Material Files and Amaze

Aurora still works for me for now on Samsung stock OS. I now mostly install Google Play apps with APKPure over Obtainium tho and only use Aurora for those not on APKPure. And most of my apps are from GitHub/GitLab releases and F-Droid. I disabled Google Play and didn’t login to Google account. I don’t want the requirement of a Google account to install an app and Play Integrity to run an app. It is by no means acceptable that a company, using a closed source implementation that also tracks user and breaks Android security model, can censor what apps a user can install and decide what security and privacy compromises a user needs to agree to just use the normal phone functionalities that they pay for and by no mean require those compromises technically. They are turning Android into a service and a prison like iOS did rather than a software.

I selfhosted it on my phone and laptop. Great as a replacement of ILovePDF and those CLI tools that have no common interface (I could write some functions to make one tho).

Taiwanese here. No. And many white people look just resemblant for me in my small Asian eyes.

I think it can be removed, at least for my phone, in the settings > Google or just use adb.

If they really care about users’ security, they should make Graphene OS’s GMSCompact and explicit permissions the new standard instead of restricting what apps can they use and forcing invasive system apps. And centralized censorship and requiring an account is not what makes apps secure. Source available and reproducible build is.

Also ban Google. I think we should ban any schoolwork in required courses that requires students to agree to any third-party EULAs, such as Google account and Windows OS. For selective courses, considering the de facto status that many fields don’t have a mature enough open source software, banning is a bit exceeding proportionality IMHO. And offering Windows computer is probably ok as long as it’s not the default choice IMHO.

In my freshman year in the Electrical Engineering department, I took a required computer programming course, the course that I supposed it to be most aware of the existence of GNU/Linux, free format, and so on. However, it uses Google Sheets for homeworks and demands a Google Drive link of an exe for final team project and YouTube link for presentation. When they let students evaluate each other, I just got a bunch of exe, half of which doesn’t even open in Wine.

I also think they every school should offer NextCloud. Otherwise when team work occurs, Google Drive/Docs/Slides/Sheets is the de facto only choice.

BTW, I think LaTeX with git is more customizable and extensible and should be taught instead of teaching MS Office stuff. I actually take all my notes in LaTeX in a GitHub repo and do reproducible compilations.