The /e/OS 1.10 mobile platform, aimed at preserving user privacy, has been released. The platform was founded by Gaël Duval, creator of the Mandrake distribution. LinuxThe project provides firmware for many popular smartphone models, as well as versions of the OnePlus One, Fairphone 3+/4, and Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones with /e/OS preinstalled under the Murena One, Murena Fairphone 3+/4, and Murena Galaxy S9 brands. A total of 227 smartphones are officially supported.
The /e/OS firmware is developed as a fork of the platform Android (using LineageOS developments), free from binding to Google services and infrastructure, which allows, on the one hand, to maintain compatibility with Android-applications and simplify hardware support, and on the other hand, block the transmission of telemetry to servers Google and ensure a high level of privacy. Implicit information transfer is also blocked, such as requests to Google servers for network availability checks, DNS resolution, and time determination.
To interact with Google services, the microG package is preinstalled, which eliminates the need to install proprietary components and offers independent analogues instead of Google services. For example, to determine the location by Wi-Fi and base stations (without GPS), a layer based on the Mozilla Location Service is involved. Instead of the Google search engine, it offers its own metasearch service based on a fork of the Searx engine, which ensures the anonymity of sent requests.
To synchronize the exact time, the NTP Pool Project is used instead of Google NTP, and the DNS servers of the current provider are used instead of Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8). The web browser has an ad blocker and script blocker enabled by default to track movements. To synchronize files and application data, a proprietary service has been developed that can work with NextCloud-based infrastructure. The server components are based on open source software and are available for installation on user-controlled systems.
The user interface has been significantly redesigned and includes its own environment for launching BlissLauncher applications, an improved notification system, a new lock screen and other styling. BlissLauncher uses a set of automatically scalable icons and a selection of widgets (for example, a widget for displaying a weather forecast) specially developed for the project.
The project is also developing its own authentication manager, allowing you to use a single account (user@murena.io) for all services, registered during the first installation. The account can be used to access your environment via the Web or on other devices. Murena Cloud provides 1GB of free storage for your data, application synchronization, and backups.
By default, the package includes applications such as an email client (K9-mail), a web browser (Bromite, a fork of Chromium), a camera program (OpenCamera), an instant messaging program (qksms), a note-taking system (nextcloud-notes), PDF viewer (PdfViewer), scheduler (opentasks), map software (Magic Earth), photo gallery (gallery3d), file manager (DocumentsUI).
Major changes in /e/OS 1.10:
- The interface of the update installation system has been simplified.
- Improvements have been made to the output contrast on some smartphone screens supplied with Android 12.
- Improved calculator interface.
- In the mail client, an option has been added to the home screen to import settings, which is shown if no account is configured. To speed up loading, caching of all messages for an account has been implemented.
- The messenger includes by default gestures for deleting (shift right) and archiving (shift left) messages.
- Updated version of the program for taking notes.
- In privacy tools, system applications are separated from components for compatibility.
- In the App Lounge application manager, the mode of automatic installation of updates has been adjusted, a redirect to the Exodus Privacy service has been added to assess privacy issues in applications.
- For the Trust application, support for using the default theme and /e/OS color scheme has been implemented.
- From the code base of the LineageOS 19.1 project, based on Android 12, bug and vulnerability fixes have been transferred.
Source: opennet.ru
