How EU digital identity rules and Google’s restrictive policies threaten the future of privacy-focused Android operating systems like GrapheneOS.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20250810234024/https://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2025/08/10/whos-afraid-of-privacy-focused-smartphones/
I wonder what future there is for non google phones like fairphone, or even apple. Do apple phones use google things?
Yes. I’m unsure of where I heard it so take with a grain of salt but I’ve heard they make about the same number of calls to Google servers as a stock android phone.
As far as I know it’s only the case with Safari using Google Safe Browsing service and Google being the default search.
Although I would prefer to roll-my own but Ubuntu Touch, postmarketOS and SailfishOS all run on the FairPhone.
YMMV for software support, but the non-Android Linux-based phone OSs will suit most people’s needs, as long as Angry Birds isn’t a killer feature of their phone.
nope, the google chrome is just reskinned apples own browser.
This is like saying that Safari is just a reskinned version of KDE Konqueror. It is patently wrong and oversimplifies the development processes.
While Apple did use Konqueror as a base for WebKit, and some of that code was pumped back into Konqueror, they are not the same. Chromium was also based on WebKit but has had so much code replaced that it is also essentially different code.
I recommend Ken Kocienda’s book “Creative Selection” about the development of the iPhone and WebKit.
I think in this case they’re referring to Chrome on iOS. Apple doesn’t allow any browser engine except WebKit on iOS so to many people that means Chrome and any other browser on iOS is really just Safari with a different interface. Pretty sure I saw something recently about the EU considering forcing Apple to allow other engines on iOS.