eelo OS - an Open-source Privacy-enabled Google-free Android

[Ink]

– a Google-free Android –

Four years ago there were four mobile platforms, but since Microsoft and BlackBerry withdrew, it's a duopoly of Apple and Google.

The creation of a new third platform – a Google-free Android – now looks feasible, given the Great Unbundling the European Commission is likely to order. But someone has to build the damn thing – and it's going to be a mammoth task.
But that's what's motivating Gäel Duval, the Frenchman who created Mandrake Linux two decades ago and has now set about creating an open-source platform for phones: eelo. For both privacy and security, users need it, he argues.

"I'm not happy because Google has become too big and is tracking us by catching a lot of information about what we do. They want to know us as much as possible to sell advertising," he wrote late last year. "I think that, in the long run, Apple, Google, Facebook etc business models are harmful for our economical and social environments."

Read more: Meet the Frenchman masterminding a Google-free Android.


More about eelo | your data is YOUR data

Our mobile phone OS roadmap

Is eelo mobile phone OS available? Not yet!

In 2018, we plan to release the system as an "installable ROM" that will be compatible with a number of devices. It will be a "Minimal Viable Product" (MVP). This means it won't include all eelo features we have in mind for the long term; it will usable and attractive, just with a minimal function set.

This year we will begin selling the first mobile phones, which will be "post market" phones, i.e. phones that we buy, flash with the eelo system and sell to customers.

Roadmap:

• June 2018: early access to eelo email for eelo backers
• July 2018: early access to eelo drive for eelo backers
• August 2018: eelo OS beta (MVP) release with several web services (search, app store)
• September 2018: eelo OS source code release on eelo GitLab
• September 2018: eelo email and drive open to more users
• October 2018: smartphones with eelo OS start shipping to eelo backers
• January 2019: smartphones with eelo OS start selling