"Tweaking user-hostile OSes into user-friendly ones is impressive, but not sustainable."

Not sure about the first claim but the second is obvious. Yet peculiarly ignored

The OS literally comes from Google. As such, the term "de-Googled" is quite strange. Another recent HN front page item about the other project mentioned recently used the phrase "break free from Google" and currently only runs on Google hardware

AFAICT, the most significant issue with Android is "phoning home". Unwanted data transfer to third party. This is embedded in the OS. Google is the third party. Google operates as if it should be trusted as if it was a first party (why)

IMO, a user-friendly (cf. user-hostile) mobile OS would be one that does not phone home. But at times it seems like these projects are OK with the idea of phoning home to third party, as long as it isn't Google

Users will never have a mobile OS that does everything Android does, with the same polish, that isn't attached to a trillion dollar corporation. That "goal" results in projects where the majority of the Google-sourced code is unchanged instead of user-controlled source code

It isn't _that_ difficult to stop Android, i.e., system, pre-installed and user-installed "apps", from successfully phoning home (cf. trying to phone home) over WiFi. For example, this can be done by changing gateway and DNS settings. If the user installs an app that can forward ports nd use the the built-in VPN support, successfully phoning home over cellular data can be stopped, too

But a corporate-sourced OS like Android can change at any time for any reason. It changes often. Users have no control

I see some HN comments are starting to acknowledge the idea that control can be more important than performance. IMO, it can also be more important than "features"

Only if a user can embrace this idea can he begin to truly "break free" from the trillion dollar surveillance advertising company. Otherwise, sacrificing control for "performance", "features", etc., will always leave the user tethered to the company

With the corportate-sourced OS users have no control over performance, features, etc. anyway. The corporation controls them

Until there is a user-controlled, open source mobile OS like other form factors (HN commenters often claim this is not going to happen for good reasons), then, IMHO, "mobile" sucks

Generally, we all have to use mobile, as least for some purposes, e.g., it's replaced residential landlines, paper maps, and so on. But none of this means it is a good choice for for so-called "general purpose computing". It's not a computer the user can control