i’m new in the jolla ecosystem but after a 2 mounth of utilization of the jolla C2 Community Phone i think that there are many point that for me isn’t clear, when i read the in jolla site i read:
Jolla is a Finnish company specializing in privacy-first OS
But when i look inside the software i don’t found the possibility to change the search engine and i see only BIGTECH search engine, to change this i’ll need to install other app for starpage search engine.
Another issue for the privacy is the DNS server that in the 4g mode we can’t change and this is a nightmare for the users tracked from the providers.
There isn’t also an app like rethink dns that can block some domain that track the people
I have buyed 2 phone but i’m all unsatisfied of this approach, that isn’t the right mode to preserve the privacy of the customers.
These considerations are in additions to slow open of the jolla apps respect of the sandbox apps, the very slow to take some sattelite connection, the impossibility to add some linux app like other software like postmarket os. The battery is also very poor.
I think that jolla want to take the place of google in Europe. Also Google is born as an open source software company.
This point is related to the stock browser? Ok. The stock browser based on Mozilla gecko. And with gecko came this search engine setting. You can use the search here for changing this. Or you can load from the Jolla store the browser app “Ielig Web” (based on the same web engine as stock browser). Here you can define your search engines with the app settings.
Please note that the search engine in the stock browser will change with the new release 5.0.0.76 (see the release notes here in this forum)
If I present myself as a company that puts privacy first, I must give users the option to choose search engines that protect their privacy, not provide a list of big tech search engines and not allow DNS changes in 4G settings, as is the case even with Android.
However, my perception and doubts remain, and I express my opinions without bias. I am a consumer who expected much more from this phone, primarily the ability to install Linux apps, which is not exactly straightforward. It’s not like I go to a store like Debian and download apps, so I made some observations about the substance that are not unfounded. I pointed out two things that, in my opinion, are not consistent with what is being said. That’s all. Can I be free to express my opinion?
Why doubt about freely expressing opinions? No need to be defensive. I just expressed mine together with experiance and knowledge. I even partly agree with most points.
Do note that SFOS is not exactly a classical Linux distro.
Some patience is often needed or at least is helpful.
There’s a misunderstanding. I’m not angry, I’m frustrated. I just want a usable Linux phone (not Android, not Graphene) that I can promote on my social media channels and spread the word about. I’m talking about free and open source apps, and smartphones are the primary tool today. If we could have a secure alternative to Android with total privacy for users, I would be happy. I’m tired of being used by technology.
Different people has different points. Well, the dns point is discussed here in the forum but it seems it is not a big point for the most people here. The word “privacy” can have many meanings.So if you want discuss about dns in a technical view please goto to a dns thread.
On the level of your question the answer is easy: that is not possible because SFOS is not debian. Do you want discuss this more in technical details?
I am a technician, but in another field of IT the networking CCNP,NSE4,JNCA, all that i know about linux and the phones are my personal experience and I am not a developer.
Well, you have this option. I just did it now: opened https://startpage.com, then I can choose it as search engine in the browser configuration.
A company can never fulfill all user expectations, but you are free to do it (and you get the help here).
Sailfish is rpm-based, Debian not.
You can try programs from OpenSuse for example, but only for commandline-tools the chances are high, that they will work ootb.
Like said, if you visit any site that provides search service spec, it will appear as option to choose in the browser settings. This probably is not very discoverable for the user, and would need improvement.
The predefined default search service list was updated recently to include some European alternatives. Of course the default list can’t cover every possible service, so that will always be missing someone’s preferred service.
Selecting your preferred search engine at first start could be a nice added feature. Currently we don’t have any kind of first start wizard in the browser, so that would require some work.
For the DNS, in the next Sailfish 5.1 release we are switching to systemd-resolved. And after that we probably should look at providing better configuration options in the UI to set your preferred DNS provider.