Guest post by We aim for the beautiful Sailfish user experience to bring a similar elegance and simplicity to an otherwise busy and distracting world. But the beauty on the surface has to be backed up with cutting-edge technology underneath which keeps up with modern standards and developments.
That’s why in the 4.4.0 Vanha Rauma release we’ve been working hard to improve compatibility across the board, keeping up with recent browser and feature developments. At the same time, we’ve been refining the user interface to allow all the new features to be exposed in a way that doesn’t impact on the simplicity of your device in daily use.
I’ve been a Sailfish OS user for years and am now involved in its development, so can’t claim to be an impartial actor. But it means I also have some understanding of the effort and ideas that went into this release. Some of the big new features are the updated Gecko browser engine, all apps Sailjailed by default, NFC Bluetooth pairing, and many nice community-contributed improvements to positioning, calendar and more – and all built on a a strong Linux/glibc foundation.
Jolla and sailfish were always a nice little hobby os I really enjoyed. But since their majority shareholder became a Russian state-owned telco (Rostelecom) in 2016, I’ve it avoided due to privacy concerns. Those concerns have now evolved into boycott due to what that state is doing.
they are trying to cut that, but it seems a bit complicated : https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/01/jolla-cut-ties-russia/
I’m really glad to see this. But, if I’m honest, part of the brand is now tainted to me because of what influence could have been exerted during those intervening years. Genuine question: how can i/others validate the privacy of the platform to see if my concerns are unfounded?
Adurbe,
I appreciate that anything touched by Russia is receiving more scrutiny these days over Putin’s despicable war crimes against civilians. But just focusing on the privacy issue we need to acknowledge that it’s much bigger than Russia and other oppressive states. How did you validate the privacy of windows after the NSA code signing key was discovered? Or networks infrastructure and services after the telecom whistleblowers, Or the location tracking. Snowden leaks and secret courts of the last couple decades? The only ones who ever risked prison times were the whistleblowers and not those who perpetuated government crimes.
IMHO the best we can do is stick to FOSS as much as possible and obviously we must avoid proprietary services running under centralized control. Alas this can be easier said than done because our corporations have generally come down in favor of centralization under their control :-/
There is less of a privacy concern about some Russians knowing what we do than if our own governments track us.
Indeed.
The privacy concern is very real if in Russia, any former-USSR country, or border countries. Sailfish OS products are not marketed in the US. LOL Regardless, we are familiar with the concept any backdoor could be exploited by others right? No idea why anyone would buy/support a product/OS that has a major investment from Russia which is a horrible totalitarian state that is most likely committing war crimes as we speak.
I live in one of those border countries. I’m concerned about surveillance from Russia, but also from the Five Eyes, and the privacy issues that permeate surveillance capitalism. That’s one of the reasons I use Sailfish OS since, as a Linux distro, I have a much better idea about what it’s doing.
Yeah, the Russian state involvement was the last straw for me and they were already on thin ice. I really wanted to support the effort in the beginning and bought into the tablet which of course they didn’t make. I did get all my money back but it took years. I was willing to take the Jolla C phone instead of a refund but nope and not for the US anyway.
Sailfish X is only supported on a couple of Sony phones and no phones/products from them at all for the North America market so they are not really relevant at all.
Agreed. I stopped looking at sailfish when I learned of Jolla’s involvement with Russia’s government. There has been enough smoke there for a while to avoid, but glad people at least see the dumpster fire now for what it is.
Question..why does it have the tag “Linspire”, does it have anything to do with Linspire? I thought that Linspire and Xandros died years ago (damn shame as Xandros made a great Linux desktop for netbooks) and the company that bought it just slapped the name on Ubuntu and called it a day.
Linspire is right next to Linux in the list of topics, so probably a hand-eye coordination error on my part.
Can you fix it?
Everything (even free version) needs registration: I stay with \ e \ (aka LOS+microG Android distro)…
https://e.foundation/