connectivitycheck.gstatic.com". Not really a ping, its a http request to check for internet connectivity. Successful completion will remove the "x" by the wifi and/or cell data icon. Although if the address is blocked on your router the "x" will remain, and your device will complain about not having internet access....but it does! (so long as your wifi router/cell net has access). But wifi calling won't work.
For more, go here:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-how-to-avoid-the-captive-portal-checkin-to-google.3927561/
You can host your own check server, or....just disable the check.
I have confirmed this works on A9 and A10 AOSP roms. There are different variants of this command for different roms. You may have to try several of them.
From an adb shell: (needs root)
Code:
:/ # settings put global captive_portal_mode 0
***********THIS DISABLES GOOGLE CONN CHECK***** A9 and 10
To verify it is disabled:
Code:
:/ # settings list global | grep portal
Should return "captive_portal_mode=0"
If you do connect to a captive portal page (public wifi, open connection) where the owner wants a login cred then the side effect of this is that it won't work.
The issue is that everytime the check is run, google will get your IP address and browser/OS and can infer your coarse location even if location services are turned off. I have all google domains blocked on my wifi so to keep my wife happy I disable the check on her phone also so she does not get the "no internet" notification.
Another hole is the agps (assisted gps) database downloaded from google or your phone carrier regardless of enabled location. I believe you can edit the server which is contacted, again, will require root.
This post says you can edit the gps.conf file:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/a-gps-supl-protocol-and-privacy-breaching.3602863/
Anyone try that? What abour removing "supl" from the apn type?
But I'm not there, yet, I usually have location selected off. Rob Braxman has a good vid here, use freetube:
https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbBkZ-MROEk?
Again as stated earlier the best fix is to find a AOSP source of a rom you like, edit (or hire a dev) to edit out all of the bloat and google tracking which may remain, and re-compile.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this interesting reply, i will attempt to remove captive portal connectivity check / connectivitycheck.gstatic.com with adb by following your provided command
settings put global captive_portal_mode 0
settings list global | grep portal
However you mentioned this needs root, my device is not root so this basically wont work without root?
I could use magisk for rooting.
Rob Braxman is great, watching all of his content. But i couldn't find any instructions to disable googles SUPL.
I also don't think rob has a video for captive portal connectivity check, or does he?
From my experience with his videos he acts as if degoogled phones with lineage are 90% better than normal phones, so i guess the other 10% are things like SUPL and captive portal connectivity check which are not that easy to disable..? If google knows my locations on a degoogled device with lineageos by using captive portal connectivity check then hell, that#äs really disturbing i had no idea that they still know where my phone is / where i am, very scary...

However you mentioned this needs root, my device is not root so this basically wont work without root?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the command needs root. Also there are some differences based on your version of Android.
The following is old, but has some good stuff:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/cldrym
The biggest help for this is to not install google services, and use a vanilla rom without it.
As far as captive portal, that is fixable.
The DNS servers can be changed from googles, but it is less straightforward.
NLP is not present without gapps, from what I have read
The SUPL issue, for me, is a WIP. I will happily deal with slow GPS TTFF. What I don't know:
1. Editing (removing) the supl entry in the APN file, what affect, if any;
2. Editing /vendor/etc/gps.conf (newer roms have the file in /vendor) to show a non g server;
3. the big question, which GPS radio chips may or may not have SUPL on the hardware level and therefore, if so, we are unable to fix.

gregpilot said:
Yes, the command needs root. Also there are some differences based on your version of Android.
The following is old, but has some good stuff:
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/cldrym
The biggest help for this is to not install google services, and use a vanilla rom without it.
As far as captive portal, that is fixable.
The DNS servers can be changed from googles, but it is less straightforward.
NLP is not present without gapps, from what I have read
The SUPL issue, for me, is a WIP. I will happily deal with slow GPS TTFF. What I don't know:
1. Editing (removing) the supl entry in the APN file, what affect, if any;
2. Editing /vendor/etc/gps.conf (newer roms have the file in /vendor) to show a non g server;
3. the big question, which GPS radio chips may or may not have SUPL on the hardware level and therefore, if so, we are unable to fix.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried using your solution for the onnectivitycheck.gstatic.com issue by using the provided command
:/ # settings put global captive_portal_mode 0
Before i that i rooted the phone with magisk, the command did not work (i attempted executing the command on cmd in windows inside the adb/fastboot folder, usb drivers are also installed.
I was able to start the daemon by using adb devices but the command you provided didn't work.
The phone was booted normally during the test, maybe i should instead go to downloadmode or recovery mode? The link you send for more instructions says we should use a cmd app on the phone to exectue this command (a pc is not mentioned), however i don't find any cmd app on the phone (lineageos 19.1).

Privacydroid said:
I just tried using your solution for the onnectivitycheck.gstatic.com issue by using the provided command
:/ # settings put global captive_portal_mode 0
Before i that i rooted the phone with magisk, the command did not work (i attempted executing the command on cmd in windows inside the adb/fastboot folder, usb drivers are also installed.
I was able to start the daemon by using adb devices but the command you provided didn't work.
The phone was booted normally during the test, maybe i should instead go to downloadmode or recovery mode? The link you send for more instructions says we should use a cmd app on the phone to exectue this command (a pc is not mentioned), however i don't find any cmd app on the phone (lineageos 19.1).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, the command is made from a root shell on the phone directly, or through an adb shell.
First:
open a cmd window on your pc, cd to your adb folder. Do you have "minimal adb and fastboot" installed on your pc? Its on the forums here.
Plug in your phone to USB, do not boot to recovery or download mode. Just the normal system.
From the open cmd window, issue "adb devices". What appears?
If "unauthorized", you have to enable adb debugging in developer options. You have that enabled, right? If you do you will get a prompt on the phone to allow adb debugging access when you connect over USB.
If you get "device XXXXX", I do not recall the number of characters, then you can proceed.
issue "adb shell"
you should get a shell prompt (your phone cmd shell)
Issue "su"
If you are rooted magisk may prompt you to allow root
issue "whoami", this has to return "root".
Then issue the command I gave you. " settings put global captive_portal_mode 0"
The second string "settings list global | grep portal" is only to verify the success of the first command.
You don't need adb for this, you can also enable the "local terminal" in developer options. Or use your favorite terminal. I like Termux.
Open the terminal from your app drawer
issue "su"
Again, you should get a magisk prompt requesting permissions, allow it
issue "whoami" , verify root
then issue the same two commands.
What version of Android are you on?