I'm not from EU or anything but you guys from the EU should thank the government for increasing the prices of your phones 👌.

> Buys Android phone without Google apps
> Flashes GApps on it

I am from EU and I like that move.

I want to see those android phones without google chrome, search or other google products.

Well I want also to see mobile os running on phone without any hardware certification but this won’t probably happen during my lifetime.

@vane problem is, then you'll have a ton of replacement apps, like Samsung Internet. I'm not sure that helps anybody
On the other hand, if manufacturers start selling phones with Firefox and stuff on board by default, then heck yeah

@RememberMe Aren't phones without vendor preinstalled applications rare those days? I would say that as long as Play store will be shipped by default, it isn't much of an issue, you can just install what you want, no need for technical knowledge.

@RememberMe firefox or mobogenie or amazon app store, stuff like that. It would be good 🤔

@RememberMe manufacturers and operators are also evil right now by putting sniffing software on phones.
Software that you cannot remove without rooting phone.

Law should protect people not business, because we all pay for it in taxes.

Now privacy is only for tech nerds who modify devices, os, network and applications they buy.

On the other hand when we put regulations in place we almost always kill small businesses and that’s also very sad thing.

So any regulations are very difficult problems to discuss, luckily I don’t have to decide about it.

The future is here!

Judging from the title and excerpt alone (any link to the article?) I can't really see how the EU is to be held responsible for something that Google does to its EU consumers? But yeah if it sparks the manufacturing of phones without GApps, great! We need more Fairphones and Nokia's. Europe has to become competitive in smartphone manufacturing again. And we need a replacement for fucking Google!! A replacement that isn't called Crapple or Microshaft.

That's it, I'm moving from Europe, they are just going nuts... But where should I move to? UK, Canada and Australia (ok maybe not... too many deadly animals live there) seem to be the best options.

@Condor https://news18.com/news/tech/...

if you haven't found the link yet, here tis 🙄

@kayb01000010 thanks for the link, although I'm not sure what's up with the 🙄.

The article says pretty much the same thing, doesn't it. The EU wants the GApps to become optional, Google doesn't (because why would they, when tracking is their main source of money). So Google retaliates in what I find a very dirty move to something that I find completely reasonable. Why shouldn't it be opt-in to get anything but the basic Google Play Services framework? Do I really need to have Gmail, Calendar or YouTube on my device, unable to uninstall unless I root it (which, granted, is always one of the first things I do). Gmail for example, I'm not using it. I'm using K-9 Mail to connect to my own email domain instead. Calendar, alright I do use that. But there should be alternatives. YouTube, I use it only to interact with videos by liking them, and personalizing my feed. But for everything else, NewPipe has a lot of features that aren't present in YouTube Premium even.

So why would the EU be to blame for something that Google did? The only good thing that I take away from the article is that device manufacturers now aren't *required* to include the GApps anymore. Perhaps the fees are just for processing.. but that could easily be automated. So I wonder.. why?