KaiOS

What are the opinions here on KaiOS? I see a bunch of feature phones with it, but I'm unsure if I should trust it.

Posted in: s/Degoogled_Phones

🍀 gritty

2023-12-27 · 5 months ago · 👍 Nono

12 Comments ↓

🌻 softwarepagan · Dec 27 at 15:21:

KaiOS, while interesting, seems to be full of proprietary spyware as well, despite being based on FirefoxOS (IIRC).

🍀 gritty [OP] · Dec 27 at 15:35:

hmm that's unfortunate.

⛵️ olav · Dec 27 at 17:19:

> full of proprietary spyware

Oh! On the other hand, if I wanted to build a news app for cheap feature phones to target e.g. India, are there any alternatives to KaiOS I should consider?

🚀 stack · Dec 27 at 21:28:

You should probably never trust any android or apple device. Superficial degoogling is not likely to free the device from all spying functionality baked into lower levels of the OS, blended with other functionality.

🙂 s5 · Dec 27 at 22:08:

I bought a Nokia 800 Tough, with KaiOS a few years back, partly because I wanted a simpler phone, that looked like I could mess around with it, but ultimately I was pretty disappointed with it. I was hoping for something like my old Sony Ericsson phone, but It was a pain to use, and the apps in their store were pretty dire. The T9 dictionary for it was absolutely terrible, and would use nonsense words over commonly used words, and even after adding my own words to it (many oft used words were missing), it would still insist on using it’s nonsense words over my added or commonly used words. it drove me nuts! 😞

🍀 gritty [OP] · Dec 27 at 22:10:

@5 that's also unfortunate. I was considering a dumb phone but I want something that has good build quality too. like back in the day.

🙂 s5 · Dec 27 at 22:12:

It’s quite unfortunate really as the phone itself was nicely made and lived up to it’s name, but if they put better OS than KaiOS on it, it would have probably been a better experience. I was pretty excited to use an alternative to android, but it was frankly terrible.

💀 requiem · Apr 11 at 12:10:

Just thinking out loud here really - KaiOS seems really good fun, and, as it is based on FirefoxOS, there ought to be a way to create a FirefoxOS fork that could replace KaiOS, right?

I’m quite fond of the idea of those little feature phones like the JioPhone 2 that has a full QWERTY keyboard. I’d love to get one of those to hack. I’m hoping to make sg similar based on the LilyGo T-Deck. Would be superfun.

🙂 s5 · Apr 12 at 04:23:

I believe someone did something similar to that, it was Gerda OS, if I remember right. I never tried it though, and I am not sure if it is still going.

💀 requiem · Apr 12 at 15:05:

That's amazing, thank you for pointing me to it!

🌲 Half_Elf_Monk · Apr 12 at 15:54:

Is there any reason not to use one of GrapheneOS, LineageOS, or CalyxOS? Those seem like they're better supported and more free/libre...

🍀 gritty [OP] · Apr 12 at 16:16:

I use Graphene, but as with anything you have to trust the developers. I don't do anything sensitive like banking on it, just in case.